gridoon
In the 90s, you could often see American martial arts films being influenced by Hong Kong action cinema. But these days, it seems that this trend has been reversed, and now we have Hong Kong movies trying too hard to be like Hollywood. From the fight scenes, which suffer from too much fast cutting, too much CGI, too much imitation-Matrix style, to the outrunning-the-explosion finale, "Silver Hawk" is one such movie. However, there are still a few glimpses of the old-times HK brilliance to be found, and the film certainly scores in the eye-candy department: Michelle Yeoh looks dazzling (if a little too made-up at times), Bing Bing Li (appearing each time with a different hair color, but always in a mini-skirt - thank God!) is easily one of the hottest bad chicks of the current decade, and there is also a female police officer (with a very limited role) who is simply gorgeous. In fact, I would go so far as to say that EVERY girl in this movie is pure beauty. But the film as a whole is not as entertaining or action-packed as "Black Mask 2", in which the computer effects are also more justified by the mutated heroes' superpowers. Watch that one first. (**)
Enchorde
Recap: Mystic heroine Silver Hawk is both a terror for the criminals but also sought by the police. Now Rich Man is brought to Polaris to finally bring her before justice. What he hadn't counted on was her massive fan support and what he don't know is that the young famous Lulu, who he tried to impress on the flight in, is really our heroine, and that she got more tricks up her sleeve than he can count. But the peace isn't going to last. First a known scientist, specialized in AI, is kidnapped under their noses, and then the daughter of powerful industrialist, and personal friend of Lulu, is kidnapped as well. A known terrorist is behind the scheme and plans to take over and rule the world with the aid of our cellular phones. Can Silver Hawk stop him? Comments: Oh this is just plain silly. In fact, it resembles most a child's fantasy of a child that grows up to become beautiful, rich and the mystic heroine that toys with her opponents. There is absolutely no suspense, the story is thin like paper, the one-liners silly and the taunts and showing off during fights abundant. Well, the fights are abundant too, and actually there are some nice fights, if you like those choreographed dances/fights. Other than that, there isn't much to hope for...Entertainment for a rainy, dark and dull fall afternoon, nothing more.5/10
siderite
OK, this movie starts out with an action scene. The scene is horribly performed and directed, with slow-mos and stop-frames in the weirdest moments. The hero is like a comic-book hero, cape and weird bat-man like devices included, only female. She beats up an entire group of trained guards in order to get to their cargo: pandas, probably illegally smuggled. Her sidekick is a "smart" motorcycle which comes on command and can be remotely controlled. Come on! How lame is that? Hi Oh Silver, away! all over again. Silver being the key word :)The film continues much like the first scene, with a lot of bad dialog, repetitive action moves and cliché bad guys. (translated into Chinese: arrogant Europeans with a black American henchman). I did wonder why Michael Jai White and Luke Goss accepted to play in this movie. They probably needed money badly.I give this movie a five, because it is a very bad movie, but that actually doesn't surprise me. I expected that from the very first scene, so at least it was an honest movie.
sadie_thompson
Michelle Yeoh is apparently trying to kill herself, or at least damage something. The woman will do anything, regardless of how potentially painful it can be. This movie is a little bit tamer than other things I've seen her do, but still. She induces flinching. (I loved watching my mother's face when I made her watch Supercop--the scene where Michelle hung off the side of a van, only to fall off and crash through Jackie Chan's windshield caused Mom some anxiety. I of course piped up, "Michelle Yeoh does all of her own stunts. Jackie Chan isn't the only one.") Anyway, this movie is about Lulu Wong, a hugely famous woman--she's famous because she's rich, apparently. (What's nifty about Michelle Yeoh playing Lulu is that you can see Michelle being stylish. She isn't usually--it's also interesting that Lulu seems to be MUCH younger than Michelle actually is. Good acting there, Michelle!) Lulu wears all white, and has all kinds of wigs and different hairdos. She knows everyone, everyone loves her, she's perfect. That's her main identity. When criminals strike, she dons a silver mask, a silver suit, a silver jacket, and dashes to the scene on a silver BMW motorcycle. (Gorgeous bike.) Silver Hawk is an appropriate name, as you can see. She has little silver blade things, like Batman's batarangs, or whatever they were called, but she only uses those to disarm people. Once they're empty-handed she starts the a**kicking. The first scene of the movie is the best--the movie starts off with Michelle (I'm assuming it's The Stuntwoman herself) jumping over the Great Wall of China on her bike in pursuit of some poachers. The cinematography here is marvelous. Once she catches them she beats them mercilessly, but it looks beautiful. It doesn't seem like wire-work, but if it isn't then Michelle Yeoh isn't affected by gravity. She does an incredible kick on several of