Hipotermia

Hong Kong cinema veteran Johnnie To's Milky Way Image company has produced some of the best of the recent Hong Kong films that include the hyper dark one night set gangster drama The Longest Nite (dir. Patrick Yau, 1998) and the almost Kitano like in its finale Expect the Unexpected (Yau, 1998). Neither of these or some other Milkyway films are credited for Johhnie To as the director but he, like Tsui Hark or Johnny Mak, are very closely in the filming process involved too and so they can be considered as "co-directors" and their visions are always there in films they've produced. Johnnie himself has directed classics like The Big Heat (1988), Barefoot Kid (1993), Heroic Trio (1993) plus many others. Beyond Hypothermia (1996) is directed by Patrick Leung who has worked with John Woo for example as the co-writer in Woo's most harrowing masterpiece Bullet in the Head (1990). Hypothermia is written by Roy Szeto who has written films like Billy Chung Siu Hung's dark swordsplay tale The Assassin (1993) and Ching Siu Tung's East is Red aka Swordsman III (1993).

In Beyond Hypothermia, Wu Chien Lien plays a mysterious and silent assassin who gets her jobs done with great care and "talent" and never gets caught or has trouble with her conscience or feelings towards the victims and their relatives. She in fact hasn't got too much feelings as her past is a complete mystery and all she and her aunt, the one who has taken care of her, know is that she was adopted from Cambodja and then raised to become a killer. Her body temperature is also lower than that of a normal human being's and thus the film title. She can be located max. 3 months in one place for security and safety reasons and now she is in Hong Kong. Soon she meets an attractive albeit pretty simple-minded noodle store owner (Lau Ching Wan) she soon falls in love with and so starts to feel something, too. But in the violent reality based world the film is set in, it may already be too late to start a new, better and safer life with the loved one.

The film is extremely dark, at times pretty nihilistic and thoroughly impressive in its visuality for most of the time. It is not as magical as the blue smoke filled The Longest Nite nor as restrained as Expect the Unexpected but it is very realistic and bleak as a big city is or can be. The cinematography by talented Arthur Wong (Eastern Condors, the stunning Once Upon a Time in China II, Dragon Inn, The Moon Warriors plus many other modern HK classics) is really as bleak and effective as the urban visions in Japanese Takeshi Kitano's Violent Cop (1989) or in the darkest HK urban action dramas like Alfred Cheung's On the Run (1988) for example. There are many interesting techniques to create effective illusions like speedings, slow motions, sudden zooms and weird angles and fortunately they are used pretty wisely and don't become just eye candy and meaningless pseudo-stylish nonsense often found in certain HK films. For example the furious assassination scene from the roof and the chase sequence after that, set in the traffic time HK highway, has some very creepy moments in the camerawork department and they just desire the big screen to reach their full impact.

The film is rather pessimistic from the very beginning and the film is as honest and gritty about depicting human nature and violence as only non-commercial cinema can and dares. The ending is an extremely violent and harrowing long sequence in the tradition of Expect the Unexpected and has the kind of infernal carnage that hits mercilessly straight to the face. Man is a beast willing and able to kill and destroy each other and itself and finales like this show it almost as powerfully and mercilessly as possible. The violence in the film is never "beautifully stylized" or the usual bullet ballet heroic bloodshed style found in for example films of John Woo, but it is only brutal and ugly in the tradition of Ringo Lam, the Mak Brothers and Kirk Wong to name just a few of the various HK masters all of which are great with their own styles and themes. Beyond Hypothermia is simply the most harrowing film I've seen for some time and it is so satisfying to see HK cinema not too long time ago could deliver interesting and uncompromising films like this. Hopefully it will go on.

The negative points however are little too plenty in Beyond Hypothermia. Lau Ching Wan's character is the most irritating one as it is so badly written and feels very unnecessary too. There are no motivations or explanations for his simple-mindedness and why he at one points even admits being "too stupid" and why his character develops during the end scene so fast and unbelievably, screaming and running without any explanations in the script to make it look believable. Also the love affair between the two should have been written more carefully and her feelings handled like in similarly themed French film La Femme Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) for example. Also the body temperature thing seems to be there just to give the film a great title BUT it can also be seen as a pretty clever metaphor for the girl's lack of feelings and emotions because of her inhuman cold past and violent world she's lived in.

The music during the action scenes is also somewhat unfitting as it makes the otherwise very serious and brutal scenery look a little too light and distantly entertaining. Those scenes could have been done more effectively without music at all. Also some of the plot turns feel a little too easy and incredible as how can things like those happen so fast in a big city and everyone can be found always so easily? The finale, no matter how effective after all is still little too traditional as the guys just seem to meet in the streets as if they had planned it earlier.

