The Avenging Fist (2001) July 23, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Sci-Fi, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Andrew Lau; Corey Yuen Kwai Main Cast: Wang Lee-Hom; Stephen Fung Tak-Lun; Kristy Yeung; Sammo Hung; Yuen Biao Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil Metropole Organisation
The initial hype on Avenging Fist was extremely positive: if you were interested in Hong Kong action movies, this was going to be the biggie. Then, the Tekken license was lost and a few rumours started to break through: this isn’t going to be too good after all.
It turns out that Avenging Fist went from being the Holy Grail of Hong Kong movies to being a complete also-ran. Having now, after owning it on DVD for close to a decade, finally watched it, I can see why it fell flat on its face: despite the great special effects, the film itself is incredibly vacuous. The first impression reaction I had when the movie opened was: “uh-oh, someone’s been watching The Fifth Element”. While some leeway has got to be given to the makers for at least attempting science fiction (a subject quite alien to the territory), the result is still a hodgepodge of dire warnings on the future, a hackneyed “love is stronger than hate” message and wild speculations on how technology is going to be so much different from how we know it now. Sadly, the film’s entire premise is based on the enduring urban myth that we only use 10% of our brain. The remaining 90% of our brain’s capacity, the film tells us, can be unlocked with the help of a Power Glove and can give us fantastic super powers.
Kong (Wang Lee-Hom) is a troubled young man who wants to buy a black market Power Glove and be just like his apparently dead father (Yuen Biao). He has serious physical potential, and his mother (Cecilia Yip) trains him when he’s not out causing trouble with his friends. There is also a pseudo-fascist dictator to be overthrown in the form of Combat 21 (Roy Cheung), who has turned Kong’s father into one of his henchmen. Policeman Dark (Sammo Hung) somehow gets mixed up in all this, despite having a premonition of his own impending death.
When Kong’s mother gives him the dire warning not to use his “power moves” in public, the game is finally up: Avenging Fist is simply an updated kung fu picture using many of the same plot devices as so many 70s actioners. The shiny new coat of CGI simply isn’t enough to disguise the more corny moments and tired storytelling. The action scenes are particularly poor, with lots of motion-blur and special effects added in. With no human element to the fight sequences, it’s damn near impossible to engage with them.
I quite liked Andrew Lau’s other CGI-driven movies, but this one leaves me cold. While it is to be congratulated on trying something new, the results are paradoxically over familiar and this is one movie that must simply be labelled as a failed experiment and forgotten about.
Fatal Move (2008) May 20, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Thriller, 2000s films , 5 commentsDirector: Dennis Law Cast: Simon Yam; Sammo Hung; Wu Jing; Danny Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: China Star Entertainment Group
Fatal Move is the latest Hong Kong action/triad movie (though with more “triad” than “action”) focussing on the relationships between gangsters, and one particular cell’s dealings with the law and other rival gangs. Veteran action star Sammo Hung comes off an acting career highlight with SPL to play the Big Brother alongside Simon Yam’s deeply flawed Lin Ho Tung and young contender Lok Tin Hung (Wu Jing).
Yes, all three were involved in SPL, and this movie was originally conceived as a prequel to that film. When this became unfeasible, a whole new story was written, but hoping for similar success. Well, there’s one thing that will be making the US distributors rub their hands with glee – this movie already has its dumb two-word US title. No high-falutin’ philosophical gobbledegook about heavenly bodies interacting with each other requiring a tricky 30 second explanation that would make your average action film fan reach for the eject button and his Van Damme collection. That’s unless they decide to call it Kill Zone 2, that is.
The early word on this film was that it was mediocre. Well, let me say categorically that it isn’t – Fatal Move is, in fact, bloody awful. The central core, acting-wise, isn’t too bad. Simon Yam plays a gangster prone to sentimentality and has a pretty sizeable gambling problem, Sammo Hung is getting good at his new lease of life as a Triad boss, and Wu Jing still flips about like a young Yuen Biao with a Manga hairstyle.
