2002, Hong Kong. Starring Michelle Yeoh, Ben Chaplin, Richard Roxburgh, Brandon Chang, Dane Cook, Winston Chao, Gabriel Harrison, Emmanuel Lanzi, Sihung Lung, Kenneth Tsang, Margaret Wang. Directed by Peter Pau.

I love a good adventure film. In fact, I love an average adventure film, and when it comes right down to it, I'm not all that opposed to even a crummy adventure film. As long as people are hacking through the jungle with a machete or struggling to solve the riddles of an ancient booby trapped temple, I'm probably going to be, at the very least, mildly satisfied. Something about even the most ham-fisted adventure yarns makes me happy, and my tolerance for their peculiarities and short-comings is pretty high. I am, after all, the guy who thought Tomb Raider was a decent amount of fun and even enjoyed myself during Cannon Films fodder like King Solomon's Mines and Treasure of the Four Crowns. It takes a mighty effort like Dark Mission or The Tomb to challenge my ability to enjoy even the lamest adventure film.

It's most likely because those films, even the ones lurking right down there near the bottom of the barrel, appeal to that part of me that always assumed he would be doing much the same thing as Indiana Jones. Swinging on vines while being pursued by angry natives, decoding secret messages hidden in ancient tomes, and of course, wooing some beautiful librarian or professor type as we board the night train to Turkistan or some such exotic locale where men in tight suits and fezzes would attempt to assassinate me in order to protect some terrible secret that has been savagely guarded for a thousand years. It was a given that this would be my life, just as it was a given that those assassins would never actually succeed. After all, no one wants to dream of the day they are successfully murdered by a guy sunglasses and a fez. There was no question that I would never end up as some goofball sitting in front of a computer monitor all day syncing up graphs and slides to droning streaming video about mutual fund management.

And even as I sit here, fund management videos close at hand, I've never fully given up on the hope that one day I'll lead a life of adventure, romance, and intrigue, or at least mild excitement. Call me a dreamer, an eternal optimist, or just pathetic. No matter the mounting evidence to the contrary, I refuse to believe that all my life has in store for me is video editing and the consumption of Hot Pockets. Come hell or high water, I will live the sort of life that allows me to regale bored friends and acquaintances with tales of the time I visited the far reaches of the globe, even if I wasn't raiding tombs for priceless artifacts or battling secret sects while riding the Orient Express.

Of course, such dreams also require me to ignore the fact that the world is a far less exotic and mysterious place than it was seventy years ago. The Orient Express is no more, and even the far reaches of the globe tend to afford one easy access to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not that I think the rest of the world should continue to exist as it did in the 19th century purely to provide me with an exotic playground, but there's still a sense of loss anytime you travel thousands of miles and multiple continents only to end up watching Tango and Cash on television.

Much like me, there are filmmakers out there who defy the reality of our world and still crank out the occasional adventure film. Emboldened by her newfound position as the most recognizable female action star in the entire world, Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Yes Madam, Tomorrow Never Dies) decided to become such a person by bankrolling her own big-budget adventure film. Michelle Yeoh took her earnings, invested them in establishing her own production company, and set out to realize what must be one of no more than a few remaining unfulfilled dreams: to make her own movie, at least as producer.

The ingredients she lined up on her counter were impressive. She would star, of course, because she's Michelle Yeoh, and she's cool (my words, not hers). Acclaimed cinematographer Peter Pau (The Killer, Bride With White Hair, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Swordsman) would give it a whirl as director. And her cast would be international, but not with a bunch of nobodies, as is usually the case when Hong Kong films sign up Caucasian actors. No, she'd get some recognizable faces. Maybe not A-List Hollywood actors, but The Truth About Cats and Dogs' Ben Chaplin is at least somebody, and he's certainly proven he's possessed of some skill when it comes to his chosen profession. Richard Roxburgh as the villain would lend additional credibility to the Caucasian cast, having as he does under his filmographic belt hits like Mission Impossible II and Moulin Rouge.

