After all the hype about its beautiful scenery and background, it was with much anticipation that I went into the theater for this film. Was I ever disappointed.
I will give credit to Peter Pau's artistic sense, and some of the locations chosen for the film were breathtaking. But the good things I have to say about the film ends here. And, in view of this, the film may well serve better as a plug for the Tibetan travel industry than as a proper film.
=== Spoilers ahead ==> Where shall I begin? The plot was ludicrously childish. Not to say that Yeoh and Pau pilferred material from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the entire affair watched like a bastardized version of Indiana Jane, in search for the holy sharrira, with neither the gripping pace nor sense of fun and adventure. The film failed in attempting to be all things all at once. It was neither sufficiently fast paced to be a good swashbuckling adventure, nor slow enough to make the contrived romantic interlude convincing. The plot inconsistencies, some of which plain deny common sense, well, let's not even go there.
There was no characterization to speak of, and the film-maker seemed to think that they can get by simply by conjuring up all the stereotypes they can muster: the Chinese martial arts fighter; the faithful, religious and sagely father/monk, the one-dimensional bad guy (yes, one-dimensional), the obligatory meat heads as henchmen, the annoying comic relief. All of which add up to a garbled cast and a sense of misdirection, and the film never was able to form its own distinct identity. What annoyed me even more was that the producers seemed to think that selling the sense of the stereotypical "mysterious China" would be sufficient, probably thinking that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" succeeded solely on this (which it did not since Crouching Tiger was a good film based on a good, albeit decade-old, plot and strong characters).
The plot is again a jumbled mix fast and slow sequences, action sequences and supposedly character development scenes juxtaposed, which served only to destroy any pace the film could possible have established. The good guys were simply good, and the bad guys were simply bad, in a very comic book simple sort of way. The audience is, as asked of the leading characters in the film, "believe", since the actors themselves certainly failed to deliver any sense of goodness or badness. Which is completely sad since Yeoh, Chaplin, and Roxburgh are capable of being so much more, as they have shown in other films, and are victims of a daft directing and an even worse story.
I have seen a Yeoh interview in which she stated that The Touch was her way of trying to make a Chinese film for a worldwide audience, in the way that Hollywood makes films for that audience. But what I saw was the juvenile plot and characters that have so plagued Hong Kong films and, IMO, caused their demise. What Yeoh should realize, as any movie-watcher today must realize, is that a film should at the very least have a decent plot and believable characters, or else all the exotic location shoots in the world can not salvage what I have no doubt will be a tanker.
I will give credit to Peter Pau's artistic sense, and some of the locations chosen for the film were breathtaking. But the good things I have to say about the film ends here. And, in view of this, the film may well serve better as a plug for the Tibetan travel industry than as a proper film.
=== Spoilers ahead ==> Where shall I begin? The plot was ludicrously childish. Not to say that Yeoh and Pau pilferred material from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the entire affair watched like a bastardized version of Indiana Jane, in search for the holy sharrira, with neither the gripping pace nor sense of fun and adventure. The film failed in attempting to be all things all at once. It was neither sufficiently fast paced to be a good swashbuckling adventure, nor slow enough to make the contrived romantic interlude convincing. The plot inconsistencies, some of which plain deny common sense, well, let's not even go there.
There was no characterization to speak of, and the film-maker seemed to think that they can get by simply by conjuring up all the stereotypes they can muster: the Chinese martial arts fighter; the faithful, religious and sagely father/monk, the one-dimensional bad guy (yes, one-dimensional), the obligatory meat heads as henchmen, the annoying comic relief. All of which add up to a garbled cast and a sense of misdirection, and the film never was able to form its own distinct identity. What annoyed me even more was that the producers seemed to think that selling the sense of the stereotypical "mysterious China" would be sufficient, probably thinking that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" succeeded solely on this (which it did not since Crouching Tiger was a good film based on a good, albeit decade-old, plot and strong characters).
The plot is again a jumbled mix fast and slow sequences, action sequences and supposedly character development scenes juxtaposed, which served only to destroy any pace the film could possible have established. The good guys were simply good, and the bad guys were simply bad, in a very comic book simple sort of way. The audience is, as asked of the leading characters in the film, "believe", since the actors themselves certainly failed to deliver any sense of goodness or badness. Which is completely sad since Yeoh, Chaplin, and Roxburgh are capable of being so much more, as they have shown in other films, and are victims of a daft directing and an even worse story.
I have seen a Yeoh interview in which she stated that The Touch was her way of trying to make a Chinese film for a worldwide audience, in the way that Hollywood makes films for that audience. But what I saw was the juvenile plot and characters that have so plagued Hong Kong films and, IMO, caused their demise. What Yeoh should realize, as any movie-watcher today must realize, is that a film should at the very least have a decent plot and believable characters, or else all the exotic location shoots in the world can not salvage what I have no doubt will be a tanker.