The troubles quickly become apparent when Wu Jing starts hacking away at his foes with a sword. It promises to be another great Wu Jing action showcase, but for some reason these huge gouts of CGI blood start pumping out all over the screen. It’s true what they say: if you can tell it’s a CGI shot, then it’s not a good CGI shot - and frankly, these are terrible CGI shots. Worse, it continues this style all of the way through the movie. It’s strange, Hong Kong mastered the blood squib back in the late 60’s (see Chang Cheh’s Have Sword Will Travel for how cinematic sword wounds should look) but these pathetic efforts wouldn’t fool a seven-year-old child. Undaunted, I continued, only to find the plot convoluted, contrived and, worst of all, extremely dull. I’d lost all interest by the hour mark (barely halfway through the movie, I might add) and the film just gets increasingly irritating after that. It’s all about double-crossings, betrayal etc, but not done with an ounce of flair, and the plot lapses into incoherence on a number of occasions.
It’s a mark of desperation when, near the end, two characters duel seemingly just for the sake of it. Certainly there was no brooding antagonism or sign of unrest among the couple that I could see (although I was nodding off at this point) – one just says to the other that he didn’t see the other as the leader and they’re off. It’s like a tacked-on scene that movie executives add on when a production runs into trouble. It is, however, a great addition (CGI blood aside), and if more of these fight scenes were included it might have made the film half entertaining.
Don’t rush into Fatal Move expecting the new SPL. In fact, don’t rush into it at all. Don’t walk, either. Give it a wide birth and pretend it never happened. You’ll only be disappointed if you don’t.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. He plays an assistant to Inspector Liu (Danny Lee – who I had actually forgot was in the film, that’s how much of an impression he made). He’s about to be redeployed in the force. Think of him counting down the days to his retirement and you’ll understand where the character’s heading.
PTU (2003) May 18, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 3 commentsDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Simon Yam; Lam Suet; Ruby Wong Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image Ltd
When Sergeant Lo (Lam Suet) loses his police pistol after a scuffle with a bunch of TsimShaTsui hoodlums one night, Sergeant Ho (Simon Yam) puts a self-imposed deadline on finding the weapon. Fearing its use in gang warfare, Ho’s team scramble to recover the weapon before dawn, or they will be forced to report the loss to their superiors. When the main suspect turns up murdered, escalating violence between rival gangs becomes inevitable.
Set over one night in TsimShaTsui, PTU (it stands for Police Tactical Unit, by the way) is one of those films that is irresistible to fans of ticking-clock thrillers that feel they’re moving in real time (even though they’re not).
The film is imbued with some very black comedy, sometimes making it feel like a Hong Kong version of After Hours, what with the urban night-time setting, bizarre events and all. One scene at the start perfectly sets up the tone and establishes the pecking order in the film’s society: lead thug Ponytail (Frank Liu) and his gang enter a cafe and sit at their preferred table, displacing a lone eater who was already there. In comes the hated sergeant Lo and chooses the same table, displacing Ponytail and his gang and making them sit elsewhere.
However, at heart PTU is a cop procedure thriller more in line with other Milky Way films such as Eye in the Sky and To’s own Breaking News. Where this film differs, though, is in the intricate plotting – sometimes making the film extremely hard to follow. There are several threads to the story, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to get lost – and that’s guaranteed. Several times, something happens or is discussed and seems inconsequential – only to end up being crucial to the film’s outcome.
Even though this film runs below 90 minutes, there does seem some flabbiness in the middle section, and one scene, where Ho’s unit progress stealthily up a staircase, is excruciatingly slow. PTU’s film score consists entirely of what sounds like 80’s guitar power-rock solos – and not very good ones at that. Given To’s previous works, where the music is entirely fitting and tasteful, this seems an entirely bizarre choice. Nevertheless, the urban locations are atmospheric and TsimShaTsui becomes a character in itself, with its strangely deserted streets and shuttered businesses. I’ve no idea what the district is like these days, but it was always said that it was not the kind of area tourists were recommended to be in after darkness, and this comes across very well in the film, and looks akin to the seedier, grittier areas of New York as shown in US productions.
PTU is clever, but I feel it’s perhaps too clever for its own good. There are some characters that seem superfluous, such as Maggie Shaw’s Sergeant Kat, and the pace is at times too slow. But if you’re prepared to concentrate hard there’s certainly a very intelligent film in here.
