Good start, but then it gets ruined

Boring, long, and too preachy.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie starts with a woman wanting to be interrogated by the Nazis. Yup, the Nazis. The Personal Tailor employees grow annoyed with her demands and create a jailbreak to end her fantasy ahead of schedule. The client figures out what they're doing suddenly wants to help her "escape". The best part of this movie is the ensemble playing the Personal Tailor staff. Their reactions to each fantasy assignment and client is great to watch. I give this an 8 due to the Personal Tailor Staff pulling off all the required fantasies while keeping their sanity. A cameo by Jackie Chan is a major bonus.

Personally, I like to the films of this director in the past. Most of them were very good comedies (in Chinese sense of humor).Back in 1997, there was a movie named 'The Dream Factory' by Xiaogang Feng(the same director) and You Ge(the same main actor) demonstrate this dream creating idea to public audience. That movie was a very good comedy. So this is just like a remake of that one after 17 years. Now surprises to me. If you could survive the first 10 mins of the movie, you could take the rest of it. I don't get the point of the first short story. I feel like it ruins the whole movie. All of the three stories are based on modern Chinese social issues. They are not new to people and there are too much public education in them. A good story makes the point very clear and it's redundant to say it out loud. As well as the last part of apology. My favorite part is the last last interview. It is very short, but you can see the big point of people in it.

It is admirable for the production to tackle head on how government officials surrender to the temptation of monetary bribes and seductive women as corruption offerings. It also exposes the loss of taste in view of popular culture and the extravagant lifestyle of those suddenly get rich. The film also addresses the consequence of pollution amid various rapid economic development in China.I always enjoy Feng's movies which has a sharp observation on social phenomenon in China. But this one lacks a tight and coherent script or a good plot despite its good intention.The film centers on a company that has a mission to help clients realize their dreams – to officiate the ultimate fake – even though it may mean gross the staff out. That is precisely what many Chinese up-and-coming entrepreneurs are doing – as long as it generates cash, zero principles or bottom line whatsoever matters. Hence we see different projects the company works on to serve their clients.It is quite creative to crystallize the twisted values in contemporary China while presenting it cynically. While the company is fictional, the troubles and frustrations the clients suffer from are real problems and doubts we have in rapidly changing China. The principal actors playing the roles of the four company staff members probably enjoy this production tremendously because they have the opportunity to play different roles in fulfilling their clients' dreams. But character development for each staff members is weak – they can be anyone playing those roles for a brief period. Hence, there is minimal identification with any characters in the movie, the clients included.However, the phenomenon is real and the incidents are probably based on real hearsay: that a hardworking government official will be tempted to abuse his power in approving public projects in exchange for handsome cash gifts and women. In another episode, an award-winning movie director is looking for elegance and taste but could not find it in China and eventually has to use extreme means … As for a one day rags- to-rich story, a cleaning lady is turned into a millionaire and lives an extravagant life for one day.Stunning cinematography towards the end in showing how grandiose the Chinese landscape could have been by exemplifying how they are now. But the way in presenting the apology to nature is too odd, tactless and artless. There is little link between the company business and this action.Despite all these, it is still quite entertaining and offers an interesting glimpse of modern China.

It is a phenomenon how Feng Xiaogang has established himself as the voice of the people in terms of Mainland Chinese cinema. Nobody else that makes films as didactic and on-the-nose as he does and still be so loved and supported. His latest comedy Personal Tailor is a series of vignettes about its four employees taking on different clients and making their dreams come true. The clients include a chauffeur who wants to be an important authority figure, a schlock B- movie director who wants to learn the essence of good taste and a working class cleaning lady who gets to be rich for one day. The vignettes vary from farce, satire, the absurd and even sometimes the fantastical. Reality is out of the window but it is the fable-like quality that holds the piece together.Longtime Feng Xiaogang leading man Ge You plays his classic comedy archetype, the swindler with the heart of gold. That character will never get old. Bai Baihe from last year's hit Love is Not Blind and Li Xiao Lu from Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl are both charming and funny. Jackie Chan and Huang Bao Qiang also make small cameos to ease the investors, however neither should be a reason to see the film.The star of the film is Feng Xiaogang himself, who in each vignette gives us his thoughts and commentary on topics like social class, materialism, rich vs. poor and reality vs. dreams. It is fun watching the four leads run around in costumes and trying to drive their client's ambitions down so their business turns out a profit, but their characterizations are not developed. They are merely puppets to a Feng Xiaogang puppet show and only exist to deliver the director's multiple messages. The heavy messaging has long been a trope of Feng's films and it must be said that Personal Tailor is the most thinly veiled of all his works. If you haven't seen any of Feng Xiaogang's urban comedies, Personal Tailor may not be the place to start.Lastly, the movie is too long. The segment where the team ventures out in the wild to apologize for man's appalling crimes against nature is too far fetched and 'tree huggy' for my taste. Personal Tailor is by no means Feng Xiaogang's best work and it probably wouldn't have a very long shelf life after its Lunar Year theatrical release. For English speaking audiences, the film actually has good subtitles but its humor probably will be lost in translation. Even for Feng Xiaogang fans, this isn't a movie to own in your Blu-ray collection. To them I say, go see it in theaters while it's current and get your laughs from the latest Feng Xiaogang social commentary. It is a sincere hopeful message, but for me, it's still too didactic.