ड्रॅगन लेडी

As a huge fan of Michelle Yeoh, I was waiting with baited breath to see a beautifully photographed movie with her as the star. An English language movie that was supposed to have world-wide appeal, proof to everyone that she had the true star power she already had for me and many others. While the photography was gorgeous and her strength in the lead role was obvious, the story was weak. Worse yet, the action scenes seemed too slow and "choreographed-looking." The attempts at humor were not only poor, but got really annoying. Worst of all, Michelle played the role of a wonderfully dynamic, good-hearted, woman who still loves a heel, a former love and father of their son. Ben Chaplin does a good job of playing the role of a self-centered, unreliable, untrustworthy crook with absolutely no redeeming value. I know in real life lots of women love the worst men, so there's no escapism here. But this movie makes it look like its cool to be a jerk, making it all the harder to watch. I bought the DVD for my Michelle collection. How many times I'll be able to watch it, I don't know.

My name is Jo. I live in BKK. I've already seen the movie here in Thailand and I think it's great especially the Tibetan part. I'd say well done to Michelle Yeoh because she has done such a good job. I'm impressed. Keep on going, Michelle! We love you. This is a greeting from your fans in Thailand. " JO & FRIENDS "

One of the classic fantasy quest novels of ancient China serves as the basis for this film's story: JOURNEY TO THE WEST by Wu Cheng En. In it, the Buddhist Monk/Scholar Xuanzang accomplishes a pilgrimage to India with the help of three magical creatures: a powerful immortal monkey with an anti-authoritarian streak, a humanoid boar of immense power, gullibility and appetite and an even-tempered warrior monk. The same source material was the inspiration for anime like Dragonball Z.

In this case, The Touch starts off cleverly, and sort of creates the impression that it is a latter-day sequel to the novel especially in one of the fights that opens the movie: a re-creation of the famous scene in the novel where the Monkey duels with a hot-tempered Boy-God with the ability to manipulate fire. And with the fact that it is the Sharira (or crystal essence) of the Monk that is the motive for all the characters' actions. But it fails to cover this much further, sags in the middle and soon becomes a cliched and predictable adventure film featuring a booby-trapped room, fire, Tarzan-swinging and "leaps of faith".

Performances wise Michelle Yeoh is Michelle Yeoh, always up to snuff in her physical stunts and emotional nuances but set back by her grating Cantonese-Malayan inflections when speaking Mandarin and English. Ben Chaplin continues his trend of playing second fiddle to A-list females, from Winona Ryder, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman to Michelle Yeoh. He's just the kind of guy A-list women like to have in their movies because he looks positively impotent. Richard Roxburgh seems to have walked in thinking he was going to act in a Shakespearean stage play and pretty much plays his stock villain character larger-than-life with hammy delivery.

Cinematography is first-rate, and the music is surprisingly pleasing, and that's about all. The story is weak, predictable and has the depth of a Disney cartoon. Characters are one-dimensional and stock. Peter Pau can handle visuals though what he's done is virtually retreading old ground, but as a director he still lacks vision and the ability to astonish emotionally. Any astonishment is mainly from the way he handles visuals, rarely from timing or the way he works on the imagination. A triumph of set design over plot this is, but what set design, and what cinematography!

Overall this movie is an elegantly-shot with potential for greatness, but just becomes little more than a passably entertaining, shortchanging adventure by the end.

Rating: 5.6 out of 10

As a fan of Yeoh's films, I desperately felt I needed to see this film, I was impressed with the trailer but then it all led to disappointment when I saw the film. I was aware that the film was receiving bad reviews but when I saw it, it was not as bad as I thought it was but there were some major faults.

The use of incredible locations in the film was a plus, the story line sounded perfect for an adventure film and there was that wonderful combination of action, romance and comedy

I felt that one of the main flaws with the film was the ensemble of actors; though they do look good in their roles, the way they portrayed their characters was rather poor.

Yeoh's performance was not of a satisfactory level, but provided she got to use some martial arts in the film, I was happy.

Ben Chaplin, who plays Eric,provides most of the comic relief for the film, particularly when he attempts to sing a love song in Mandarin Chinese but forgets the words half way through the song. I am still wondering whether the character Bob was even meant to be funny at all as he was just pathetic throughout the film.

Brandon Chang and Margaret Wang who play Lily and Tong are newcomers, of all the actors in the film, their performances were the most disappointing; my reason is mainly that when they spoke, it sounded as if they were on a "lets talk English programme", they were expressionless and bland with their acting.

Another flaw was the use of special effects in the film, particularly in the climax that takes place in the burning cave, at the beginning of the scene, the flames looked real, but whoever was in charge of the cinematography made a huge mistake after applying the flames because the fire looked incredibly fake afterwards as well as a list of other faults concerning the CGI.

Despite the faults outweighing the good points, I did enjoy the film, but it was merely average.

I just saw The Touch at a theater here in China. That movie is fantastic !! Michelle Yeoh is great, amazingly charismatic, beautiful, and a remarkable martial artist. Ben Chaplin is great too, really at ease and perfectly believable. the movie itself is an amazing adventure flick, very funny by moments, and with an intense ending. Don't miss it, really !