From Beijing with Love
Director: Lee Lik-chi/Stephen Chow
Year: 1994
Rating: 9.0/6.0
This is my favorite
Stephen Chow film. It is a very funny sophisticated and clever parody of
James Bond/spy films (including Bond like opening credits and a Q like person)
with Anita Yuen co-starring. There are lots of wonderful sight gags
but the movie also has some terrific action sequences. The man with the Golden
Gun has stolen a dinosaur skull from the Chinese mainland and in an early
cameo Yu Rong Guang fails to retrieve it. Chow is brought out of retirement
as a pork vendor and given the mission. His contact in Hong Kong is Anita,
but unknown to Chow her real intent is to kill him. Her attempts are worthy
of the Pink Panther. Pauline Chan and a Jaws like character are also trying
to kill him.
My favorite scene is after Chow gets shot
he instructs Anita to dig the bullet out with a hammer and screwdriver while
he anaesthetizes himself by watching a x-rated video. I also love the scene
when he is trying to impress Anita with his killing skills and it appears
that his knife throw attempt is way off the mark and she looks at him like
a loon - then later the camera zooms in and we see that he has nailed a fly
to the wall from 20 feet away.
My Rating: 9.0
Reviewed by YTSL
Maybe it IS a cultural thing. I also suspect
that the English sub-titles give us the gist but do not provide insight
into the Cantonese puns and other pieces of verbal humor that supposedly
are peppered throughout Stephen Chow's movies. All I know is that,
try as I might, I do not find those of his efforts which I've seen so far
to be as side-splittingly funny as others obviously do.
FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE is no exception to this "rule". To be sure,
there are a some choice scenes, moments and gags in this movie (I particularly
enjoyed the James Bond parody opening credits, Anita Yuen's efforts to kill
Stephen Chow and the grenade launcher's doing away of the kung fu master).
But in general, I found them to be few and far between...and too strangely
mixed with serious action, maudlin romantic moments and negative critiques
of Chinese communist state relations with its citizenry (the last of which
leads me to think that this -- lest we forget -- comedy would surely not have
been green-lighted if it were offered up as a project today).
Don't get me wrong: This is not a bad production. And even while
it is not my cup of tea, I do not rue spending money to rent the video.
However, this is definitely not a movie that I will be planning to watch again,
whose jokes I will be chuckling over for days to come, and -- rather damningly
-- which I would be all that inclined to recommend even though it's got one
of my favorite actresses(Anita Yuen, badly underused) in it.
My rating for this film: 6.