Lam Suet-o-meter: High. He’s second lead, slightly behind Simon Yam. In fact, he probably grabs more screen time in this than anything else I’ve seen him in. And that’s a lot of films…
Mad Detective (2007) April 14, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , 2 commentsDirector: Johnnie To; Wai Ka-Fai Cast: Lau Ching-Wan; Andy On; Gordon Lam; Karen Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milky Way Image Ltd
Eccentric but brilliant police detective Bun (Lau Ching-Wan) is expelled from the force when, upon his chief’s retirement, he impassively cuts off his own ear as a leaving present. But when a series of murders and robberies involving a stolen police handgun becomes too difficult to solve, Inspector Ho (Andy On) persuades Bun to return and give his insight into the case. What Bun finds is that the crimes are related, and that the killer has seven personalities that Bun can see as separate individuals.
The English language title hints at a madcap comedy, especially given the track record of Lau Ching-Wan. I haven’t really seen any of the Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai collaborations (I switched off the awful My Left Eye Sees Ghosts after about twenty minutes of “comic” screaming) but Mad Detective is definitely not a comedy and Lau Ching Wan is definitely not comic in this role. Indeed, at times, he looks like he’s never done comedy in his life.
Mad Detective is at the outset another detective story, albeit one that feels less noir-ish than has become fashionable. We see Bun solve a case by being thrown down a series of staircases while locked in a suitcase, then his apparent breakdown at his superior’s retirement party. Then we see two police officers trying to capture a thief. After that, it starts to get a little difficult. Well, to be honest, things simply stop making sense.
I don’t want to give too much away and spoil the “gimmick” of the film too much, but Bun has a couple of really remarkable and original abilities. The foremost is the ability to see facets of people’s personalities as separate entities, all with their own appearance (and not necessarily the same sex as the host). This is extremely confusing at first, but when the penny drops, it’s quite an exciting idea. Bun comes into contact with Chi-Wai, who has no less than seven different “facets” of his personality, and watching some of them interact with the host is interesting – for example his decision making is a bossy, confident woman, while his cowardice is a fat, nervous man (Lam Suet – Hong Kong’s Mr Prolific!). The avatar Bun sees depends on what the host is feeling. Bun also seems to be able to gain supernatural insights into the case through near-death experiences, which further clarifies what’s going on.
I’ve written before about mystery thrillers sometimes being a one-shot deal (see The Detective), but Mad Detective has so much more going for it, as well as a thought-provoking ending, that I’m sure this will stand the test of time. Indeed, it’s one of those films you want to watch again straight away so you can watch out for things you might have missed first time and with the benefit of knowledge you didn’t have on the first viewing.
Mad Detective is accessible and unpretentious, exciting and fresh. The roles are all very well acted, but Lau in particular is outstanding as the titular detective. I have to say I’ve not seen him in anything other than comedy (and usually pretty broad comedy at that), and so was a little surprised at how well he pulled it off. The direction is great and Johnny To in particular seems to be on fire at the moment. If you’re after something unusual and a little challenging, this is a must-see – and a great example, along with To’s last (complete) film, Exiled, of what Hong Kong is capable of. I’m pretty excited right now…
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. “What, you want me to play someone’s cowardice? Hmm, OK”. Probably not one for his Hollywood resumé when he can take five minutes away from being in every Hong Kong film to write it.
Dark Water (2002) April 8, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Horror, Supernatural, 2000s films , 4 commentsDirector: Hideo Nakata Cast: Hitomi Kuroki; Rio Kanno; Shigemitsu Ogi Territory: Japan Production Company: Honogurai mizu no soko kara
A bitter custody battle is being fought by Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) against her husband for their six year old daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). Her ex-husband is playing dirty, using tales of Yoshimi’s previous psychological problems to discredit her. Rattled, Yoshimi rents a new apartment for herself and Ikuko and tries to get her life back on track with a new job. But the apartment is old and the ceiling leaks – not to mention noisy, as a child’s footsteps can often be heard from the room above. Yoshimi starts to feel uneasy when a girl’s red bag is found and can’t seem to be thrown away, and then she starts seeing a small child upstairs matching the description of a missing girl…
From the director of Ring, which was probably most casual viewers’ first exposure to Asian horror films, Dark Water continues in a similar spooky style which seems to be everywhere nowadays.
