Gorgeous
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Movie Reviews of Gorgeous
Movie Review: Get it right people.
Summary: 5 Stars
Great everything... But, C.N.'s rival is not his childhood friend. It is his brother.Movie Review: "Don't just stand there wearing white!"
Summary: 4 Stars
GORGEOUS is a change of pace for Jackie Chan. Oh, this one still boasts your basically incredible martial arts sequences, but, really, this film marks Jackie Chan's foray into romantic comedy territory. And, despite that Jackie doesn't seem to have the acting range to pull off this type of leading man role, the other elements in this picture lift it into something I find quite entertaining.
The plot revolves around a young starry-eyed village girl named Bu (Qi Shu), who finds a message in a bottle and flies to Hong Kong to meet the message's author. In Hong Kong Bu meets and falls for C.N. (Jackie Chan), a wealthy, lonely playboy businessman heading up a trash recycling empire. But as Bu and C.N. become close, their fledgling romance is interrupted by C.N.'s lifelong rival, who persists in sending his clumsy thugs after C.N.
Whether you like GORGEOUS or not will hinge on how you feel about the lead actress, Qi Shu, as this film is as much a showcase for her as it is for Jackie Chan. My feeling on this is that Qi Shu wafts in like a breath of fresh air and is instantly captivating. There's an infectious exuberance about her, and a certain naturalness. I could watch her expressive face all day long. She definitely sets the mood of this film, which is mostly bright and whimsical and sweet. Wonderful actor Tony Leung also deserves his propers, as his gay fashion shutterbug provides a good share of the funnies (I couldn't help cracking up at his elevator scene with Jackie). In fact, some of the best moments happen when Leung and Qi Shu are playfully sharing the screen.
Jackie Chan is never better than when he's performing his breathtaking stunts and acrobatics. Let's face it, dude's strength isn't in delivering lines. I'll say this, though, I've never seen Jackie so wistful and low-key than in this role, and he manages to tone down his usual mugging. Jackie has stated publicly that the character of C.N. is like him in many ways (both are clean-living, keep fit, like to wear white outfits, are environmentally aware). Sadly, though, this doesn't translate into an adept acting performance. As a romantic leading man, yeah, he's pretty wooden. Perhaps aware of this lack, Jackie makes sure that Qi Shu and Leung get plenty of camera time.
Thankfully for Jackie, he does engage in several lighthearted scuffles (although not as many as we'd like). Jackie, as ever, is amazingly inventive and agile with his choreography. This time, he uses baseball bats, a boat, and a motorbike as supporting characters in his fight scenes. His opponent in two of these brawls is the tiny dynamo Bradley James Allan, who in real life happens to be the first ever non-Asian member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. In GORGEOUS, he plays martial artist "Allan," hired by C.N.'s rival to beat up C.N. and partly because his shorter stature would make C.N.'s defeat even more ignominious. As several persons have remarked, it's refreshing that Jackie and Allan's combat is marked with mutual respect and a spirit of competition. It reminds me a little of Return of the Dragon, of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris's classic colosseum fight to the death. The only downside to Jackie and Allan's two otherwise excellent fights is that the camera was sped up in spots.
Again, GORGEOUS isn't your typical Jackie Chan martial-arts action-comedy. It's more sedate in its pacing and, would you believe, more character driven. Some fans won't dig it, won't like the more contemplative Jackie Chan on screen and that it's not more action-oriented. But I like GORGEOUS a lot. Jackie Chan tried to change up his style, and, even if he wasn't completely successful, I'm still glad he had the guts to experiment and branch out. I say, check out this flick. You might even develop a craving for Chinese pot rice.
Movie Review: Getting to Gorgeous
Summary: 4 Stars
What a delightful 99 minutes! If you can come to Jackie Chan with an open mind, not expecting the same ol', same ol', then you will be see something new. Gorgeous, even.
The story revolves around an old legend of the reuniting, after their deaths, of man and woman in the deep as dolpins. The story passes on to the female lead, Shu Qi as Bu, whose name means dolphin, making her a living legend. When her dolphin friend Abu brings her a bottle with a message, she believes her destined love has sent for her. She leaves Taiwan for Hong Kong and (in that huge, giant city) finds the sender who is actually a handsome...gay man. They become fast friends.
One thing leads to another and Bu saves C.N. Chan (Jackie Chan), who is a millionaire playboy. They are charmed by and with each other. A romance begins, not by today's standards when romance means meet, have sex, maybe get to know each other, then go separate ways. Their romance is truly charming and innocent, as in bygone days. When Jackie's character shows great respect and humility at the end, the viewer knows what the outcome is.
