The Transporter (2002) July 30, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Non-Asian, 2000s films , trackbackDirector: Corey Yuen Kwai Main Cast: Jason Statham; Shu Qi; François Berléand Territory: France/USA
Jason Statham stars as Frank Martin, an ex-military hardcase now taking on highly paid jobs transporting illegal goods from one place to another. On one assignment, he breaks one of his own rules to “never open a package”, revealing Lai – a beautiful immigrant woman who quickly becomes attached to Frank when his contact fails to assassinate him after the job. Frank takes revenge on his former employer, and finds out that Lai isn’t exactly what she appears to be.
You’ve got to applaud the truly international nature of The Transporter: a French/American production with an English lead, a Taiwanese supporting actress and a Chinese director. Yuen Kwai is not an obvious choice to direct a film outside his native Hong Kong, and his patchy track record shows in this effort. For example, there are numerous silly continuity errors throughout the film that sometimes makes this production seem very amateurish indeed.
A de-cockneyed Jason Statham (who talks in neutral tones throughout) tries hard to be an action hero, but no amount of quick editing can hide the fact that he has limited skill in the area. Nevertheless, acting-wise, he gives a decent performance given that he’s asked to deliver some extremely questionable dialogue. And who really expects him to be the next Jackie Chan anyway? Alongside him is the lovely Shu Qi, in her first role outside Asia. From what I remember, she couldn’t actually speak English at all at this point in her life, but you wouldn’t know it as she’s pretty intelligible most of the time.
The Transporter is one of those films whose component parts are pretty bad but ends up being quite enjoyable anyway. The plot is highly suspect at every level and as mentioned above, the action is not exactly top-notch. One thing about this does feel like a Hong Kong film, though: the product placement. This film is quite obviously sponsored by Tiger beer as the stuff’s all over the place. What’s more, the film’s soundtrack is poor, and the ending song feels strangely retro, as if it came from an 80’s action movie.
But the French locations help in some way, and the film is beautifully filmed. It also helps that the film is barely 90 minutes long and hardly lets up in that time. This is one where you definitely must disengage the brain before watching, and you might end up enjoying it.
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