Moonlight Express
Director: Daniel Lee
Year: 1999
Rating: 6.5
The film begins with a proposal of marriage in
Japan by a Japanese hotel manager, Tatsuya – played by Leslie Cheung – to
Takako Tokiwa. Only a few scenes later, Tatsuya dies in a car crash (by my
pet peeve – using cellular phones in a car!). They had been planning to live
in HK and he had promised her dinner on the Peak. To complete the circle
of her grief, she goes to Hong Kong and in a scene only in the movies - bumps
into Karbo who is an exact double of her dead fiancé. Obviously, Leslie
also plays this character. In a bow to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Takako tries
to turn Karbo into Tatsuya and have him pretend to be him for one day. This
part of the film plays out like one of those Japanese soaps – lots of annoying
pop music and close ups of a misty eyed Takako. She does a nice cry I will
admit.
Karbo though has other problems on his
mind. It turns out that he is an undercover cop on the verge of a big drug
bust. Everything goes wrong though and he is soon on the run suspected of
stealing the drugs. He needs a place to hide out and for some reason takes
Takako with him. They trek out of Hong Kong to a small restaurant/horse ranch
to see an old friend. The friend turns around and it is the very lovely countenance
of Michelle Yeoh. As a favor to a friend, she took on this small role (10
minutes on screen) and asked not to be included in the publicity campaign.
After spending over an hour with the lovely,
sweet but very girlish Takako, my reaction was “now this is the difference
between a girl and a woman”. Michelle looks terrific and says more about
her character with a few far away looks and winsome smiles than Takako does
in the whole film. She brings a gravity to the film that was missing.
All in all this is not a bad film – the
love story was a bit slow at times – the undercover part is quite interesting
and it has excellent production values. But as I said above it is ultimately
phony because of too many coincidences and unbelievable behavior by the characters
at times. I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t like Tarako either. I did
– she is very lovely (a slight resemblance I thought to Cynthia Khan) – but
I never really buy her character’s motivations. Going after someone that
looks like your dead boyfriend is an act of sick obsession (which Stewart
gets down perfectly in Vertigo), but she never delves into that dark area
of the psyche. In the film also are Jack Kao, Austin Wai, Sam Lee, Jimmy
Wong and Mars. Directed by Daniel Lee (Black Mask).