Shunning special effects and gore, the film instead relies on making the mundane seem menacing through implication, music and reaction shots. Which, let’s face it, could easily fall flat on its arse. Dark Water doesn’t quite fall on its arse, but after seeing it I’m not entirely sure why. The imagery seems a little over-used – creepy silent kids and things seen out of the corner of the eye being the order of the day. The red bag that continually turns up to alarm Yoshimi could seem laughable if not handled properly, as can the mounting menace of a water stain on the ceiling. But, to give the film its due, it never does, and a decent sense of quiet menace continues nicely throughout the film.
It’s just that the whole mystery of the film is rather easy to figure out, and by about the halfway mark, you’re well ahead of the game. This is the film’s most disappointing quality, as it is a very watchable experience. The film is very ably acted, and particular mention must go to the performance of Rio Kanno as the six year old Ikuko who spent the majority of the film soaking wet, which couldn’t have been too pleasant.
Although Dark Water is a pleasantly creepy way to pass the time, I really don’t think it has the legs to stand up to repeated viewings. But if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth the price of the rental.
The Detective (2007) January 19, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, Supernatural, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Oxide Pang Cast: Aaron Kwok; Liu Kai-Chi; Shing Fui-On Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil-Metropol Organization
Tam (Aaron Kwok) is a mediocre detective in the heart of the Chinese community in Thailand. One day, drinking buddy Lung (Shing Fui-On) turns up to his office and hands him a photograph of a beautiful woman and a wad of cash. Lung claims the woman is following him and will kill him over a matter that “is nothing to do with me”. Tam suspects that Lung is using him as an introduction agency and just wants to know where the beauty lives, but then people surrounding the woman start to die. Most look like suicides, but Tam is sure they are connected and believes foul play is involved. His friend, police officer Chak (Liu Kai-Chi) indulges Tam for a while, but eventually grows exasperated by his insistence that there’s more to the deaths than meet the eye.
Detective is a decent gumshoe tale told in the gritty, noir-ish style that is so popular in Hong Kong these days. Aaron Kwok is one of the few pop-stars-turned-actors I can watch, as he does tend to have some ability and doesn’t seem obsessed with looking pretty all the time. He shares a lot of screen time with Liu Kai-Chi, who is carving a nice career as a character actor, and the two have some very tangible onscreen chemistry. The film is also helped by the Thai locations, which give it a very different visual feel from the current crop of Hong Kong Noir thrillers. The supporting cast is excellent throughout (Wayne Lai pops up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him role, and Shing Fui-On is creepy as hell as Lung) and the direction is solid. Unfortunately, the film can also be seen as one big advertisement for a certain brand of telephone/camera manufacturer, but I’ve said my piece on product placement elsewhere here and I’m determined not to repeat myself.
As you have probably gathered, not everything is as it seems and the mystery is fairly compelling. It does get uncomfortably complicated than is strictly necessary at times, though, and there is a little too much padding to the story for my liking. But you do want to get to the bottom of it all and the fact that the answers don’t come easily enhances the mystery.
Detective is not so much a “whodunit” as a “what-did-they-do”, and is definitely worth seeing. I have a sneaking suspicion that once you’ve been shown all the answers you won’t want to come back to it, but it’s certainly worth the price of a rental.
Osaka Wrestling Restaurant (2004) December 14, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Romance, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Tommy Law Cast: Timmy Hung; Wayne Lai; Ueno Miku Territory: Hong Kong/Japan Production Companies: Same Way Production Ltd; Yes Visions Co
Failed chef Ricky (Timmy Hung) is reunited with his brother Mike (Wayne Lai) upon the death of their father. Mike has “escaped” to Japan, and when Ricky caches up with him, he insists upon using their father’s inheritance to open a new style of restaurant – one when the diners can watch authentic Japanese wrestling while they eat! Helping them to make the restaurant a success is a Japanese reporter stranded in Hong Kong (Ueno Miku) and an unlikely bunch of would-be wrestlers with more enthusiasm than talent.
