1980's The Gods Must Be Crazy and its' followup were surprise hits in Hong Kong, leading to producers working with South African writer/director Jamie Uys and star N!Xau on the semi-official sequel, 1991's Crazy Safari. The movie made money at the box office, so, as wily Hong Kong producers tend to do, they went on to make yet another pseudo-sequel, this time without any input from Uys, 1993's Crazy Hong Kong.

N!Xau plays roughly the same role as in the other films, as an African tribesman. His village is near where a Chinese crew (led by Carina Lau and Lau Ching-Wan) is filming a commercial for an American fast food chain -- just one of the many odd bits in the script. Anyway, the crew leaves behind a Coke bottle with a bird inside -- again, a "what the hell?" moment -- and N!Xau goes to return it, but falls into some of the crew's luggage. He wakes up in Hong Kong and the zany fun commences.

Actually, there is very little in the way of zaniness, or anything truly funny here. Director Wellson Chin is best known for grinding out low-budget fare that piggy-backed on the success of better movies. For instance, he helmed the Inspector Wears Skirts series, which managed to crank out four installments, despite being mostly poor knock-offs of the Yes Madam/In the Line of Duty pictures.

Here, Chin and screenwriters Kong Fung and Lawrence Lau simply recycle much of the same humor present in the other entries. Oh, hey, look -- N!Xau is scared of a tiger on TV. Now he is fascinated by a water dispenser. Sushi is baffling to him. And so on and so forth. Strangely, some of the actions that would cause a Hong Kong film to get a higher rating (such as one scene where N!Xau smokes what is presumably marijuana) are given a pass in that regard, with this release carrying a Category I designation, perhaps because they are being done by an African man instead of a Chinese one. This disconcertingly uneasy feeling of borderline racism presented continues throughout the movie, especially as espoused by some very condescending narration that, at times, treats N!Xau more like the subject of a wildlife special than a human.

There are a couple of bright spots here, mostly in the scenes between N!Xau and Lau Ching-Wan. Theirs are the only scenes that come off as natural and unforced, with their chemistry shining through even in what would normally be fairly inane and stale setups, like N!Xau experiencing a fancy restaurant for the first time. Crazy Hong Kong closes with the pair serving hot pot in the Kalahari desert. There is a quiet sweetness and earnestness present in the last few minutes that is sorely missing from the rest of the movie.

RATING: 4

Note: The version watched for this review is a DVD from Substance Films that has long been out of print, but is still available through Netflix's disc-based rental service. The film has been dubbed into English, but is otherwise uncut. Even though the movie is fairly family-friendly, puzzlingly several of the bonus trailers on the disc contain nudity and graphic gore.