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Review
by Kozo: |
If there’s a person left in HK who remembers how to make “authentic”
HK Cinema, it’s director Clarence Fok. Her Name is Cat
is a hyperstylized, hyperemotional action thriller that serves
up blazing guns and furious fighting in equal doses, all the while
dishing out an outlandish plot.
Amazonian Almen Wong is Yin Ying, a mainland
assassin who works out relentlessly. After she takes out a few
mob bosses, she finds herself under investigation by hard-boiled
cop John Cannon (Michael Wong, in a near-parody of his other hard-boiled
cop roles). The two begin a strange courtship where they investigate
each others lives in the most blatant Chungking Express
rip-off ever. Wong Jing (who wrote and produced) must have gone
gunning for archenemy Wong Kar-Wai, because he uses his techniques
like handheld camera, jump cuts, and self-conscious voice-over
in an almost egregious way.
However, unlike those [better] films,
there really isn’t that much character to develop here. Yin Ying
and John Cannon are composed of clichés, not real stuff that fleshes
a character out. Their relationship is even worse; almost zero
suspense exists in what’s going to happen between these two. Meanwhile,
Yin Ying’s employers and the cops eventually go after her. There’s
really only one way this can end: sadly.
Overall this film is sloppy and overdone,
with monster plot holes that could swallow that asteroid from
Armageddon. Clarence Fok’s direction nearly saves this
ridiculous picture, but he goes so overboard that it enters the
realm of silliness. As soon as someone gets impaled by a cross,
you know what you’re in for. It’s hard to find anything to connect
to in such a manufactured piece of trash, but this is stylized
trash, baby! Not to be indiscriminating, but it’s nostalgic to
see something that channels what we used to love about HK Cinema.
As she showed in The Group, Almen
Wong has a good fighting female presence, more than making up
for Michael Wong’s stiffest acting in years. This is trashy entertainment,
but not spectacular trash like Cheap Killers, which is
hyper-emotional HK trash par excellence. By the way, Clarence
Fok directed that, too. (Kozo 1998)
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