Faye Wong

Wong Kar-wai first burst onto the international scene with this jazzy little cinematic improvisation on a themes of love, loss, connection, and the craziness of emotion. The two stories revolve around cops, but any resemblance to the usual Hong Kong action fare ends there. In the first story, rookie Takeshi Kaneshiro falls for femme fatale in a blond wig Brigitte Lin, and in the second ladies man Tony Leung Chia-wai finds himself the object of the affections of big-eyed pixie Faye Wong (a popular Cantopop chanteuse who make her film debut here and sings a Cantonese version of The Cranberries’ song “Dreams”). A unique peek into the urban flavor of one working class suburb in the crowded island nation of Hong Kong, this a film that sways to its own beat, and those unusual rhythms are infectious, as are the smeary/stuttery visuals of cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Previously released on DVD, Criterion puts their stamp on the disc with a new edition and will follow it up in December with a Blu-ray edition.

Read the DVD review on my MSN column here.

Also new this week is the underrated superhero drama Hancock, starring Will Smith as a superhero by way of an unnatural disaster, a caustic street drunk faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and more impetuous and self-absorbed than a three-year-old on a sugar jag.

But for all the dark humor of Hancock, this film puts a more serious spin on the superhero genre by shifting into myth and archetype. I’m a sucker for the eternal hero and for the tragic ironies of the ancient heroes. Both are here in a strange, sometimes awkward but always intriguing spin on the modern comic book hero movie, an adult drama with fierce conflicts and fatal consequences, which director Peter Berg delivers with an unnerving intensity. Even by the standards of a maturing superhero genre, this is not a film for kids.

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Hancock is a film full of surprises, many of them quite interesting and some of them a bit confused, and I’d hate to spoil any of them for you. But here is one revelation that shouldn’t take you by surprise. What begins as a sarcastic dark comedy shifts into adult drama and fierce conflicts with fatal consequences, which director Peter Berg delivers with an unnerving intensity. Even by the standards of a maturing superhero genre, this is not a film for kids.

Will Smith, so often the smooth, effortlessly charming everyman, plays Hancock as a disheveled souse of a damaged hero, an impetuous being of great power and little responsibility. Sending him to stop the bad guys is sort of like letting the Hulk loose in a hostage negotiation. Brute force gets the job done, but the impetuous solutions and petty vindictiveness leaves more unnecessary property damage than your average natural disaster.

The City of Los Angeles doesn’t much like him and the feeling is mutual. Then he saves the life of Ray (Jason Bateman), a publicist who genuinely wants to make the world a better place. Bateman plays the part with equal parts innocence and business savvy, a smart guy whose idealism is infectious, and he dedicates himself to rehabilitating Hancock’s reputation. It’s a publicity make-over, but it’s also a genuine effort to change his self-involved approach to his job, starting with his social skills and moving on to limiting his collateral damage.

Perhaps more importantly, Ray offers the isolated and lonely Hancock his friendship and his faith in his potential. Hancock doesn’t quite know how to respond to all this affection, but that confusion is the first suggestion that something has gotten through his indestructible hide and touched him. To borrow a phrase from another film about an entertaining misanthrope, it makes him want to be a better person. Or in this case, simply a person, and not an isolated, hated freak. Meanwhile, Hancock becomes transfixed by Ray’s beautiful wife Mary (Charlize Theron), who is immediately put on her guard, and not necessarily for the obvious reasons.

You may think you know where all this going, but the script takes some unexpected bends along the hero’s journey, not the least of which is voluntary incarceration (no prison would hold this sneering superman against his will) and anger management classes. It both humanizes Hancock’s self-loathing misery and shifts his conflicted identity into the realm of myth and archetype, and director Peter Berg (who likes to lace his films with a sarcastic streak) grounds the spectacle of epic disaster in both ends of the drama. Read more »