the poor criminals--she runs up the front of a van, then does some sort of pinwheeling roundhouse kick in midair. All of this is in slow-motion, and I actually think real-time would have been more effective. Once the crooks are in a heap on the ground, Silver Hawk reveals her disappointment. "Give me ten more minutes," she asks. Five? Two? By this time the criminals have tied themselves up and completely surrendered. See, Lulu has to put herself in danger to get excited, but since she's such a great fighter she's never really in a perilous situation. (When I said excited, I didn't mean that this is a porno movie. I mean that some people ride roller coasters, others fight crime.)After that great opening sequence, we're treated to a plot. Professor Ho Chung (one of Lulu's love interests) has developed a completely idiotic artificial intelligence chip that supposedly increases the wearer's standard of living. We see it tested on a young lady--a holographic English butler appears and informs her that she is 48 days pregnant. A co-worker of hers confirms this, yelling, "That's incredible! We only found out yesterday.!" I found myself wondering if the transparent English butler had Tact 2000, a program few people seem to possess. What if the lady didn't want everyone to know she was pregnant? Could the AI detect that, or will it just humiliate everyone endlessly? The guinea pig doesn't seem to mind, she just smiles. An assistant brings her a drink, and the butler explains that the AI taps into your most primitive impulses, in this case thirst. (That amused me--what would it do if someone had a certain other primitive impulse?!?) Finally, it demands that she do some prenatal exercises. She doesn't want to, but the butler isn't taking no for an answer. Finally, the demonstration is concluded. When Professor Chung asks Lulu what she thought, she tells him flat out that she doesn't like it. I don't blame her--she isn't fond of people telling her what to do. HOWEVER... ...enter Alexander Wolfe, a nut with an English accent. He is very fond of telling people what to do, via secret subliminal messaging, preferably. This new device seems to be perfect for his plan, so he sends MICHAEL JAI WHITE to kidnap the professor. (Don't send a Spawn to do a kung-fu master's job.) Once that's done, Wolfe reveals his silly plan--he is going to place the chip into millions of cell phones, and at a certain time he will play the aforementioned subliminal messages. A technology mogul's daughter is kidnapped also, so that Wolfe can force the mogul to place the chips into a new phone model. He does, and Lulu (remember her?) wonders why. She decides to take matters into her own silver-gloved hands.As it happens, the new police superintendent used to be a friend of Lulu's, and even more coincidentally, he despises Silver Hawk. How can they work together, you ask? Not very well, is how. He has no idea that Lulu and Silver Hawk are the same person, even though anyone with at least one sense could figure it out. (Silver Hawk looks like Lulu, she sounds like her, she might even smell like her, I'm not sure. You get my point.) So, while they have to save the world they also have to contend with each other. The superintendent, Rich Man, is more interested in arresting Silver Hawk than anything else, especially when she humiliates him in front of some teenagers. (He dressed himself in drag, so maybe he shouldn't be so hard on her.) Eventually it comes to the point where Rich Man has to knuckle under and just deal with it.This was a good action movie, with several nifty fights and some funny parts. I had a couple of gripes, though, and I might as well vent. First--Michelle didn't get to do all the cool stuff the bad guys go to do. For instance, when Silver Hawk first runs into Alexander Wolfe, his minions bounce around and fly through the air using huge rubber bands. It looks incredibly fun, but Michelle is grounded. She has to run around getting kicked in the face. By the time she gets her leg up to kick back, the person has already flown away. It's just that she could have done wonders with that. This same problem pops up in the last fight with Wolfe's goons. They zoom around on rollerblades with hockey sticks. Not Michelle. She has to hit them as they fly by. Again. It could be that Michelle Yeoh didn't want to do these things. That's okay. If for some reason behind the scenes they just decided that she wouldn't do it, that's not okay. She is Silver Hawk--she should fly. Second--this movie falls prey to another problem that's rampant in Michelle Yeoh's films. She's absent for long stretches at a time. Eventually, you get wrapped up in something else and then she pops up again just when you least expected her. That happened in "Royal Warriors," "Supercop," "Supercop 2," "Butterfly and Sword," and gosh, even "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon." I don't want to sit there wondering what happened to her. Did her character die, or just get fed up? Maybe if I had an explanation of why this is done. I realize that Michelle Yeoh gets injured frequently, and that's understandable. Is that the deal? Do they have to shoot around her? Someone fill me in, please. I guess I'm used to Brigitte Lin's films--there is rarely a moment where she doesn't appear. Even if one pops up the filmmaker makes darn sure that you'll think about her. Someone please give Michelle Yeoh the same courtesy.