Finally, taking a note no doubt from many of Jackie Chan's more recent productions (including Who Am I and Mr. Nice Guy), and a lot of recent Hong Kong films in general, the movie would be made in English with an eye on overseas success. Filming in English seems more and more popular these days in Hong Kong, perhaps because their films are far more popular with overseas cult crowds than they are with the local folks. Just when we thought the Hong Kong film industry could get no sicker, 2002 handed them one of their worst years ever. The film Psychedelic Cop was supposed to be a big deal. It was pulled from theaters after one week when no more than ten people went to see it - and that's ten as in ten, not as in I'm exaggerating to make a point. With so little interest on the home turf, it's no big surprise that a lot of people making Hong Kong films are banking on overseas distribution and putting success in the US DVD market above the seemingly hopeless scenario presented at home.

Anyone who has struggled through Gen Y Cops or China Strike Force will tell you that Hong Kong films shot with primarily English dialogue can be a nightmarish affair. The dialogue, for one, is often painfully awkward and obviously written by someone who doesn't speak English as a first language. Often times, despite the presence of English words, the sentences still sound like a foreign language. Why the native English speakers mouthing some of the dialogue don't correct it on the fly I do not know, but the end result is sometimes amusing, usually stupefying. The second problem is that many of the actors speaking the words are, to put it lightly, pathetic. In the case of Chinese stars struggling with English dialogue, we can forgive them. For all those native Americans and Canadians, on the other hand (and this includes the Asian ones), there's no excuse for some of those readings. Daniel Wu, I'm looking in your direction.

The Touch avoids the problem of misunderstanding its English by being written by - or at least corrected by -- people who have it as their primary tongue. The scriptwriting duo of Julien Carbon and Laurent Courtiaud (who also collaborated on the superb Running Out of Time and the, shall we say less than superb, Black Mask II) hail from France, but they at least have English language actors who bother to make sure the dialogue doesn't come out sounding like some bizarre moonman language. This is Michelle Yeoh's film, after all. She's proven herself not just fluent in English, but also able to act quite well in the language. And the white actors are real actors, not some Caucasians they picked up off the street on the way to the shoot. Chaplin and Roxburgh and most of the supporting cast can do the job. Unfortunately, there's also Brandon Chang. When looking for the most laughably awful actor in both Cantonese and English, people often cite poor old Michael Wong. Well, Daniel Wu makes Michael Wong seem like Daniel Day Lewis. Brandon Chan, then, makes Daniel Wu seem like, well, Michael Wong I guess. They get more painful with each step down the ladder.

There is one unfortunate side effect to Michelle surrounding herself with competent Caucasian actors -- her own acting comes across as fairly wooden. When she's in action, she's fine, but when she's dealing with the dialogue, she invests very little emotion into most of it -- which is especially painful during her soul-searching romantic scenes. But we'll come to the romance soon enough.

Making the film seem more like a sure thing, at least as Saturday matinee fun fare, is the fact that Michelle decided to go with a rousing Indiana Jones style adventure full of sweeping locales, hair-raising action, and a hint of mysticism. She'd done this once, early in her career with Magnificent Warriors. Though uneven thanks to some ill advised drama and some even worse comedy, Magnificent Warriors delivered Michelle in top form as a swashbuckling kungfu heroine. If it wasn't Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was at least better than High Road to China.

Sadly, if Magnificent Warriors was on the level of High Road to China, The Touch, at it's best, is a good episode of Relic Hunter.

Now I confess that I actually enjoy many episodes of Relic Hunter, if for no other reason than Tia Carerre in her bust-enhancing adventure woman outfit can brighten even the grayest of Saturday afternoons. But I would never put even the best episode of Relic Hunter on the list of things that need to be made into sweeping full-feature adventure films. They work because they remain on the small screen. The Touch takes the same short-comings and silliness present in Relic Hunter, then magnifies them tenfold by sticking them on the big screen.

