Gau yat san diu haap lui

I just saw "Dance Of A Dream", which also starred Andy Lau and Anita Mui and I liked their chemistry, even though the film has nothing in common with this one. This one is a sci-fi fantasy with superheroes. Ms. Mui plays May and, of course, looks wonderful. She also plays her sister, who keeps getting herself shot, blown up (its comic relief, she doesn't die). Aaron Kwok plays The Silver Fox, who wants to kill May because May blinded his mentor. Mr. Lau, as Ching, tries to protect her. There are pretty good action sequences in this film, decent fight scenes. Nothing terribly original or revelatory, but you can do a lot worse. Its a great Saturday afternoon movie, play it on a big screen TV and enjoy. The acting is fine, especially the always mesmerizing Anita Mui. If you're a fan of this genre, watch it, its fun.

Saviour of the soul is a mix of martial arts, shootouts and fantasy. It is obvious that it is a comic adaptation. The story isn't always clear,but it succeeds very well in keeping your attention, although sometimes i wanted to last the action sequences a little longer. There is a lot of humour in it and still succeeds in being serious when it has to. There are some special effects in it that will amaze you (without the use of digital effects which we are used to nowadays). I always enjoy the action sequences Hong Kong movie makers come up with. They really are the best when it comes to action. Saviour of the Soul is certainly a classic when it comes to the wonderful combination of action and special effects. Go see it!

This film demonstrates to young and novice film makers what can be done if you have real talent. The composition of every shot in every scene is what many film makers can only wish to achieve.

The story apart as this is a corny movie, this film will show you perfect camera angles, superior editing and how to use light, shadow and colour like a master. Please bear in mind that this was all achieved using basic film techniques and no digital effects.

You will see great washes of colour and lighting to which the actors are set against and into, the use of water and lighting is seen to produce a magnificent feel and add great drama and movement to scenes.

Andy Lau, seems to have located or created locations that reflect the scene being shot by the colours and lighting used and plays on this by not being restricted to primary colours.

Too me, this film seems like a test bed for superior camera work and set design and succeeds to that end.

Also to note is the direction of the actors. Their movements are measured and seem to strive for perfection. It seems like the most minute actions were included to endorse the objectives of the characters, so that even the most impossible actions can be seen as plausible in the world this film is set in.

Listen for the "your the one that I want" line sung in engrish in the scene before the toilet fight. Travolta eat your heart out.

Ugh. It's quite rare that the English title of a Hong Kong movie is better than the original Chinese one but I'm sure they gave this movie its Chinese name (which translates to '91 Condor Heroes) solely to capitalize on lead actor Andy Lau's popularity from his role as Yang Guo in the classic TVB series, Return of the Condor Heroes. Any connection between this movie and that series is loose at best and I didn't really pick up on it, especially since the plot of this movie is all kinds of ridiculous. Apparently Wong Kar Wai co-wrote this. No wonder it barely makes sense to me, ha.

The direction of this movie was bad as well - scenes could go from comedy to action to melodrama in the course of a minute without any regard for flow, though the fighting sequences, choreographed by luminary Corey Yuen, were good whenever there wasn't an over-reliance on special effects.

The dearly departed Anita Mui is classy in every role she plays. Yes, even in her dual role of the twin sister who gets shot in the butt.

As for Andy Lau and Aaron Kwok, well, there's a good reason why they only won their respective first acting awards 9 and 14 years after this movie.

I enjoy Hong Kong cinema quite a bit and i had pretty high hopes for this movie when i got i on DVD. Especially for the manga-like action-sequences which were rumored to be something very special. But unfortunately my hopes were all crushed within 45 minutes of the movie.

There are several problems with this movie. The first problem is unfortunately very common in Hong Kong cinema and that is bad acting. The actors are just horrible and can´t seem to say a single line in a credible way (which is strange since for example Andy Lau has since made good performances). The second problem is the misplaced comedy scenes. Several times the movie shifts from a very serious and emotional scene to slapstick comedy in the blink of an eye. This ruins both the comedy (which is very cheap) and the emotional scenes since you can never take anything about the movie seriously. The third and last major problem is the sub-standard action sequences. The action is both quite poorly choreographed and the effects look very cheap (people being cut to pieces by swords are VERY obviously dolls etc.). The action scenes are also too short and too far between. This creates a problem with the pace in the movie which is much too slow. And the story is much too thin and unbelievable to support the film. What might have saved this movie would have been a steady fast pace, but unfortunately it slows down and becomes very boring at times.

If you enjoy this kind of manga-style action-films there are a lot of better alternatives in the genre. This poor attempt is simply not worth the effort. I rate it 3/10.