Funny how these things work out – a couple of weeks ago I’m doing a review on a film with Jackie Chan’s son (the rather topper Invisible Target), and now I find myself, quite by accident, reviewing a film with Sammo Hung’s son Timmy. Which raises an interesting question – does Yuen Biao have a son? Hmm. I’ll get my secretary to do some research immediately, and see if we can get a reunion of the three brothers’ sons as I think this is the only way we’ll get those genes together on screen again. Anyway, I digress – and it’s only the second paragraph…
Osaka Wrestling Restaurant starts off in a pretty naff way with some truly awful acting with Timmy Hung looking like he can’t keep a straight face despite the comedy being aimed at no higher than infant school level. This is zero-budget Hong Kong fare at its worst, I feared. Not even the inclusion of frequent Stephen Chow collaborator Law Kar-Ying as Ricky’s insane and comically evil ex-boss raises the level appreciably.
However, things definitely take a turn for the better when Wayne Lai enters the film. I’ve written about this guy before, so I won’t repeat myself, but he definitely seems to raise everybody’s game in this film - which seems like a wild claim but I urge anyone doubting it to see for yourself. He also has the film’s only dramatic moments when he tries to reconcile with the wife and son he left when he moved to Japan, claiming to be a changed man.
The first smiles are raised, inevitably, when the “Wrestling Restaurant” starts auditioning for performers and we get the usual gathering of oddballs, nutters and misfits. You’d be right to think that from here on in, the comedy pretty much writes itself, but this is not necessarily a bad thing considering the lameness of the early scenes. I’m guessing that the Japanese wrestlers shown or spoofed here (or at least the guy called “Super Delfin”) are “real” Japanese wrestlers, but I have to plead ignorance on the subject. The production does seem to be a Japanese/Hong Kong collaboration and the term “Osaka Wrestling” is used so often that I suspect it’s got to have some basis in fact (and is used to plug the sport I expect). The wrestling action is primarily played for laughs, but if you’re more aware of the subject than me, there may well be some in-jokes in there that went over my head.
We get some romantic comedy thrown in as well for no extra cost, and the inclusion of Japanese Ueno Miku as Kyoko provides some eye-candy for the male viewers. While the story is strictly by the numbers (boy meets girl, boy drops girl in a river for no readily apparent reason, boy courts girl while wearing wrestling mask to avoid girl finding out he was the one who dropped her in a river, girl finds out boy’s identity and dumps him, boy and girl get together again) this kind of thing is never too taxing and everyone can at least relate to it.
Sticking with Osaka Wrestling Restaurant does yield rewards, and by the end I was well into it. There are a few really good laughs (such as Tats Lau’s costume after he comes back from an unexpected trip) and the occasional moment of (light) drama. I suspect it is the kind of film that one can enjoy best with zero expectations and a hankering for some of the less demanding fare coming from Hong Kong. Although initially I was extremely sceptical of the merits of the film, I was eventually won over by two faults and a submission.
Breaking News (2004) December 10, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Johnnie To Cast: Kelly Chen; Nick Cheung; Richie Ren; Hui Siu-Hung; Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image (HK) Ltd
With Breaking News, we’re back in familiar Milkyway “police-procedure movie” territory. This time, it’s the media in the spotlight, and the film looks at the way news is produced, used and exploited. The film follows a group of outlaws on the run from the cops after a lethal shootout. When one of their comrades is killed in action, they rashly decide to do a heist that quicky goes badly wrong. The robbers then go into hiding in an apartment block and a siege begins, with every moment being recorded for posterity by the Hong Kong news crews.
The use of the media as a weapon comes into play when a camera crew who happen to be filming nearby capture some of the initial gunfight, including a shot of a police officer surrendering and kow-towing to the robbers. Humiliated, the police set about putting their own “spin” on things, and it’s here that Rebecca (Kelly Chen) enters as a police media relations expert. She sets up a command post outside the tower block where the robbers are holed up and gets more than she bargained for when one of the robbers, Chan Yat-Yuen (Richie Ren), makes contact with her.
The opening scene of Breaking News is simply outstanding – a long and ferocious gun battle takes place on the streets of Hong Kong with the camera moving smoothly without a single cutaway. This single shot seems to go on forever and is so impressive and dramatic it really gets the blood pumping. At the risk of sounding like one of those bite-sized blurbs used on the front of an Entertainment In Video DVD, it out-Woos Woo. From an opening like that you just know the only direction the film can go is down, and sure enough, it does.
