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 ere's the odd thing: most of Christy Chung's co-stars
record their dialogue using sync sound, but only Chung's dialogue is entirely
dubbed from beginning to end! It would be interesting to find out why this is
the case. I've seen Chung in numerous non-Chinese films, like the Thai movie
"Jan Dara",
so maybe the reason why all her lines are dubbed is because her Chinese wasn't
up to par? For that matter, I'm not even sure if Chung dubs the lines herself,
since her dialogue seems to be all over the place and never matches up
with her lips. Was she even in the same room with the video footage when she did
the dubbing? And yes, this little idle thought is pretty much the only thing
that kept me interested during this 90-minute TV pilot.
Here's the other thing about "Asian Charlie's
Angels": I can't tell the other two angels apart! I know that Christy Chung
plays Angie, a reporter who gets mixed up with a serial killer targeting
successful women, but there are two other women and they both have Chinese names
in the movie. And since I only have IMDB.com to go by (which, I have to say, I'm
slowly but surely losing faith in, having been mislead by the site on numerous
occasions just this year alone), I'm not quite sure who plays the other two
angels. It doesn't help that both women look very much alike, not to mention
having the same build and hairstyle. I do know that one seems to like banging
randomly on the keyboard (er, computer typing), while the other one seems to be
a tad ditzy, although she did beat up a bunch of guys in an elevator and giggled
about it.
With a serial killer on the loose, the Asian Charlie (some
guy on a TV monitor with his face blurred out) calls his two girls in to work
the case. They team up with reporter Angie, although reluctantly at first. The
killer, it turns out, is a food critic who is also in love with Angie. And oh
yeah, he cooks every chance he gets. Even when he's talking on the phone. What?
Just go with it. Considering the Hong Kong film industry's propensity for
thievery, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that "Asian Charlie's
Angels" has no formal association with the American show from which it is
obviously adapted. By pilot's end, Angie has joined Charlie's private
investigation team to make the threesome official.
The pilot was shown in 2001, and I don't know if a series
ever manifested itself. If you haven't realized it by now, "Asian Charlie's
Angels" is bad. Not just bad, but corny and, well, just really bad. Even
Chubby, the Hong Kong version of Bosley, doesn't do much except take up space.
(He's also fat, if his nickname didn't give it away already.) The show opens
with the type of montage that the original TV show was known for (which was
later aped by the feature length film version in 2000), and then the same exact
scenes are later re-used. The pilot is actually stitched together from two
45-minute episodes. Most of the second episode is spent with the angels
investigating a shady fashion designer and his psychotic secretary. Another
amusing thing about the pilot is seeing how much crazier the actress playing the
secretary can get.
The action here is of the poorly staged variety. Meaning
that the director instructs the actors (usually the 3 female leads) to pose with
their fist against someone's face, then zoom in for a close-up, shoot the scene,
and then repeat the process with another of the ladies' body part against
another body part of the victims. There's even a ridiculous scene where two of
the angels, dressed in all-black commando bodysuits (re: stunt doubles), invade
a house and bug it. The rest consists of a lot of flashing skin, but nothing of
note. The murders are also quite tame. (This is TV after all.)
"Asian Charlie's Angels" is a terrible pilot.
It's also not much to look at. I believe the entire thing was shot with a
high-end Super VHS (or something similar). And again, the sound is atrocious
throughout. I don't think there was a single time that Chung's dialogue ever
synced up with her lips. Not once. Although I shouldn't really pick on her,
because the entire pilot is like that. Sometimes we get scenes where one
person's dialogue is sync, but the other person he/she is talking to has their
voice dubbed over. (If you're wondering, the sound is sync when the dialogue is
filled with echoes, because that's the background ambiance they can't filter
out.)
The whole idea behind the show and its execution are really
mystifying. But since "Asian Charlie's Angels" is as poor as TV pilots
get, the case of the mysterious dubbing is the only entertainment you'll liable
to find.
On the other hand, the three angels are definitely easy on
the eyes, even if they are less convincing than Barrymore et al in the
"let's pretend we can fight" department.
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