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 f Michelle Yeoh's starring vehicle "The Touch"
has parts of it that looks familiar, it's probably not because it shares more
than a few surface resemblances to the "Indiana Jones" movies as many
reviewers have pointed out. The fact is, the "Indiana Jones" movies
are only known to the older set, and it's guys like me who notice that "The
Touch" is based more on the Lara Croft "Tombraider"
videogames (and movie adaptation) and the TV series "Relic Hunter",
which was itself based on Tombraider. The question of homage vs. plagiarism
aside, "The Touch" concerns itself with Chinese myth and Buddhist
lore.
Headliner Michelle Yeoh stars as Yin Fei, the star acrobat
in a performance art troupe that puts on a show called "The Touch"
around the world. Yin has been running the troupe ever since her father passed
on; her father was so obsessed with an old Chinese legend that he patterned the
entire show after it. A former member of the troupe is Eric (Ben Chaplin), a
Caucasian street urchin who Yin's father took in when he was just a boy. Eric
has abandoned the troupe (as well as his lover Yin) a while back, and is now a
professional thief.
After getting involved in a theft involving a vital part of
the legend Yin's father was obsessed with (but not knowing it), Eric goes to Yin
for help, having stolen the artifact back from self-described megalomaniac Karl
(Richard Roxburgh). After a series of encounters, badly choreographed fights,
and a lot of supposed hilarity, Yin and Eric goes in search of Yin's younger brother Tong
(Brandon Chang) in the Chinese countryside, where the lad has fled along with
his girlfriend in an attempt to prove his father's obsession correct. Since Tong
also stole the artifacts necessary to locate the thingamajig everyone is after,
Karl pursues.
More Jackie Chan than Jet Li, "The Touch" seems
to be going for comedy first, action second. This makes sense, since the movie
handles its action scenes poorly. There are actually only two all-out action
sequences -- one near the beginning, when Yin invades Karl's estate to rescue
Eric, and later in the film, when everyone gathers for a final showdown inside a
cave filled with flaming arrows. The rest of the film is played for laughs,
although this is made somewhat awkward by the presence of two cold-blooded
murders. The first cold-blooded murder, when Karl executes one of his bumbling
men, is not nearly as cold-blooded as the second one, when one of Karl's
henchmen brutally stabs a Buddhist monk in the back.
If you factor out those two violent acts and the film's
final Third Act, which takes place on a soundstage that's supposed to be an
ancient cave filled with fire, "The Touch" could be classified as a
comedy. The writing by Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud, the duo responsible
for the excellent "Running
Out of Time", with help from J.D. Zeik ("Ronin"), is mostly
encumbered by Peter Pau's bad direction. Pau, a longtime cinematographer,
doesn't appear as if he has his act together because "The Touch" looks
sloppy and unimpressive.
For the most part the visuals are just barely serviceable,
which is not a good thing for a film of this budget and ambition. Even
top-billed Michelle Yeoh, who is usually a dependable performer in both martial
arts and drama, seems hindered by the film's lack of energy. I'm not sure who
choreographed the film, but the action scenes are not up to par with your
standard Hong Kong actioner. As a result, Yeoh doesn't flourish or shine like
she usually does, which is not a good thing when she's your big main box-office
draw. Written and shot entirely in English, "The Touch" was obviously
intended for the international audience.
On the other hand, if you were to approach "The
Touch" as a comedy, it does work -- somewhat. Co-star Ben Chaplin ("Murder
by Numbers") is in a second film where he plays second fiddle to a
strong leading lady, and Chaplin seems fine with the role. His Eric is mostly
incompetent, but very likeable. As the villain, Richard Roxburgh is neither very
exciting nor very menacing. As the intelligence-challenged brother Tong, Brandon
Chang mostly just walks around looking intelligence-challenged.
The bulk of the film's highlight comes from Roxburgh's
interaction with his idiot henchmen, who seems to never run out of dumb
questions to ask their boss. Of note is American comedian Dane Cook, known
mostly for his energetic and physical stand-up comedy. Cook plays Bob, one of
Karl's dumb henchmen; at one point in the movie, Bob utters the immortal line,
"It's time to Enter the Bob!" referring to, of course, the Bruce Lee
movie. Cook brings a lot of raw energy to the film, and it's too bad the movie
leaves him behind halfway through because his presence was sorely missed.
"The Touch" never worked as an action-adventure
film, which it was obviously going for. Peter Pau, a usually reliable
cinematographer, seems to have buckled under the stress of directing. Known
mostly for his work as the cinematographer on Ang Lee's "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Pau shows that he hasn't learned very much while
under
Lee's tutelage. Never as exciting or thrilling as it should or could have been,
"The Touch" does manage to be funny until its CGI-heavy finale, which
is just...dull.
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