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Review
by Kozo: |
It's
about time Benny Chan made another movie. The director
of such entertaining action spectacles as Big Bullet,
Who Am I? and Gen-X Cops could never be
confused with one of those internationally-renowned
filmmakers, but his more recent films have been entertaining
and better-than-average commercial movies. Story has
usually been on the light side, but likable performers,
good pacing, and great action have usually made Chan's
films better than those of his contemporaries (i.e.,
Stanley Tong of China Strike Force shame). Heroic
Duo, an action-thriller starring Leon Lai and Ekin
Cheng, looks to continue Chan's streak, but confidence
could be low. Lest we forget, Benny Chan's last film
was Gen-Y Cops.
Ekin Cheng is Officer
Ken, a hard-assed cop whose rough manners and brusque
attitude apparently make him the undisputed king of
the police force. When a model officer is caught committing
a crime in the station, Ken is assigned to figure out
why, except there's no apparent motive, and the perpetrator
doesn't even have any memory of his wrongdoings. However,
something is nagging at him enough for him to off himself,
which leads Ken to the logical (?) next step: Jack Lai,
renowned practitioner of "pyschogenesis,"
a hyponitizing technique based on discovering a person's
secret pain, and using that as the key to making them
do whatever you want. While the details are fuzzy, apparently
Jack's hypnotic powers were an awesome force, which
he used years ago to help the cops take down the bad
guys. However, Jack is currently serving a 15-year prison
term for manslaughter for mysteriously gunning down
a man in his own apartment. If Jack is going to help
Ken, he needs a minor furlough.
Which is what happens.
Ken gets Jack out of jail to help him find the "Mindhunter,"
a reputed criminal hypnotist. The chase has varied results,
but the time Jack spends with Ken gives him ample opportunity
to spout pages of psychobabble, as well as act really
cool by breaking out of cop custody (via hypnotism,
natch) and then show up to make Ken's underlings
(Universe pop boys du jour Rico Kwok and Anson
Leung) look bad. If attitude
were a crime, Jack Lai would have gotten a life sentence,
but his rogue ways are apparently not enough for someone
to put him under serious lockdown. Ken brings Jack with
him to stakeout an auction where two valuable jewels
(which double as the "eyes" of an Egyptian
pharoah bust) are the supposed targets. However, everything
goes wrong: the jewels get stolen, Jack escapes, and
Ken is apparently fingered for everything. He goes on
the run, the cops (led by the hilariously smarmy Raymond
Wong Ho-Yin) go on the offensive, and Ken's long-suffering
girlfriend, fellow cop Brenda (Karena Lam), gets all
misty over Ken's newfound fugitive status. Meanwhile,
real villain Hoi (Francis Ng) cackles in the background.
The hows and whys of Heroic
Duo are tied up in some seriously wacky psychobabble
that likely has the same scientific basis as flying
pigs. Aside from using a person's secret pain to cue
some mind control, Jack also preaches a specific form
of self-hypnotism that can only be described as "the
power of positive thinking." Jack's abilities to
escape handcuffs Harry Houdini-like are attributed to
a personal mantra where he tells himself that he can
do exactly what he wants, when he wants to. Such techniques
would likely earn him big bucks on the infomercial circuit,
but he's content to dispense them to Ken while the two
are being chauffeured around by Ken's team. Besides
being necessary exposition, his psychological teachings
also turn out to be tools for Ken to discover the true
perpetrators of the crime. Though they're initially
and seemingly opposed, Ken and Jack will become allies
in the fight for justice thanks to amazing pseudo-telepathic
abilities created by some quick "you too can hypnotize"
sessions in the backseat of a police cruiser. This is
how all crimes should be solved: rogue cops using self-hypnotism
and psychological prodding to get the bad guys AND save
their relationships. If Ekin Cheng suddenly took off
and flew to the moon, it would only be slightly more
silly.
Knocking Heroic Duo for its wacky ways is easy—in fact, it's probably
too easy. Screenwriting has long been a Hong Kong Cinema
problem, and the manufactured and patently ridiculous
story cooked up by writers Alan Yuen and Adrian Kwan
is rife with too-easy connections and unbelievable explanations
which can't even qualify as science fiction. It's nice
that Hong Kong has managed to deliver the season's second
cop action thriller (Wong Jing's surprisingly good Colour
of the Truth being the first), but would it have
killed them to write a story that wasn't completely
out of touch with reality? Thankfully, Benny Chan is
there to save (?) the day. Despite the ridiculousness
of everything, the film's narrative pushes forward with
enough momentum to interest and entertain. Heroic
Duo unfolds smartly thanks to good pacing and snappy
direction by Chan, and even though the explanations
are canned, the storytelling is appreciable enough to
work.
The action and actors
help too. Long underrated Stephen Tung Wai gives the
action and stuntwork quick-hitting energy, and Ekin
Cheng manages the brief fight sequences with the requisite
physicality. It's probably hard to imagine Cheng as
a hardass cop type, but seeing him glower, shout, and
throw people into walls manages to be entertaining.
However, Leon Lai surpasses
(!) Cheng with an amusingly
charismatic performance. As Jack, Lai struts around
like some ultra-superior cool guy, which isn't far removed
from what his character requires. Jack basically can
control almost anyone he wants thanks to his wacky hypnotic
powers, and Lai gives the character enough casual gravity
to make him a decent cinematic hero. Francis Ng is no
stranger to bad guys, and is amusingly hate-worthy,
and Karena Lam is photogenic and sincere with her emotions.
In fact, she might be a little too sincere. Her character
comes off as deeply hurt and emotionally wounded, which
is probably a little too much for popcorn fluff like
this. It's nice that she tried, but she might have tried
too much.
Then again, that observation
could apply to the film as a whole. The filmmakers seem
to have worked overtime to add weight to their film—except
the burden seems unnecessary and even damaging. The
silly premise might have been more digestible had they
given the film more of a sense of humor. As it is, the
only humorous bits are some occasionally funny staging
and Lai's droll, too-cool performance. Benny Chan moves
things along briskly enough that fun can be had, but
it almost seems to be in spite of the script. And, any
playfullness the filmmakers were leaning towards is
eventually cancelled out by the jaw-dropping cheesiness
of the film's climax. It would have been nice for a
few well-placed kicks or a decent car chase to top things
off, but Heroic Duo goes psycho-syrupy in a way
that can only be decribed as Spielbergian. Making L-O-V-E
the magical antidote to the world's problems—or
the solution to the theft of a couple of jewels—is
the cinematic equivalent of duct tape. It's a quick,
easy fix to a bigger problem, and when you look at the
final result, it ain't very pretty. Ultimately, Heroic
Duo can be fun along the way, but the end result
is not something to get too excited about. (Kozo 2003) |
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