Silver Hawk

I won't lie. I LOVE Michelle Yeoh. I would watch a ninety minute movie in which she simply reads a phone book (not two hours, though...I'm not that big a fan). From the beginning of this movie to the end, they give you what you want: Michelle Yeoh, kicking butt...

Her Silver Hawk costume is simply silver cloth and hotpants. The best special effect is her motorcycle. My son was immediately reminded of Batgirl.

But, Yeoh is fun...smiling as she beats up villains, giggling with her female friends...far from the solemn character that she was in Crouching Tiger. Her personality was much more like Wing Chun.

The martial arts sequences are good and you can see that Yeoh did a lot of her own stunts. The villain looks particularly villainous. There is very little death in this and the violence is cartoonish.

A joy to watch!

I've been a fan of Michelle Yeoh ever since I saw 'Supercop' a few years ago. In fact, having not previously heard of 'Silver Hawk', I bought it based solely on the fact that Michelle Yeoh was featured on the cover in a kick-arse pose. I regret nothing.

Lulu Wong (Michelle Yeoh) is a Hong Kong celebrity who happens to have a secret: She is the masked super-hero Silver Hawk. Silver Hawk just happens to be in the neighbourhood whenever there is trouble ('neighbourhood' can refer to a Hong Kong alley, the Great Wall of China, etc). The Hong Kong police are out to catch Silver Hawk, as it seems she's been making them look like fools. I don't see what the problem is: if I was a Hong Kong cop, I'd sit back and let her do all the work, and I'd be paid to do nothing. Coincidentally, the new police superintendent Richman (Richie Ren) happen's to be a childhood friend of Lulu's - they were orphans together at the Shaolin temple (really, how can a crime-fighter be taken seriously if they haven't studied at the Shaolin temple?).

Meanwhile, Professor Chung (Daming Chen) publicly shows off his latest: invention: an AI chip that can scan a person's body, and then decide (better than the person themselves) what is good for them. The Professor doesn't quite understand why the AI chip is poorly received by the crowd, until he runs into trouble with Alexander Wolfe (Luke Goss) an English pop star turned super villain. Wolfe's sinister scheme is to combine the chip with the latest in mobile phone technology, so he can brainwash the population, unless Silver Hawk can stop him.

'Silver Hawk' is a bit odd for a kung-fu film. It is sleek but silly, occasionally suffers from an awkward imbalance between a serious and silly tone, and then switches from reality to over the top super-heroics. Sure, these are characteristics found frequently in Hong Kong kung-fu movies, but 'Silver Hawk' seems a bit different. I can't quite put my finger on it. It is fun, but it seems like HK cinema borrowing from 'The Matrix' (rather than 'The Matrix' borrowing from HK cinema).

'Silver Hawk' features some pretty cool action scenes, namely Michelle taking on villains on bungee cords, or an evil in-line hockey team. The fights are generally fun (I'll get to those in a minute). A lot of the comedy and character interaction - especially between Michelle and Richie - seemed rather awkward, but it was entertaining anyway. I think the main strength of 'Silver Hawk' is that it looked like Michelle was having a lot fun filming. I mean, she got to play with Batman-esquire Hawk-erangs - who wouldn't have with those?

I mentioned the fight scenes being fun to watch. Conversely, they also present one of the film's weaknesses: 'Silver Hawk' goes for too much of flashy, Hollywood look. It looks sleek, but I couldn't help but think that it could have been done better. The villains were generally unimposing and uninteresting, and the story could have been better polished.

'Silver Hawk' may not be the best super-hero, or kung-fu, or Michelle Yeoh movie around, but take it for what it is: a fan way to kill time. Recommended for fans of Michelle Yeoh - 6/10

My wife and I didn't expect much from this film, knowing that it has the worst box office in the past ten years for a Chinese New Year release and how much we loathed "The Touch"... However, being a sucker for bad movies, I opted for the action movie rather than the other usual comedies and I wasn't disappointed at all. Yes, the dialogues might be a bit dodgy, a common flaw amongst Hong Kong production nowadays, trying to look "Hollywood-esque" but we were there for the action and we got what we were looking for, great fight sequence with each character having his/her own fighting style.

I have seen most of Yeoh's movies and this one ranked right at the top with "crouching tiger hidden dragon". Most of her film roles were forgettable but "silver hawk" at least leaves a more lasting impression albeit Yeoh really begin to look her years. I certainly hope that a sequel would follow but judging from the box-office, I might be pushing too far.

I love Asian action movies. So when I saw the case for this, I had to check it out and picked up the DVD. I wish that I had just rented it. I was hoping for something as much fun as Returner. Silver Hawk, however, is not it. The movie is decent, but other than a couple of moments in the movie, it just doesn't fare too well. In some fights the action is pretty good but in others it's just overly cheesy. Don't get me wrong, I like cheesy stuff sometimes, but some of this was just bad. The editing and slow motion parts in the fights were crappy. Another problem, and this is the fault of the DVD makers and not the movie itself, is that the DVD did not contain the original language track. So I had to contend with a really bad dubbing job as well. Despite all that, there is some fun to be had. Michelle Yeoh and Richie Ren looked like they were having fun, and there was some good unintentional humor. It wasn't a total waste of money, but if I could go back I wouldn't have bought it. The bottom line is, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's no where near the best either. It's merely forgettable, and that's worse than being horribly bad. If you want a good fun action movie go get Returner which stars Takeshi Kaneshiro and Anne Suzuki. Let Silver Hawk be a renter.

I wasn't expecting much after Michelle Yeoh's last flop "the Touch". "Silver Hawk" doesn't have such a great story, but the action scenes were really well done. the part where Yeoh flew over the Great Wall with her motorcycle was particularily amazing. Jingle Ma once again proves his talent as an action movie director a few years after "Tokyo Raiders" (skip "Goodbye Mister Cool" and "Para Para Sakura" unless you're really desperate). Another good reason to go see "Silver Hawk" is the absence of Ekin Cheng from the cast. That guy seems to star in too many HK movies since the mid 1990s. Worth mentioning is "Yin Xiong"'s Chen Daoming, who delivers a great performance. "Silver Hawk" is by far the most successful HK attempt at adapting a comic superhero to the big screen after "Hak Hap" and the mediocre "Hak Hap 2: City of Masks". Just for that I would give it a 7/10.