REVIEW:
This is a film with solid choreography, a great cast and a potentially compelling plot that suffers from weak pacing and clichéd character development.

Donnie Yen, directs, choreographs, and stars in one of his last Hong Kong films before moving on to German television and Hollywood. Being the protégé of master choreographer Yuen Woo Ping has helped Yen develop and act in terrific fight scenes. Yen's character has several clashes with the Axe Gang's leader played by a Yu Rong Guang that involve a lot of grappling and kicking. The highlight is the final match that involves an axe being tossed on the end of a chain. Donnie keeps the fight scenes exciting with the use of various camera techniques and warped perspectives. Unfortunately, Hong Kong's use of talcum powder to accentuate the force of a hit is way overdone here. In the opening melee, half of the participants are covered in this mysterious white powder shortly after the first punch is thrown.

I'm a big fan of Yu Rong Guang who definitely had the best role in the film and really plays it well. He is Yue Lo-Chi, leader of the Axe Gang and typically ruthless. What allows his character some depth is the fact that his sister played by the lovely Athena Chu has a condition where she hasn't been able to speak for 15 years. Of course our hero, Tang Shan played by Yen is a doctor able to cure her and Yu who loves his sister greatly is grateful. As a filmmaker, Yen is smart enough to let Yu run with the conflict, not in so many words or actions but in body language and facial expressions. While the plot does sabotage itself by being too predictable and at times overly dramatic, if anyone makes it work its Yu. He plays the heavy the way Robert De Niro snarled his way through The Untouchables. Yu plays to the camera, cocky and supremely confident. Although seen more recently by American audiences in Jackie Chan's "Shanghai Noon" as one of the guards who travels to the States, its "Shanghai Affairs" that gives Yu one of the best roles he ever had.

Getting back to the plot, Yen has a good one on his hands but the tension and fight scenes are too sporadic. After an opening brawl in the small village the film focuses on the relationship between Tong and Shen, the gang leader's sister and her recovery. The few martial engagements that do take place seemed forced as the tension between Tong and Yue fizzle. One unintentionally humorous scene has the Axe gang busting into the hospital where Tang is operating on Shen. It's attempts to add gripping tension is defused by the improbability of the situation. Only when the focus shifts back to the disappearance of children in the village and Bond's death do we see a more plausible tension return. But even then, I felt cheated because the real villain who has the Axe gang do his dirty work is written out as if it were an afterthought. This is where one of Hong Kong's greatest weaknesses shows. Hong Kong filmmakers are notorious for crafting scripts on the fly and sometimes just making things up as they go along. Although it can add a fresh blast of spontaneity to an action scene, dialogue and other dramatic elements suffer as a result.

If the story had been written with the various subplots tied more closely and the action more evenly paced this film could have been much better. As it stands, "Shanghai Affairs" is a showcase for some great Donnie Yen martial arts action if you don't mind waiting for it. Yu Rong Guang keeps the villains credible while the compelling theme of a poor village exploited by supposedly benevolent powers is should have been more fully exploited.

Yen plays Tong Shan, a doctor educated in the West who returns to Shanghai to open a clinic in a poor section of the city. Shortly after arriving in town, he gets mixed up with a local gang led by Brother Chi (Yu Rongguang), and completely wipes the floor with them. But despite being skilled in the martial arts (which must've been required reading at medical school), Shan refuses to get caught up in local affairs and remains neutral, much to the chagrin his assistant. When its discovered that Chi's gang works for one of Yen's former teachers, a British doctor, Shan and Chi agree to stop fighting eachother. But things are never quite this simple in movies, are they?

Brother Chi's younger sister Shen is mute, and Chi refuses to send her to the doctors, believed instead in local superstition. But Shan knows he can cure her with Western medicine, and proceeds to do so. Naturally, Shen falls for Shan, but so does Chi's girlfriend (who happens to be Shen's best friend). So now we've got the romantic angle covered. But wait, there's one more strand to the plot. Young children have started disappearing, only to be found dead a few days later with all of their internal organs removed. Could all of these be related? If you really have to think about that one, you obviously need to start watching more movies. And it's pretty safe to say that things aren't going to end on an incredibly positive note.

