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天脈傳奇 (2002)
The Touch


Reviewed by: ewaffle
Date: 09/07/2010

"The Touch" is full of excellent actors some of them miscast others with poorly written roles. Outrageously good cinematography (Michelle Yeoh looks positively glamorous) is unfortunately balanced by cheesy CGI created special effects during the finale which was twice as long than it needed to be. Attempts at humor were forced and not funny and the script was full of clichés, such as Eric's first entrance--during a storm with lights flashing as the power failed, he stepped through the wind blown curtains of a French door with a jacket thrown over his shoulders like a cape. He might as well have been Bela Lugosi as Dracula showing up at the castle.

Richard Roxburgh as the villain was unlikable and annoying. Even though Karl did evil acts, like killing an innocent security guard in order to impress the rest of his gang but never scaled the Satanic heights of true evil. Roxburgh can be an excellent bad guy: The Duke in "Moulin Rouge" was creepy, slippery and funny, clearly capable of grievously harming Satine without a second thought. Here he was a scoundrel just going through the motions. Ben Chaplin is an attractive, talented actor but not a leading man, least of all in an action movie. Dane Cook as Bob, the comic relief relative with whom Karl is saddled, has a couple of funny moments but most of his bits are labored, derivative and, worst of all, not funny.

Which this isn't. Elements of family drama, action, comedy and the supernatural jostle together in an unconvincing muddle. The script seems to have been cobbled together from a number of drafts with no unifying theme--it had nowhere to go. This was shown most convincingly be the last scene in which Yin and Eric spar over what to do with a map. The scene looks as if it would lead to a sequence setting up a sequel but trailed off into good natured bickering between the two stars.

The presence of Michelle Yeoh, either in screen filling beautifully lit close-ups or in high kicking form dealing mayhem to various bad guys is what saves "The Touch" or at least makes it possible to watch. She has no one to blame but herself for the fiasco that made it onscreen; she was credited as producer, co-executive producer, presenter and gets at least one writing credit. Peter Pau looked to have his hands full as director of photography leaving little time and energy to actually direct the movie, a problem that producer Yeoh should have seen coming.

Recommended only for fans of Michelle Yeoh although a handful of high quality screen captures of her close-ups would serve almost as well at the one hour and forty minutes it takes to watch the movie.

Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: j.crawford
Date: 03/03/2006
Summary: sugary sweet family film

Michelle Yeoh stars in this sugary sweet family film directed by Peter Pau Tak-Hai, the Academy Award winning cinematographer. Pau's direction is strictly "by the numbers" with this low key martial arts fantasy that features Ms. Yeoh as a heroic circus performer.

The movie is visually superior. The cinematography is excellent, as you would expect.
Everybody and everything looks really good. The expensive special effects and daring stunts, choreographed by Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung, are well done; some of them are actually kind of cool. The problem with The Touch is the writing. The characters are not interesting. It's all so plain, so vanilla. So what?

Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: mrblue
Date: 09/27/2005

One of the more hotly anticipated movies of 2002, The Touch is disappointing because it turns out to be so average. It's hard to point out exactly what's wrong with the movie, but ultimately, it might be the fact that The Touch tries so hard to compete with Hollywood movies that it ends up becoming too much like one. There's little of the spark or inventiveness which characterize the better ranks of Hong Kong movies.

In The Touch, Michelle Yeoh (who also helped to produce the film along with her boyfriend Thomas Chung) plays a circus performer who goes on a quest for a mystical Buddhist artifact after a man from her past (Ben Chaplin) comes back into her life. This might have the makings of a good movie, especially since the script thankfully shows a coherence in its' plot, but the dialogue is stiff and cliched. Even though a great majority of the cast are gweilos, for once, it's not the acting (or the fact that everyone is talking in English) which makes them look bad. It's just that what they're saying sounds like it came from a TV movie.

Now, I know what you might be thinking -- that the action might save the day. Sadly, even though The Touch features a top star, a solid choreographer (Philip Kwok) and a large budget, its' action is fairly anemic. In fact, out of the whole movie, there are really only three action sequences. The first is Michelle's circus act, which looks nice, but isn't as exciting as your average showing of Cirque De Soleil. Next, we have a fight sequence in the middle, which is good, but much too short. The finale takes place in a cave which is on fire and the heroes and villains battle on top of pillars, which sounds exciting, but is marred by some of the worst CGI I have seen in a movie. Overall, the action in The Touch doesn't even come close to even Yeoh's more "minor" films from the late 1980's.

Things are not all bad. The film (besides the CGI) looks very good for the most part; in fact, there are several shots which are really very impressive for any movie, regardless of their country of origin. Some of the leads manage to pull out some good performances; though I will admit being predisposed towards always liking Michelle Yeoh, her young "protoge" Brandon Chang managed to impress me a bit (at the least, he's better than the majority of the teenyboppers stinking up HK movie screens nowadays). It's just that there is really nothing great about The Touch in any way. It's by-the-numbers film-making all the way. If Hong Kong truly wants to compete with Hollywood-produced product, they should get back to the things that made them great, instead of trying to beat Hollywood at their own game and becoming bland in the process.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]


Reviewed by: cpardo
Date: 07/14/2005
Summary: Overblown but watchable

I dunno, with the circus troupe and Indiana Jones type storyline, I kind of liked The Touch. I does feel like a more Westernized production with all English dialogue, and I'm surprised it hasn't even shown up on video in the states yet. It's not that bad. Yes the CGI is overdone, and the effects, sets and backgrounds drown out the actors. the fight scenes weren't the best, but I enjoyed them. The film definitely has a good look, and they meant well I think. In the end not everything came together. Perhaps they should've concentrated on "The Touch" rather than anything else. Just a thought.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy
Date: 09/18/2004
Summary: A waste of time

Oh what happened, a seemingly good plot and a good villians leads to a very poor last 20 minutes. The CGI is overdone and the action scenes are wasted on this movie. A little comedy thank goodness is about the only thing i can recommend of this movie, i was bored!!

