“Just Follow Law”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Just Follow Law ({{zh|s=我在政府部门的日子}}) is a 2007 Singaporean comedy film directed by Jack Neo.

In the film, a blue-collar technician and the events and promotion department director swap souls after a freak accident at a fictional government agency Work Allocation Singapore (WAS).

Plot

Lim Teng Zui (Gurmit Singh), a single father with a daughter named Xiao Mei, was a technician working for WAS, a fictional statutory board, whose assistants include Bamboo (Suhaimi Yusof) and Blackjack (Brandon Wong), and their advisor Nancy (Amy Cheng). Meanwhile, WAS held a boardroom meeting led by CEO Alan Liu Chee Hong (Steven Woon) and directors Tanya Chew (Fann Wong), Alan Chee (Samuel Cheong), Eric Tan (Moses Lim), and was currently discussing on planning an event to welcome the Chinese government officials led by Minister Seto (Henry Heng) and China's Minister of Manpower Chen, for a visit to WAS. All departments are briefed, but Tanya's arrogance leaves her crew unmotivated to prepare for the day.

Few days prior to the visit, Chew noticed with the technical faults in her department and the paperwork needed to fix it, along with a huge clutter of unwanted junk in the office. In an effort to prepare for the official visit, Lim and the crew decide to put the junk outside temporarily at the sheltered parking lot, after receiving a stern advice from the carpark security Muthu (David Bala). Aware that this method would give officials and unsightly impression, Lau told Chew to conceal it some way, who in turn gets her crew to do so. Eventually Lim is left to handle the matter on his own, by building a temporary wall, yet company incompetence in obtaining supplies left the wall completed half-heartedly with masking tapes used instead of nails.

On the day itself, the official visit with the Chinese officials was going smooth. As the visit was come to a close, they decided to do a photoshoot on the temporary wall; the excessive weight pressed on the wall could not withstand the handling of masking tape, causing the wall to collapse along with minister Seto, and exposes the junk behind it.

On a boardroom meeting, a shocked Lui held an impromptu meeting to discuss who was mostly responsible for putting masking tapes instead of nails to support the wall; an investigation is carried out, and 'finger-pointing' revealed that Lim was responsible for, and the committee docked his salary and bonus. Lim visited Chew to expresses his anger, and demanded the reason of why his salary was cut. Their confrontation leads into a car chase in which both vehicles to collide, causing both to run off the flyover and crashes down to the beach.

Lim and Chew were knocked unconscious and were admitted to the hospital as a result; they recovered miraculously, but had their bodies swapped during an accident. Both members were shocked at first, even with the doctor's consultation, they were shortly transferred to a mental hospital followed by a Chinese temple. After they were discharged and learned to accept their swapped identities, they were forced to accept living in each other's family and work roles. Lim upgrades her or his skills as a technician, while Chew idles around, performing poorly in his/her capacity as a department director.

However, Chew's negligence caused the department to grossly overspent their budget. Many of the subordinates, including CEO Lui, the department heads Lau and Tan, and Lim, to heed warning and planned to shut down the department. In an attempt to save it from closure, Chew and Lim plan to put on a successful Job Fair Exhibition to save the department, however, the Exhibition was done a small-scale and budget after a decision by the board. They then plan to do 'Insubordination' (by directly speaking to the minister to reconsider the decision to cancel the Job Fair) to get publicity and persuade the department to do so.

Meanwhile, Lim was shocked to hear about his daughter, Xiao Mei (Grace Ng) warded to the hospital due to a car accident relating to a traffic light malfunction, and had used up every last of their savings to pay off medical bills, although later that Chew's mother Bee Hwa (Lina Ng) secretly transferred a sum of money to pay off as well as funds for the Job Fair, but their relationship starts to nurture. Back at the department, Lim and Chew held a talk to the workers by criticizing talents, but later proved otherwise if they want to realize a Job Fair; due to red tape and lack of information from various ministries, it took at least three months to be able to do anything. Despite the various obstacles, the Job Fair is realized.

On the day of the Job Fair, their procedures was sabotaged by another party (later revealed to be Chee and Tan) such as causing a part of the wall to collapse and the nails were misplaced, their dancers failing to turn up, and Uncle Tiong (fakingly) having a heart attack. Lim boldly chose to use masking tape since they had only a short time before the minister's arrival, despite being disciplined once before. They then dealt with the obstacles as they come (which also include using extingushers as a replacement of smoke effect) until the final sing-along session on stage, with the minister.

During the sing-along session, Lim noticed that the direction of the pyrotechnic cannon faced towards the curtain (which was kicked accidentally by the dancers during the dancing segment), and prompted the technician not to fire it; however, he misheard his intention as 'fire' and launched it, causing the cannons to launch and the backstage was caught on fire. In the chaos, the stage members managed to escape unharmed without any casualties, and Chew valiantly saved Xiao Mei from the fire. Shortly after the incident, a Board of Inquiry was conducted and interviewed the department, one-by-one.

Later during the 2007 National Creativity Award ceremony, Lim was awarded for his use of masking tapes to save 53 lives and his initiative to invent a fire escape wall. Two months later, WAS was shut down and their respective members went in separate ways: Uncle Tiong retired because of his heart attack, Tan was sacked from the job and had his pension (CPF) confiscated after discovering that Tan sabotaged the Job Fair, Chee became the first director in history to be given a pink slip for obsoletion of skills, and CEO Lui was blacklisted due to repeating mistakes; Lui then establishes the Minced Pork Organisation, only to be dissolved three months later. Blackjack and Bamboo were respectively interviewed in Number One Engineering and Perfect Print respectively, and the latter found out Tiong did not retire and was the company's CEO.

Lim and Tanya, having gone in their separate ways other than working, decided to reenact the accident on the exact location. In the mid-credits scene, although Lim and Chew's attempts are revealed to be partially successful (such as Chew was seen scratching her butt), they still remain together and get married, moving in together at Tanya’s home along with her mother.

Cast

Production

Development and writing

The development of Just Follow Law began when Jack Neo pitched the idea of Fann Wong during one of their backstage meetings, though they can't agree regarding the location of the agreement.^[1] It was inspired by then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech at the 2006 National Day about the lack of professionalism among Singaporean workers. Most of the workers completes work on time during evenings and their mentality of staying beyond that time would be like doing as a favour. He hopes to use the movie to highlight the bureaucracy inefficiencies in office.^[2]

Filming

This film began shooting in high-definition video format starting on 1 February 2006 and ending in March 2006.

Release

It had a strong opening during Chinese New Year, earning $421,000 from 35 prints for second place in the chart.^[3]

Reception

At the Golden Horse Awards 2007, Just Follow Law was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Visual Effects, while Gurmit Singh was one of four considered for Best Actor.^[4] He did not win.

Movie connections

Just Follow Law contains many references and homages to films. The soul switching between the leading characters references to that from Freaky Friday and Vice Versa.

During certain sequences, some of the sound effects come from various sources, notably including the 2004 video game Half-Life 2. For example, the Minister falls down through a poorly erected wall during his visit of WAS; Lim Teng Zui's Citroën Berlingo crashes on the ground. Later on, the Ssangyong Istana doors open to reveal the bikini dancers and hunks; the Singapore Civil Defence Force's Dennis Sabre fire engine stops over a VIP lot.