| Prolific director Wilson Yip brings us another so-hip-it-hurts flick with not enough Bio-Zombie and too much Skyline Cruisers. 2002 is the name of the special unit of the Hong Kong PD responsible for all supernatural crimes and incidents--that is, when a taxi cab is found in the middle of a plaza standing on end, they're the ones who get the call. The entire 2002 unit is made up of two agents: one man, Tide (Nick Tse) and one ghost, Sam (Sam Lee). Tide is the head of the duo, since he has psychic powers allowing him to see and communicate with ghosts. He is also the unit's liaison with the rest of the police force.
Tide's parents died when he was young, and all his partners have died in the line of duty, so he assumes--based in part on advice from his mentor--that everyone he cares for will meet with an untimely demise. Consequently, he leads a solitary life, actively avoiding friendships, dating, and meaningful interaction. As you can imagine, his fear of connecting with anyone gets difficult to handle at times--like when he falls in love with a girl, and does not dare pursue her for fear that she may die as a result. He's got troubles.
His only confidant is a shopkeeper named Paper Chan--so named because he sells the paper trinkets that people burn for the dead. His shop carries an excellent selection: everything from paper guns to paper scooters to paper cell phones to paper mansions--when a living person burns such an item for a departed loved one, the loved one receives the "real" thing in the afterlife. This idea--based on ancient customs still widely practiced--has a lot of possibilities in a film where the main characters are both ghost and human. In addition to running his paper goods shop, Paper Chan serves as Tide's mentor and pseudo-father-figure.
According to Paper Chan, Tide's current ghost partner, Sam, is just about due for reincarnation. Tide, it seems, will then have to find a new partner very soon. When he finally does find his new partner, Wind (Stephen Fung)--the guy who meets all of Paper Chan's criteria--it turns out that Wind is quite useless in high-stress situations. He becomes paralyzed out of fear and lies prone on the floor during ghost attacks. Quite a partner...
The premise is excellent--the perfect backdrop for action, comedy, or an interesting romance. The real problem with this movie is that it lacks a heart--it lacks a meaningful central story. Perhaps in an attempt to "keep you guessing"--or perhaps as the result of poor editing--the film changes directions regularly, leaving old stories behind and poking around at new ones. The end result is that--yes--we were guessing all along; but we also just didn't care so much when it was over. The film tries to do too many things in too short a time and ends up undermining almost all of them--truly a perfect example of catering to an MTV/short attention span target audience. The characters' motivations and personalities were never clear, and so we never felt like we connected with any of them enough to really care about them. Likewise, the characters' interactions with each other were never meaningful or substantial enough for the audience to become invested in their relationships. For example, all we have to determine that Tide has met the "girl of his dreams" is his word that "she's the girl of my dreams". They don't know each other, they're awkward and say boring things to each other, and they're secretive and dishonest with each other. Sorry, but that relationship doesn't quite cut it in the post-junior-high-school world.
Furthermore, the film--like nearly all Chinese films about the supernatural--fails to properly establish rules and explain the situation before plopping us down into it. Our protagonists are ghost hunters, but their tools and methods are never discussed, and a typical work day for them includes goofing off and lounging around. Every once in awhile they take care of a malicious ghost, but even the ghosts feel arbitrary and two-dimensional--who are they? what makes one more powerful than another? etc. When someone dies, they don't disappear, they become a ghost and can interact with our main characters effortlessly. Consequently, the impact of "death" is entirely eroded, and it honestly wouldn't matter if any of the main characters died or not--they would probably lead very similar lives either way. And so, by the time we get to the big finale--a major brawl with a bad-ass ghost--we really have no investment either way in what happens. The movie gets a lot of mileage out of the concept that being a ghost isn't so bad--in fact it often seems quite fun--but then it expects its audience to forget all that when the protagonists are "in danger". Sorry, no.
The film is packed with cool CGI effects and elaborate CGI-enhanced hyper-supernatural-martial-arts sequences and camera moves galore. The 2002 duo is super-cool with their all-black outfits and black leather trench coats. Nick Tse is indeed like a little Ekin Cheng strutting around with wisps of long hair covering his face, too cool to be taken seriously. While it's all somewhat fun to watch, we can't help but feel a bit let down at its lack of originality. It feels almost like watching a highlight reel of "The Best Of Andrew Lau CGI", only without the character of an Andrew Lau film or Centro's CGI.
Now, to add insult to injury, we must mention one last thing about the soundtrack. Nick Tse should NOT be allowed to sing in public. Ever. His two ballads in the film were flat-out embarrassing, and should absolutely not have made it into the final cut. Ever seen those Levi's commercials with the horrible karaoke singers...?
In the final analysis--though we've bitched and moaned a lot--the film does get under your skin somehow. We wouldn't have bothered to examine the different aspects of the film in such detail if we didn't feel that they all had potential or some style. Perhaps the reason this film left such a strong impression on us was that it was so close to being right that we could almost taste it--but just ended up wrong. |
