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| A very good, but very under rated remake of Peter Weir's "Witness". Chow Yun-Fat plays a cop assigned to protect a 4-year old girl, a witness to the murder of her mother. Cherrie Chung plays the girl's auntie, a small town farmer who doesn't have much luck with men. The story is very good, as is the characterization. The action is good although it is few and far between. At times the film can be quite funny, but unfortunately it can be quite slow too. Chow's interaction with the little girl and her auntie is good and very believable. Two flaws are that Chow and Cherrie look tired at times and the ending seems rushed, but a part from that, this film is a very good action/romance. The version I saw was the M.I.A/Hong Kong Classics DVD released in the UK earlier this year, the print on the film was very grainy, the subtitles seemed quite accurate but the dubbed soundtrack was horrendous. It sounded as if the little girl's voice had been dubbed by a middle-aged woman on helium. |
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| Chow Yun Fat plays Hong Kong Police Sergeant Lau Chun Pong, nicknamed "Mew Mew". Mew Mew is a man on the ragged edge. He is, we learn a widower whose wife and child were killed by a robber, he is a man in a downward spiral. He seems numb to life that swirls around him--when he is first introduced, he's sitting in a car, chain smoking cigarettes and drinking from his flask, watching the drama of street life before him as he awaits the arrival of an informant. His expression is disinterested and weary--he pursues the arms dealers who are his prey with a curious detachment. He is going through the motions of being a policeman, yet one senses, that it is only his work that is keeping him going at all. He still commands the loyalty, respect and affection of his colleagues, including his supervisor. He's a good cop and a good man who has lost his way due to overwhelming grief.
Cherie Chung plays the sister of the murdered arms dealer--whose death sets the plot in motion. Chung's Cher Lee is a woman of quiet strength and dignity. Life has not been kind to her. Her husband betrayed her, leading a secret second life with a woman from the Chinese interior, fathering a son. During their marriage he berated her for being clumsy and stupid. Rather than continuing to suffer the humiliation, Cher has divorced him and lives quietly with her father, working along side him in the village fields, harvesting bamboo.
Her sister's death brings Mew Mew--pursuing the arms case--into her life in a dramatic fashion. Their relationship is at first contentious as he suspects her and her father of complicity in the dead sister's arms dealing. The relationship begins to transform as Mew Mew aids Cher in tracking down the father of her sister's illegitimate 4 year old daughter--who turns out to be the kingpin of the arms smuggling operation that the police are investigating.
Their bond is forged as the arms case heats up--thrown into each others company, facing adversity and danger, these two wounded souls begin to blossom. A tentative, tender relationship grows and is tested time and again through Mew Mew's suspension from the force (a result of threatening the powerful, rich arms kingpin); a domestic drama within Cher's family concerning her young niece and her father: the complication of Cher's ex-husband reentering the picture determined to win his wife back; and an assassination attempt on Mew Mew's life by one of the kingpin's henchman--the murderer of Cher's sister.
To be sure, these are restrained performances, yet one only has to watch Cherie Chung as Cher as she sits at the bedside of the wounded Mew Mew, not knowing if he will live or die, her worry, longing and love playing over her features, to appreciate her work in this film. Chow's Mew Mew may lack the flash and dazzle of some of his bullet ballet roles, but the transformation from grief stricken widower to a man being brought back to life by love is fascinating to watch. His scenes with the young actress playing the daughter of the murdered woman are especially touching and heartwarming.
Action fans and bullet ballet junkies will be disappointed by this film. But those of us who enjoy character driven drama will find much to enjoy in Wild Search. |
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| "Wild Search" is one of the three Ringo Lam/Chow Yun-Fat collaborations I've seen so far, and sadly the worst of them. I don't say that "Wild Search" sucks, it's just not nearly as good as "Full Contact" or "City on Fire". So I need to warn you guys, "Wild Search" is NOT an action movie. The video sleeve showed CYF and Roy Cheung with firearms and other weapons, but the movie is a slow-paced romantic drama with some gunplay and a few thrilling moments. This should be a re-telling of Peter Weir's "Witness", but because I've never seen "Witness" I can't compare these two. CYF is a cop who protects a 4-year old girl whose arms-dealing mother is killed. But in the whole movie the killer is after CYF's head, not the little girl's! Sounds exciting? Well, it mostly isn't. As I said before, this movie is slow-paced. The first half has no action at all; it just concentrates on the plot and character development. The plot is fairly good, and so are the directing, acting & the production values. Action is also top notch whenever it's presented (not often). The ever-charismatic CYF looks a little tired, but look at Cherrie Chung! She seems to be asleep the whole time! Surprisingly the little girl doesn't get as annoying as I thought she would. So it's overall an OK little movie, and a must-see for Chow Yun-Fat competists. |
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| ATC: the Book says, "Chow Yun Fat is a cop who confronts a gang of Violent Triad psychos. He also finds time to rescue a little girl. And fall in love with her mother." As usual, they don't quite have it right. Chow Yun Fat is a cop who, in the course of investigating the arms-smuggling related of a woman - to which the only witness is her 4 year old daughter - befriends the victim's sister. The sister (aunt of the little girl who witnessed the killing) lives out in the countryside with her embittered father - the little girl's grandfather. In many ways this film is a human interest story, which chronicles the changes and growth of the relations among the widower cop (Chow Yun Fat) and the other three characters in the rural village - the aunt (Cherie Chung), the little girl, and the crabby grandfather. Over the course of time, new bonds are formed or reformed in the lives of these abandoned souls (the girl is an orphan, Chow and the grandfather are widowers, and Cherie Chung is a divorcee). The unfolding of this relational drama is punctuated by a serious of violent encounters, of escalating intensity, between the protagonists and the gun- runners - principally, the evil boss "Hung" and his main hit man (played by Roy Cheung Yiu Yeung), who becomes obsessed with killing Chow. Like School on Fire, and director Ringo Lam's other films _except_ for "Full Contact," this film aims to be a serious drama in which the relationships and conflicts are of central importance, and the violent clashes between criminals and cops are shot more in the mode of "realism" than that of a John Woo-like hyper-stylized "ballet" of carnage. |
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