One extremely positive thing to finish this review is about the beginning of the piece that belongs to the most effective, interesting and nailing beginnings I've ever seen. That is the kind of beginning to hook the viewer from the very first seconds! Also the circle-like structure of the film makes it all the more impressive and, as the conclusion and film's themes have become clear, shocking, harrowing and breathtaking.

Beyond Hypothermia is one extremely interesting and noteworthy piece even with its flaws and it could have been a bright (or dark, that is) masterpiece if the mentioned things would have been corrected. This is still on the same level with the more flawless Milky Way films and will strike fiercely everytime it is experienced. 6/10

This is certainly one of the best made girl-assassin films that have formed a genre of their own in Asia over the past 30 years. Conforming to the conventions of the genre, we have an attractive young woman whose early experiences have led her to adopt the life of a cold-blooded killer for hire; we have her gradually grow aware of her own emotional emptiness; we have her meet a man she could really go for if she didn't always have to remain ready to kill just about anybody; we have the betrayal by one of her few trusted associates; and we see her develop a plan for resolving all the dilemmas these situations present her with. In short, very little new in the story.

What's new is the manner in which it is all handled. The girl-assassin genre picture is typically handled in a rather over-the-top action film style, because the basic premise of the genre is really pure fantasy. I'm not saying there aren't female assassins in real-life; but they certainly don't share either the luxurious payoffs, the existential dread, or the romantic longings that we find in girl-assassin movies. In fact they're lives are probably little different from that of the male mob or government killer. We just want them to be different because they're women; and the girl-assassin film plays to this.

The present film certainly starts off in this direction, but very gradually, but at last inevitably, turns our expectations on their head. The guy our girl-assassin falls in love with here isn't very smart, but he is certainly very ordinary. The big-pay-offs for her killing never seem to bring her any luxury. And her romantic longings are doomed about half-way through the picture when she has to shoot a five-year-old girl who has witnessed one of her hits - and does. From this point on, we know she's doomed; she may never be caught or killed, but she can never live with herself after this.

Along with these twists undercutting genre convention and audience expectations, the film's visual style also gradually becomes increasingly realistic as it goes along. At the end, we're no longer in the same glitzy universe most girl-assassins inhabit, but a dead-end street looking very much like one we might ourselves wander down, but for the grace of whatever divinity watching out for us.

But there's no divinity watching after this film's girl-assassin. And the ending is probably the most down-beat of any film in the genre. But it is perfectly true to the situation.

Very dramatic, well-performed, nicely put-together - but, be warned: very depressing.

"Beyond Hypothermia" is an excellent movie. The plot: An assassin (Wu Chen-Lien) just keeps on killing until she meets a lonely noodle shop owner, Long (Lau Ching Wan). She wants to change her ways, but her employer won't let her. On top of that, another hit-man is after her.

What's great about this movie is that the romance and action fit perfectly. All the gunfights are well-staged and bloody, but it also has a heart. Lien and Wan put in outstanding performances.

The climax is very powerful and the only problem I had with the movie is the dubbing, but who cares. You'll be pulled in instantly.

I highly recommend this action-packed gem.

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For a movie centered around some really well down action sequences, this movie has a good deal of emotional depth. It goes for that La Femme Nikita style of making an assassin both lethal and fascinating but trapped and vulnerable. It is fascinating to see this killer's growing attachment to a simple noodle shop owner, and the movie does a good job of balancing its blood with its heart, supplying both exciting and touching moments.

But the movie also feels like it cut corners and it relies to much on movie romance clichés. Noodle shop guy's actions towards the end make utterly no sense based on what has happened so far, making the final, fascinating scene feel contrived. Even the hypothermia concept feels like it is just sort of tossed in there because it's a cool idea but then never used for anything in particular. I would not be surprised if I learned the script had half an hour of plot and character development chopped for pacing, as that would explain a lot.

This is a very good movie, and I took a while to decide whether to give it a 7 or an 8, but it gets a 7 because it just feels like corners were cut and the movie was not what it might have been. But well worth seeing.

Another in a recent trend of artsy girl-with-gun movies that tries to play to the male audience with hardcore girls 'n' guns action while attempting to attract the female audience with a love story framework and complex feminine psychology issues. As such, both genres are compromised, but the result is a fine looking and well crafted dramatic thriller.

A decidedly different role for the frail and tragically pretty Wu Chien Lien, as she plays a ruthless and dispassionate assassin desperately searching for her humanity. Surprisingly, she does a remarkable job with the material and presents herself as a complex combination of harsh conviction and fragile vulnerability. Unfortunately, her character is so cold and soulless that you never really connect with her or care what happens to her, which ultimately threatens the emotional impact of the film.