The Time You Need a Friend

The Time You Need a Friend (1984)

笑匠

John Woo's melodramatic tragicomedy The Time You Need a Friend (1985) stands at the crucial crossroads in the director's career. Woo had been churning out innocuous comedies for more than a few years, and after establishing the "heroic bloodshed" genre, he'd never look back. But this tale of two comedians - estranged former pals who bury the hatchet for one last show together - blends the pathos and male-bonding of Woo's later dramas with the silliness and pratfalls that marked his early works. At their peak, Ku Ren and Shem Bien were an unstoppable screen comedy team, the undisputed stars of the silent era. But a major falling out has kept the duo offstage for decades. Despite the urgings of family and friends, Ku and Shem refuse to reconcile. As both men approach their twilight years, one last chance for a reunion presents itself in the form of a televised charity benefit. Ku Ren and Shem Bien struggle to come to terms with years of bitterness, and bring the house down once again.

Date of release
1984-08-23
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (2)
Runtime
1h 31m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
John Woo

Casting

Interesting facts

The Time You Need a Friend is a 1985 Cantonese-language comedy-drama film directed by John Woo. The film is co-produced by Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Production

The plot was inspired by Neil Simon's play The Sunshine Boys.

Jeremy Carr of Senses of Cinema wrote that around this time "Woo felt he and his potential were languishing. He had begun working for Cinema City in the early 1980s and was tasked with menial studio duties or was beholden to the formulaic requirements of lacklustre films like the disappointing The Time You Need a Friend (1984) and Run Tiger Run (1984), two features shot in Taiwan."

In an interview with Robert K. Elder contained in the book John Woo: The Interviews, Woo recalled, "At that time, the reason I wanted to leave Golden Harvest and move to Cinema City was, they promised me, if I moved to their company, they would let me shoot what I really wanted to shoot. [...] But they didn't keep their promise. [...] They just wanted me to continue making comedies. I was pretty upset, but I had to survive.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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