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RATING:  
A little bit of Goodfellas, a little bit of The Godfather Part III and a whole lot of whimsy. Run Papa Run is Taiwanese actress and director Sylvia Chang's take on the triad movie, but refracted through the dynamics of a normal family.
Lee (Louis Koo) is a street punk who meets doe-eyed, pixie-faced lawyer Mabel (Rene Liu) when he ends up in the lock-up. Sparks fly — literally — between them and several romps later, she's pregnant and shows up on his doorstep, luggage in hand.
Lee's world is turned upside down when his daughter is born. Much of the film's comedy stems from his attempts to keep his double life as father and gangster from her and turn his business legit.
There are, of course, the inevitable cutesy moments between father and daughter, especially a sequence in which the tattoo of a tiger on his chest frightens her so much he has it changed to a pussycat.
Koo, who has cornered the market playing hoodlums, is stretched into displaying his more feminine side.
Liu is the perfect foil as his ever-patient wife, though we're never sure what she sees in him.
But Run Papa Run also suffers from an uneven tone. The first half has the light-heartedness of a musical but the second half plays out like a soap opera.
Still, that takes nothing away from it being entertaining fluff. - TODAY/ra
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