What lets Breaking News down is the almost total lack of characterisation. No one is given much background (we don’t even know what the bandits did prior to their shootout at the start of the film) and this leads to an understandable dip in viewer interest. If we don’t care about the characters, there’s nothing to interest us aside from all the admittedly impressive visuals. A case in point is aging police officer Hoi (Hui Siu-Hung) whose uncontrollable flatulence is neither a plot point nor a source of comic relief. It’s one of the many things that are there in the film but don’t really serve any purpose. There are a couple of stifled attempts to bring in some of the old brotherhood and loyalty themes among the thieves, but it fizzles out without going anywhere.
The performances are similarly mediocre, with Nick Cheung and Richie Ren going through the motions and being largely forgettable. The presence of singing star Kelly Chen is played up, but to be honest she doesn’t really do a lot apart from sitting in the Command Centre looking good. She’s the kind of woman that makes you want to get down on your knees and thank God you’re a man, but she cannot carry a film and at times her performance is a little creaky. A saving grace is the presence of (you guessed it!) Lam Suet as the father caught up in the siege with his two young children. His interaction with the robbers is excellent and provides the only real tension that doesn’t seem forced.
Without going into details that would spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, the ending does pick up and once again it’s down to some great camera work and direction. So what you have, in essence, is a fantastic opening, a good ending, and a whole lot of gawping at Kelly Chen in between. It doesn’t seem so bad when I think of it in those terms, and at a shade under 90 minutes it’s the kind of film you probably wouldn’t mind slipping into the DVD player on a whim on a rainy afternoon.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Medium. Although not a big part, he has one of the more demanding roles and actually adds a lot to the film.
Invisible Target (2007) December 1, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Action, Thriller, 2000s films , 6 commentsDirector: Benny Chan Cast: Nicholas Tse; Shawn Yu; Jaycee Chan; Wu Jing Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil Metropole Organisation Ltd
Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse) is a cop who lost his fiancée when a jewellery shop gets blown up as a result of a hit on an armoured car. Carson Fong (Shawn Yu) is another cop who is beaten and humiliated by a criminal gang. Wai King-Ho is yet another cop, this time one who has lost his brother. All three join up to bring down the Tien gang headed by Tien Yeng-Seng (Wu Jing), the gang responsible for all three officers’ circumstances.
Invisible Target starts out with a bang not unlike a Hollywood blockbuster. It serves as a plot point in that Chan Chun’s fiancée gets killed (no great loss – she doesn’t have her own voice. I don’t think I could ever love a woman who was badly dubbed) and sends him on a path of revenge. It easily brings to mind films like Die Hard and you start to worry that this is going to be yet another Hong Kong film aping Hollywood and failing miserably. While this is true to a small degree regarding the CGI, let me put your fears at rest and tell you categorically that Invisible Target is a darn good romp.
Nicholas Tse gets a lot of stick for his film work (I admit I’ve never heard a note of his music and am quite happy to keep it that way) but fair’s fair, he puts on a good show as the haunted young cop out for revenge. I must admit that Shawn Yu has previously slipped under my radar, but he also impresses as Tse’s partner by circumstance. Jaycee Chan (son of Jackie) is so earnest and serious as Wai King-Ho that his character seems to verge on parody at times, and is the least believable of the trio. In one early scene, we see him giving CPR to a foul-smelling vagrant without showing any signs of discomfort while those around him are blowing their lunch. He then modestly goes home to his grandma. He strikes you as the kind of person who wouldn’t think twice about risking his life to save a bunch of young children on a bomb-laden bus, an opinion that is reinforced later in the film where he risks his life to save a bunch of young children on a bomb-laden bus, oddly enough. Nevertheless, Wai King-Ho is the glue for the partnership of the three disparate cops. He is searching for his brother, who may or may not have gone undercover in the Tien gang. Seeing Jaycee Chan in action is an uncomfortable sensation – seeing someone who is clearly the son of Jackie Chan doing fight scenes brings a weird feeling of deja vu and brings up the inevitability of the passage of time. It sure made me feel old, anyway.