Oh yes, the fight scenes. Apparently, martial arts fans come to this movie expecting more. The fight scenes also show restraint and respect and even laugh out loud humor. Frankly, I was reminded of the hilarious fight scenes of the first half of "Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior." How much slapstick humor could be incorporated into the sequences and for the fighting to show no blood or even breaks in skin? That is what the viewer gets here. The music behind the fighting is also different--a more playful sound, including Chinese drums.
The best fights are between Jackie and an American, both respectful and considerate of each other. This type of fighting was pleasant to watch--seeing great talent and control to best each other without that wretched drive to kill and destroy. One reviewer indicated the use of wires and speeding the recording of the fighting. Is that done here?
Even though I really enjoyed this film, I must state what I saw as a shortcoming. Jackie and his supposed school-time buddy are nowhere near the same age. Shu Qi is much too young to play his love interest. I was a bit embarrassed for him. Is Jackie, like the rest of us, having a hard time dealing with his age?
Even so, the film has its gorgeous points: Bu's purity and self-confidence, the honesty of the fights, Jackie's change of heart, the wardrobes of the gay men, and, of course, the beauty of the dolphins and the legend surrounding them.
Movie Review: A really good Jackie chan movie, but a flawed release
Summary: 4 Stars
I'll start off by saying that the movie is definetly worth watching even though i was disturbed by this release. Just know this, the film was edited. I'll explain further down.What was i happy with? The widescreen enhanced picture quality is excellent since this movie was made so recently. Older jackie films tend to have that deteriorated hong kong film look. Sound is also very good with full 5.1 surround.
Well now for the problems. First of all, jackie isn't in the dub.. so the dub is only worth experiencing if your blind and don't understand chinese. Luckily they did include the cantonese track so you can experience the film the way it was intended. Jackies real voice just sounds right, and the girls bubble head character doesn't come through on the dub correctly. The dub voice acting is just bad. Its like dubbing meg ryans voice into chinese, you lose the certain quality that makes things work. The dub also is inaccurate as they seem to rewrite or omit information(i understand chinese). The subtitles have also been changed in this release to better match the english dub.. so they too are inaccurate. Basically you miss out on some jokes and get a slightly different impression of the film.
Another thing no one seems to have noticed is the film has been cut. I've watched the original film and there are atleast 3 scenes missing. You get a glimps of one or two in the making of featurette, but they appear no where else on this release. (also notice the featurette clip subtitles are the accurate version) These missing scenes were essential for making the plot more plausible.. but were probably cut for time. I guess the studio didn't think americans have much of an attention span or stomach for subtitles.
I read one review which said that the girls decision to go to hk was odd.. Its less odd in the original cut where there are scenes of her pondering over her decision a little more.. and recieving a sign from dolphins that she should go:P
Columbia/tri-star is going in the right direction with this release. Very good picture/sound, inclusion of the foreign language track, and special features. They should have also included atleast the choice of the original subtitles, and original cut of the movie. I hope in their next release they will continue to move in the right direction :)
Movie Review: Charming, romantic, fun
Summary: 4 Stars
Gorgeous is a modern fairy-tale that blends traditional romance-comedy themes with Jackie Chan's trademark sense of action. A teenage country girl finds a romantic message in a bottle and travels to Hong Kong to find its sender. Though that doesn't exactly work out like planned, she does meet Chan's character, a millionarie industrialist. As the two get to know each other, a business rival plots to humiliate Chan by pitting him against an American fighter.
This love story works quite well, thanks to the strengths of its leads. Shu Qi's cuteness, spunky personality and exaggerated facial expressions set the movie's tone, while it's nice to see the always-loveable Jackie Chan play a different role (though really, Jackie Chan plays Jackie Chan in all the movies he does). It's not a revolutionary plot, and a few scenes could have been better executed (the obligatory 'break-up' before the happy ending is rather weak), but on the whole the mushy side of me ate it up. Jackie Chan does romance quite well.
There are also some fight sequences sprinkled here and there; two are classic Jackie Chan where he uses the environment against his opponents, and the other two are showcase-quality fights against Bradley James Allan, a member of Jackie's own stunt team. These fights, well-executed that they are, feel tacked-on to the movie. It's like someone was afraid fans wouldn't respond well to a Jackie Chan movie without fights, and so contrived a few for the heck of it. In keeping with the movie's lighthearted tone, the bad guys arent really evil, and the fights are either cartoonish or done in a manner where the combatants show respect to each other. It's a nice variation.
Gorgeous really won me over. The dvd loses a star for not including the uncut version, though it includes a Jackie Chan commentary that the Hong Kong version doesn't. Great date movie that has something for guys and girls, and worth seeing for anyone curious about a 'Jackie Chan romance'.