Michelle Yeoh stars as Yin, an accomplished circus performer who's ex (Ben Chaplin) dabbles in tomb raiding, if you will. A series of events lead her and Chaplin on a quest to recover a sacred treasure before it falls into the hands of the evil Karl. Richard Roxburgh plays Karl, and while he chews all the scenery required to turn in the standard satisfying over-the-top villain, I can think of a lot better names for your main villain than Karl. Nothing against the Karls of the world. I know quite a few, and all of them have been pretty nice guys. But Karl sounds more like a guy who will come over and help you fix a tire on your car than it sounds like the name of someone bent on wielding magic power beyond the comprehension of mere mortals such as we.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the Karls al have a secret plan to one day rule us all, but in the end I'm much more apprehensive about your Fritzes and your Napoleans and any of those guys who have names that resemble something menacing, like Victor von Doom or Sidney Scythe or anyone called Damien. You know guys with names like that are just itching to accidentally get super powers and then lust after domination of the entire planet. They never seem to realize that ruling the planet isn't all jewels and harem girls. They're also going to have to deal with trade disputes and coming up with a workable prescription drug plans for the seniors of the globe. Just once I'd like to see Doctor Doom have to delay his plans to build a universe-warping death ray because he has to attend a meeting with the head of the Department of Sanitation.

Karl seems at least partially aware of the fact that his name isn't entirely menacing, so he makes sure to spell it with a "K." That increases the menace somewhat, but with his distinct lack of a goatee, Karl is still not all that imposing.

Karl, despite his friendly working-class name, is one of those grade-A prick type of villains who always yells at his henchmen and calls them idiots in front of the other henchmen. I never understood how these guys get ahead in the villain world. For starters, they always seem to hire incompetent boobs. Maybe these villains wouldn't have to shriek at their underlings so much if they were able to pick decent underlings in the first place. It's your own fault for hiring idiots. But even if you're saddled with a bunch of bumblers, how does it advance your chances of success to constantly remind them of what losers they are? It's not like any of these criminal masterminds do it in a way that translates into "tough love" or would inspire their minions to try a little harder next time. No, they just yell, "Pathetic fool!" in their shrillest Cobra Commander voice. I'm surprised more of these guys don't find themselves with a bullet in the back of their head.

At least some of Karl's men are adept at the job of being evil, and the ones who aren't are actually somewhat funny. Of course, competent or not, they all get their asses handed to them by Michelle as she and Karl race one another to an ancient hidden temple full of booby traps. Complicating matters is the fact that Karl has taken Yin's astoundingly dense little brother as a hostage. And they get his girlfriend as an added bonus.

So okay, nothing terribly original in the plot department, but I've forgiven that countless times and am always willing to do it again. A story can be old and formulaic as long as it's told with a dash of style. The Touch doesn't entirely succeed in that aspect. Peter Pau, who remains a cinematographer at heart, captures some gorgeous scenery, but I'm always hesitant to compliment the cinematography of a film set in places like the Gobi Desert or the plains of wild Africa. I mean, it doesn't take a maestro to set a camera up on an epic vista and capture images of an epic vista. Instead of praising people who let the scenery do all the work for them, I think we should give out an award for cinematographers and directors who shoot in dramatic places but manage to really screw it up.

No, the film's dramatic scenery certainly doesn't let it down. Nor does the cast. The problem is all in the script, which is tired and predictable and not entirely thought out. No, let me backtrack. The problem is mostly the script. The eye-poppingly awful CGI effects during the finale also contribute a hearty portion of laughable badness to an otherwise average adventure film. The main aspect people look for in a Michelle Yeoh film is fun action and fighting. There's a decent amount of fighting here, some of it pretty good and some of it leaving a little to be desired. Michelle we can all buy as a kungfu bad-ass who can sail through the air, but poor Ben Chaplin looks out of place as an ass-kicker. Sometimes an action film is full of people who struggle through dramatic scenes in anticipation of their next action sequence. Ben is the opposite. With each awkward punch, he looks like he's just biding his time until he can toss out another impish quip. He's a good actor, and he acquits himself fine in the acting department in this film, but the man is no action star.

Choreography comes courtesy of Phillip Kwok, aka Kuo Chui of Five Deadly Venoms fame. He seems to be building a solid career as a guy who can make white people look good in martial arts action (working recently on Brotherhood of the Wolf). And I suppose technically he succeeds here. It's not that Ben Chaplin looks terrible when he breaks out the martial arts. It's just that he looks like, well, Ben Chaplin. He's too recognizable as "the nice guy" to be believable as a fighter, and the script isn't meaty enough to make the casting work. It is, however, smart enough to let Michelle handle most of the foot-to-ass action, and she looks good as always. She certainly doesn't show her age, and the wires only interfere with the action from time to time. Most of the action is martial arts based. There are no car chases or anything like that, and contrary to nearly every other "exotic locales" type of adventure film, no one knocks over a street vendor's fruit cart.

