In the nearly fourteen years of Hong Kong Film Net's existence, your friendly neighborhood semi-drunken reviewer has had to sit through a whole lot of very bad movies. But only a select few have been on the level of 2004's Super Model, an abysmal excuse for a comedy that will quickly drive any sane person to start looking for a bottle of Advil, a six-pack of Schlitz, or an ice pick and ball-peen hammer just so the pain can stop.

Drawing heavily on the worst parts of American mainstream multiplex pablum like Miss Congeniality and Zoolander, Super Model sharts out a something resembling a real story towards the audience about male model Mandom -- his name, which is annoyingly subtitled in all capital letters for the entire running time, rhymes with condom, get it? -- who has gotten death threats, so frumpy female cop Karena is assigned to protect him.

Of course, the two hate each other at first and spend their time bickering, but Mandom pretties Karena up (mostly by getting rid of her glasses and ponytail) and Karena teaches Mandom to appreciate the smaller things in life and then they fall in love. And then anyone with an ounce of testosterone inside of them will be retching as they race to hit the eject button on their DVD player as yet another musical montage accompanied by house music that sounds like it was made in Garage Band splashes across the screen.

Director Vincent Kok and star Ronald Cheng have shown themselves to be a team capable of producing solid comedies, such as the Dragon Loaded series. Sure, the films were more than a little derivative of Stephen Chow's work, but, frankly, most modern Hong Kong comedies are, and at least those movies at least produced a few genuine laughs, rather than the hollow groans of dissonance this picture generates at every turn.

With obvious and lame pop culture references that were dated at the time at the time this film came out combined with jokes that feel the need to punctuate themselves with English swear words in order to create any sort of reaction, sitting through this movie expecting hilarity quickly becomes an exercise in futility. Instead, one might start to look for better ways to keep themselves occupied, such as making sculptures out of their belly button lint.

Sure, you could probably make the point that an American in his mid-thirties is outside of Super Model's intended audience, and I can agree with that. But the better Hong Kong comedies -- hell, any genre, really -- should not and do not depend on the viewer being a resident of any particular area or belonging to any sort of particular race to bring their point across and provide enjoyment. The only thing Super Model brings is a feeling of dread as you get ten minutes into the 105 minute running time and realize it's not going to get any better, no matter how much NyQuil you chug.

RATING: 2