This movie had a lot going for it, and it does an okay job at balancing all of the various plotlines. I was impressed, however, by how the romantic angle was handled (a rare thing for me, or maybe just an indicator of how uninteresting I found the rest of the movie). Shen and Shan obviously like eachother, but the affections of Chi's girlfriend complicate matters. And Chi isn't ignorant of the romantic shenanigans going on under his nose. There's one especially lovely scene where it all comes to boil, as all 4 characters must wrestle with their feelings of love and betrayal.

Unlike most martial arts flicks, this one isn't at all manic. Most movies in the genre try to pack so much into one scene that it becomes an overload. In comparison, "Shanghai Affairs" is pretty slow-moving. Unfortunately, this reveals the movie's greatest weakness, the acting, and most of that falls on Yen's shoulders. I really want to like Yen, but he just doesn't have the personality to pull off this movie. The supporting parts, with the exception Rongguang, don't help too much either. There are many scenes where there's little or no dialog, which is fine, if the acting can save them. Silence can be used to great effect in movies, revealing the thoughts and feelings of the characters in far more subtle ways. But far too often, the characters in "Shanghai Affairs" simply look as if they're trying to remember their cues, turning to wood until the next time they need to speak.

Even the martial arts sequences seem lacking. With a good fight sequence, you become aware of the fight's rhythm, but all of them seem cut off prematurely. And many of them are shot up close, so that you never get a real sense of what's going on. There are times when the camera does pull back, and we get to see the fight in all its glory, but those are few and far between. And that goes for most of the movie as well.

There are times when a good movie does peek through, but overall it's fairly predictable and even a little blatant in the ripoff department (the conflict between Chi's superstition and Shan's medicine is reminiscent of "Once Upon A Time In China" and there's a scene where Shan battles a horde of axe-wielding gangsters with a tree branch that's lifted directly from "Drunken Master II"). I found myself more impressed by the scenery (set in autumn against falling leaves and grey skies, the movie has a fairly downcast look from the beginning) of the movie, which adds more to the movie's inherent tragedy than nearly anything else.

Donnie Yen looks great in this film. He's grown his hair out again, so he doesn't look as old and haggard as he did in "Legend Of The Wolf". He also gets to see a lot of old school kung fu action with veteran fighter Yu Rong Guang, which is a sheer delight after not getting to see them fight in "Ballistic Kiss". The martial arts sequences are energetic, plentiful, and well done - Donnie and Yu still have what it takes. My only complaint is that too many tight shots were employed, obscuring a lot of the actual handwork. Both Donnie and Yu Rong Guang give heartfelt performances, with each character loyal to his convictions and to the people they love. Their fighting seems to serve more as a metaphor for the clashing of Eastern and Western philosophy than is does a conflict between two men. The portrayal of Western medicine is also handled in a clever way, and where Donnie shows us the good aspects of it, the dead children are chilling evidence of its dark and sinister nature. Definitely an enjoyable little outing that suffers only from its budgetary constraints.

It's easy to single out Yen's directorial work on this movie. Look particularly for tight shots in which expression reveals everything; these kinds of shots may become his trademark in future. His composition and framing always has depth with a pictorial look, with careful attention to the placement of props for positioning. He always establishes an opening and there's got to be something going on. Yen is much influenced by Japanese cinema, especially early Kurosawa, and several dramatic scenes include little dialogue, with characters establishing their relationships in other ways, always intimate and with a distinctive look.

The action's pretty dynamic. There's much hand-to-hand combat, grappling style, between Yen and the godfather's ax gang and some solid fighting between Yen and Yu. Pacing, props, and tracking become part of the fight scenes; there's even some slo-mo and fast shots to register their intensity.