Comedian Dane Cook is the real surprise in the film as Karl's bumbling brother. It's a stock character, and one that generally proves more painful than funny, but Cook performs well and gets quite a few chuckles even with slightly tired material. The rest of the cast has to look wise and troubled or evil and angry. Chaplin and Yeoh are both charming performers, but while they have ample "buddy film" chemistry, they have zero romantic chemistry. Their tired role as "former lovers thrust together for a wild adventure" feels as unrealistic as it is painfully overused in films. Why is it that folks in film can't go ten minutes without finding themselves reunited with a former flame in order to conquer some zany obstacle? They're simply not believable as star-crossed lovers brought together once again by a fabulous adventure, and as much as I hate to say it, most of the blame lies on Michelle. Even though we've all seen her flex considerable dramatic muscle, she looks much more comfortable jumping off a trailer to kick some guy in the head than she does in her supposedly tender scenes with Chaplin.

The music was composed by none other than Basil Pouledouris, best known for his incredible Conan the Barbarian score. It's good stuff, but hardly as memorable as his classic barbarian brass.

One of the things that really serves to undermine the film's effectiveness is the atrocious CGI during the finale. Bad special effects are fine and all, but these are really bad, and not even in a fun way. The film's international release was pushed back because distributors didn't want to release a movie with computer effects that would make people long for the realism of The Last Starfighter. It doesn't help that the entire finale is devoid of any emotional impact at all. Bad effects can be saved by a fun yarn, after all. A lack of any emotional impact means that there's very little around to redeem the awful effects, which look like something you might be able to produce after half-assing your way through the beginner's tutorial on whatever CGI effects program they used. The story meanders on with such thinness that it becomes impossible to feel engaged by any of the characters. The film's finale drums this in as what should have been a major dramatic twist elicits nary more than a second of "Nooo!" style screaming before everyone seems to forget about it entirely. If the characters don't care about the characters, why should we?

And that's what really keeps the film from being the adventure romp it was meant to be. There is no emotional engagement. The characters are not unlikeable, but they're pretty bland. There's no lovable rogue like Indiana Jones nor tough woman like Marion. Heck, there's not even anyone as compelling as that bald Nazi with the mustache who got chopped up by the plane propeller. Aside from all that, your heroes and villains need to dress cool. Most of the people here look like they just stepped out of a J Crew catalog, and while J Crew clothes may be fine for yachting and reading GQ, they're not suitable attire for globe-trotting adventure. Michelle gets it right once they get to the desert, but everyone else still looks like they just got off their job as a waiter at some hipster restaurant in the East Village. The Touch, for a lot of reasons other than garb, never becomes more than another in the long line of films that imitate Raiders of the Lost Ark without understanding how to work with the elements that made that film such a fantastic and enduring adventure.

The pacing is wildly uneven. It takes a while to get things going, and once they are in motion, they sort of sputter along like the jalopy Michelle and Ben attempt to drive across the desert. The big budget bloats the film, but the script can't keep up with the size. Thunderball was a bloated action-adventure film, but it still kept a brisk pace and wry wit that helped it avoid being crushed by its own weight. Not so, here. The Touch can never rise above its own contrivances. I understand it was a labor of love for Michelle. All I can do is say that it was a nice effort, and I wish her better luck next time. She knew how to collect all the pieces. Now she has to learn how to make them work together.

Ultimately, The Touch as a whole never lives up to its individual parts. So many wonderful ingredients went into the film, but the end result was more of a mess than a grand confection. The film just feels flat and uninspired despite the charm of the cast and the beauty of Pau's camerawork. The end result of The Touch is a movie that should have been great, and instead is just sort of okay. I certainly didn't regret watching it, and it has some decent moments. In a movie like this, though, the flashes of fun only serve to make the lackluster quality of the rest of the film all the more evident. It's definitely not going to be the international hit they were probably hoping for. Instead, it's a mildly entertaining adventure film that stumbles over it's own weak story and doesn't offer up enough high-energy elements to make you forget that what you're watching isn't very good. It's not Raiders of the Lost Ark, that's for sure, but at least it isn't Treasure of the Four Crowns.

Labels: Action: Adventure, Martial Arts: Kungfu, Year: 2002