Ok, time for a brief vacay, but before I go, here’s our film for this month: Dante Lam’s Beast Stalker.
Now, if you watch Hong Kong film, you know that kids are not safe. Anything is liable to happen to them, so you won’t be surprised by the first few sequences of the film. However, I am glad to see, for once, a smart child in a film. None of that whining, or worst of all, doing obviously bad things that just make your bad situation worse.
But, Nick Cheung steals the show. You have to understand, the first film I saw Nick Cheung in was Andrew Lau’s The Duel, where he did a really good job of acting the fool, which is what his role called for. So it’s not without a little bit of pride that I watched his performance in Beast Stalker. It represents his steady rise, with Election and Election 2 as well as Exiled to his credit (we won’t talk about My Wife is a Gambling Maestro–let’s pretend it doesn’t exist, shall we?) And it highlights one of the great things about Asian film in general, namely, the complexity of the villain. Yeah, we know that Nick’s character has a certain moral bankruptcy, but has he really lost all of his humanity? Really? Are you sure? You know you’ve done a good job when I’m a little afraid of you by the end of the film. I’m little afraid of Nick–he’s not the person I’d like to see lurking in the shadows under any circumstances. The same thing happened when I watched Sha Po Lang: I’m a little afraid of Sammo Hung now. And while I could make some comments about Nicholas Tse’s performance (later post on my luv affair with him, really, I’ve watched practically everything he’s been in, I really really like him!), I wasn’t mad at him in this film either. Plus, this film has several good lessons, including watching out for the elderly if you are trying to commit a crime in your apartment.
Overall, I generally like that gritty, urban cop thing that Dante Lam does, so I’m pretty satisfied. Interest piqued? Watch the film and let’s discuss!
High Yellow - Asian Popular Culture 