2.5/10


Reviewed by: ksbutterbox
Date: 02/15/2004
Summary: Booth is right..

I was initially let down by this when
I got a copy back in 2002.
It sat on the shelf for awhile and
I decided to watch it again.
It really isn't that bad and hope
people don't slam Michelle too much
for Silver Hawk (all though it seems
like they are already).
Anyway, the Touch is a good date movie
at least. And "Enter the Bob" is a
great line.


Reviewed by: MrBooth
Date: 01/13/2003
Summary: Much better than I was led to expect

The Touch is Michelle Yeoh's first movie as producer, executive producer and writer (as well as star), and the first movie from her new production company. Now Michelle Yeoh is a smart and sensible woman (and she can kick ass with the best), so expectations for this big budget production with Peter Pau in the director's chair were naturally high - certainly I had high hopes for it. That changed when it came out and it seemed to be universally acclaimed a major disappointment. I almost decided to pass it over completely, but you know sometimes you have to see a certain movie even if you know it's going to be bad, 'cause it's still a 'significant' or 'important' film in some sense.

Thanks to all the negative press, my expectations for the movie were much lower when I sat down to watch it. I mean, we're talking the kind of expectations that make The Blacksheep Affair look like a good film... so it's not really a surprise that I found myself enjoying The Touch. But I mean I found myself *really* enjoying it. A lot!

First with the bad, the reasons people were presumably disappointed. There are some very cheesy moments in places, moments and lines that feel too artificially inserted, too 'script'. There's some bad acting in places - some from the bad guy's goons but most notably from Brandon Chang, who plays Michelle's younger brother (his girlfriend was pretty bad too, but she didn't have as much chance to show it). And most notably there are some really terrible special effects in the final climax - about 15 years out of date

But then with the good! First surprise, it's really funny! Most of the humour comes from the guest Gwei Los Ben Chaplin and Richard Roxburgh, both of whom have really good characters and some brilliant lines. They also break a long tradition of white actors in HK films by being really good, and not at all annoying. Richard Roxburgh's villain in particular is a charismatic classic. Then there's the story, which is all quite cheesy but reasonably involved and well developed. It's a good old fashioned adventure yarn. And then there's the production values... especially the great sets and locations filmed beautifully by Peter Pau. The soundtrack is really good too, though it sounds very Hollywood (I'm not normally a fan of Hollywood's overblown and generally forgettable soundtracks, but I like this one).

It must be said that The Touch does in many ways feel more like a Hollywood movie than a Hong Kong movie - the fact that it is 95% filmed in English undoubtedly being part of it. Hong Kong film makers normally fail miserably when they attempt to make a Hollywood style movie, but I think that this case represents a near success. If it weren't for those dreadful special effects I think it would have a very good chance of competing on the Hollywood distribution circuits. And I believe the production company have taken the unusual step of hiring a different firm (the normally excellent Centro) to completely redo the special effects for a US release. This may be one case where the US version of a HK movie actually improves on the original.

One thing that is expected of a Hong Kong movie starring Michelle Yeoh is obviously a high calibre of action. This is perhaps where the movie disappoints, as there isn't as much action in the film as I expect most viewers would have liked. There are a couple of fight scenes that show off Michelle's skills well, but Philip Kwok's choreography isn't all that exciting unfortunately. Not bad, but not up to the standard of Michelle's fights in Royal Warriors, for example. Especially disappointing is the final climax, which should have been a raw bone crunching showcase of martial arts prowess but is in fact a limp showcase of terrible CGI. Bad call to go the special effects route, Michelle!

If I hadn't had my expectations lowered by those who saw the movie before me, I guess there's a fair chance I'd have ended up disappointed in The Touch too. Because I wasn't expecting too much I found much more to enjoy than I bargained for. In fact, I'd say I enjoyed the movie more than any other 2002 Hong Kong movie I can think of (not saying much admittedly, since 2002 was a terrible year for HK movies). It's a movie I will happily watch again (though I'll wait for the US release perhaps) and have no hesitation recommending to others.


Reviewed by: magic-8
Date: 01/13/2003
Summary: Touched

Riding the popularity of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Michelle Yeoh's follow up is in Peter Pau's "The Touch." Pau is more widely known as a cinematographer for such movies as "The Killer" and "Dracula 2000." "The Touch" is Pau's second directing effort since "Misty" in 1992. "The Touch" is basically about a religious artifact that is stolen by Ben Chaplin and sought after by Richard Roxburgh, in the attempt to use the artifact's power for his own benefit. Chaplin seeks out Michelle's help because they were once a couple. Throw in some Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/Wisely motifs and you have the gist of the film.

From the very beginning you can tell that Pau is uncomfortable as the director. Although scenes look nicely framed and composed, the actors are left to their own devices. Every cast member ends up over-emoting and chewing the scenery. Not one of the actors comes off as believable or convincing. Michelle Yeoh's charisma, along with the quick pacing, keeps the viewer's attention, at least.

Live action set pieces are increasingly being replaced by computer-generated images (GCI), and "The Touch" is no exception. The CGI doesn't show off Philip Kwok's choreography. Instead the choreography is made laughable in the attempt at compiling actors and CGI sequences. We are left to critique the silly looking effects more than get caught up in the action.

Overall, the plot and the associated action are things seen before in countless other movies, and mostly B-movies at that. The overacting and the amateurish directing don't help to raise the level of this film above a Saturday matinee. Although the filmmakers aimed for the stars and had grand ambitions, they end up making a lackluster movie.