Off Track
Director: Cha Cheun-yee
Year: 1991
Rating: 5.5
Men and their fast cars and the women who love
them. That pretty much summarizes this slightly frenzied and chaotic 1991
film that dishes out lots of melodrama and male bravado. I have to admit that
there are few things that bore me more than films about car racing – men’s
obsession about pushing speed to the edge and putting their lives on the
line just strikes me as silly and totally ego driven. Boys and their toys.
And of course even more annoying is the fact that they always have great
looking women in love with them, but usually ignore them like yesterdays take
out. One senses that revving their motors is a substitution for sex and no
more so than in this film where the men have to be practically dragged into
bed by their sexually frustrated girlfriends.
And we are talking here about the crème de la crème of girlfriends.
Loletta Lee and Ellen Chan in prime time. Two perfectly pouty bookends.
When they shared screen time my eyes danced the fandango – darting back and
forth like the fast footwork of a professional flamenco dancer - Loletta,
Ellen, Loletta, Ellen – putting them both in the same frame is a lovely but
cruel thing to do. Though they get stuck with the “girlfriend” role, both
are much more interesting than their male counterparts. The two schlubs they
love are Jacky Cheung and Max Mok who both have a constant petulant look
about them and seem to prefer squeezing up close to the steering wheel than
pressing up close to Ellen and Loletta - and so they certainly failed to
gain my sympathies.
Jacky is the dominant underground race driver (illegal racing through the
streets - also depicted in Legend of Speed and Thunderbolt) in Hong Kong,
but is challenged by Max Mok and their first race (which is done quite well
with great driving being performed) ends questionably with neither admitting
defeat. Loletta is Jacky’s sister, but as these films tend to go she
falls for the shy Max. Jacky is not pleased with this and has his men (Wong
Chi-yeung) beat Max to a bloody pulp, but after Loletta tends to his wounds
and lets him see her taking a shower (don’t get excited, we have to wait
a few more years for the same pleasure!) which gets him better in a hurry
they really fall in love. Meanwhile, Ellen keeps trying to get Jacky’s mind
off of cars and on to her but he keeps getting interrupted by phone calls
from his triad boss Lung Fong who wants him to run an errand such as picking
up drugs. One more big race is scheduled to see just who has the fastest
wheels in town. And all I really wanted to see was Loletta and Ellen having
a pout-off.
Something is constantly happening in this film as it moves quickly from set
piece to set piece and allows all the actors (including a number of the supporting
actors such as Wu Ma as the father of Jacky and Loletta) to have some nice
bite sized scenes to chew up. Still neither of the guys generated much interest
on my part and so it was difficult to appreciate the melodrama that surrounds
them – and after watching 90-minutes of women getting beaten up in Chicken
a La Queen the night before it was almost more than I could take to see Ellen
roughed up a few times.
