The Peeping
Director: Marco Mak
Year: 2002
Rating: 5.5
Hong Kong is of course
famous for its fight choreographers, but sadly the plight of the “hidden
breast” choreographer is not nearly as well known. They ply their craft almost
in the shadows with little mention – no lifetime tributes – no film awards
– only the satisfaction of a job well done. One can only guess at what training
had to take place to reach their position – hours of studying shapes, movement
and camera angles – beginning perhaps as an eager trainee and over the course
of countless Cat. III films they slowly learn just the right position to
have the body in, the use of flower vases at critical moments and how to
casually have everything covered but still revealing just enough to leave
the audience titillated and hoping for more. Regrettably, no credit is given
to the “hidden breast” sifu of this production, but in many ways he is the
star of this film as he manages to keep all the vital bits covered in some
highly intricate and quick moving sexual situations. That he manages to do
so even with a frantic female coupling is simply a testament to his great
skills and I say hooray to such sensitivity and for not pandering to cheap
thrills. Damn him to hell!
Whenever a Hong Kong mainstream actress decides that it is a good career
move to reveal her assets along with her talents it invariably receives a
lot of press attention – as is of course the point. This was true when Loletta
Lee went the Cat. III route in the early 1990’s, when the innocent Irene
Wan bared it in All of a Sudden in 1996 and even recently when the not so
innocent Sophie Ngan showed her eye popping charms in Naked Poison. This
time the hubbub revolved around Teresa Mak a reasonably popular actress since
the mid-90s and probably best known for her shaven headed punk character
in Streets of Fury. So when a friend who has a popular Hong Kong website
(but will remain nameless) wrote me to see whether I had seen The Peeping
and I replied “what on earth for”, his simple and convincing answer was “Teresa
Mak is suppose to be naked in it”. Well it doesn’t take much motivation to
get me to go to Chinatown and this was certainly enough.
So the question that no doubt inquiring minds want to know immediately is
whether Teresa Mak does indeed reveal her two rather voluminous points. Well
yes and no. She certainly spends a large percentage of the film in a chilly
state of disrepute but our master sifu magically uses every trick he has
learned to keep the important parts ever so slightly and frustratingly covered.
A hand, an ear, a shadow, a sudden turn or twist of the body always manages
to beat the camera to the punch and leaves the viewer thinking – maybe the
next shot – but oh no – our sifu never lets down his guard. Not only for
Teresa does he perform this arduous duty but for the other two occasionally
unclad actresses (Grace Lam and Jenny Yam) as well. For a film that has more
sex scenes than a night at Bob Guccione’s it is really rather odd that they
play it so coy, but coy it is.
The film has all the track marks of an American straight to cable production
and it seems to me that in fact a number of films with a similar plot and
usually starring the likes of Shannon Tweed or Tanya Roberts were just that
in the early 90s. Daniel Wu is a Hong Kong snoop – professionally that is
– he and his assistant Samuel Leung are hired to spy on spouses suspected
of doing their partners wrong. This is accomplished by placing tiny cameras
throughout the house and capturing it all on celluloid. Daniel likes sticking
to the dirty but safe business of divorces, but one day a mysterious woman
(Grace Lam) makes him an offer he can’t say no to – a million HK$ to spy
on a woman in Taiwan and get the goods on her. It turns out that she (Teresa)
is a Taiwanese legislator who enjoys throwing kinky parties, rolling into
bed with lovely women and asking strangers “Is there a problem with your
dick?” No doubt just your average female politician in Taiwan.
Wu soon has enough material to open a video store on 42nd Street, but instead
he begins to fall in love with his clandestine subject and wants to protect
her – don’t ask me why – maybe she reminded him of his second grade teacher
or maybe he just wanted to be in the middle of the next intimate tete-e-tete
between Grace and Teresa. Not that you could tell with Wu – he has the personality
and chemistry here of a wilted vegetable – even with Jenny and Teresa thrusting
their hidden breasts against him he looks like he would rather be in health
store eating yogurt. Director Marco Mak just doesn’t bring much to the table
here but empty promises and the film is a letdown from his The Blood Rules
and A Gambler’s Story.