Wu Jing will be familiar to all who have seen the somewhat over-rated SPL, and many will agree he was the best thing about that movie. One great compliment to this film is that Wu Jing is still great, but he’s no longer the best (or at least the only good) thing about the project. Whereas most Hong Kong action films fail these days to entertain (for me at least) due to a number of reasons, Invisible Target succeeds, and a lot of that goes down to a more back-to-basics approach to the stuntwork and action choreography. It still goes over the top occasionally, and some of the wirework doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but the good far outweighs the bad. In fact, after a couple of action scenes I could have sworn they were accompanied by the same tinny, lo-fi synth music that went with all those great 80’s action scenes. Upon rewinding, I found this was not the case, but it’s an interesting association.
The film – at ten minutes over two hours – is slightly too long, but paradoxically doesn’t feel bloated with extraneous material. There are some nice plot turns and interesting characters to root for and hiss at, and a couple of really standout moments. The scene where the gangster explains to Wai King-Ho, without malice or bravado, what happened to his brother and how he felt about it is one such outstanding moment.
So despite being too long and having a corny character or two, Invisible Target is still very much worth a watch, and I’m looking forward to a second viewing already.
If you’ve been reading my stuff on the more contemporary Hong Kong films both here and elsewhere, you have probably noticed that I’ve been mentioning a certain guy quite a lot. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Lam Suet:
The reason I’ve been mentioning him is because I’m starting to feel like the man is stalking me via DVD. He’s appeared in absolutely everything I’ve watched in the past couple of months that has been made in or after 2002. Has this guy got some kind of global domination thing going or has he got a really good (or bad) agent that blags him a role in every Hong Kong film made? Sure enough, I stick Invisible Target on and bang!, less than ten minutes pass and he’s there on screen. He seems to favour playing villains, although is at home playing both henchmen and criminal masterminds. Other than appearing in all these films, I know next to nothing about him, and neither does anyone else I ask. Is there anyone who can shed some light on this extraordinarily prolific actor?
Eye in the Sky (2007) November 25, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Thriller, 2000s films , add a commentDirector: Yau Nai-Hoi Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung (Ka-Fai), Kate Tsui, Lam Suet Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Milkyway Image Ltd
Captain Wong (Simon Yam), head of a Hong Kong Police surveillance unit, takes on new recruit Ho (Kate Tsui). Their target is a gang of jewel thieves headed by Shan (Tony Leung Ka-Fai). Ho (nicknamed “Piggy” by Wong, much to her annoyance) learns the tricks of the trade perusing Shan through tailing “Fatboy” (Lam Suet), one of his thugs. Can they crack the gang before they strike again?
Eye in the Sky has some top-notch performances by the leads, including a paunchy Simon Yam as a fatherly mentor to the raw recruit Ho, but suffers from an under-developed script and some negligible direction. There are two distinct plot threads, following the cops and the robbers, and it often feels like the two elements don’t mesh together very well.
The surveillance tricks displayed by the team are quite good and will occasionally impress in their cleverness. The film asks some serious questions about privacy and today’s CCTV-obsessed world, and there’s one very sardonic scene when a fight between the criminal gang is broken up when one spots a woman undressing in a neighbouring apartment block. We even see, later in the movie, that the technology can cut both ways.
The supporting cast are as strong as the leads. Kate Tsui, who appears to debut here, is great and believable as the eager-to-please rookie, and we learn the Surveillance Unit’s techniques through her eyes. Also worth a mention are Maggie Shaw, who plays the tough-as-nails base controller and Lam Suet (yes, again! I swear the guy is in every movie to come out of Hong Kong these days!) as a dim-witted goon of Shan, and the Surveillance Unit’s only link with the gang.
None of the characters are given any kind of background or depth, and this creates a detached feeling that you couldn’t really care less about them most of the time. This is the film’s main drawback, and it’s hard to create real tension under these circumstances. Nevertheless, the strong performances (especially by Yam) and a few clever tricks and turns (not to mention the now-obligatory inclusion of impossible dilemmas for the protagonists) make this a still very watchable film. It’s just unlikely you’ll want to revisit it any time soon.
One other thing (and this has nothing to do with the actual movie as such) is that the dialogue is delivered in an unusually clear and manageable pace, making it great for people learning Cantonese. It seems to have less than the usual slang, slurrings and contractions, and there’s a lot of repeated dialogue to aid memory. Furthermore, the nature of the film means we get lots of descriptions of people and what they’re wearing – all essential elementary building blocks of a language.