Silver Hawk

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.

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

SILVER HAWK (3 outta 5 stars)

Pretty decent action-hero yarn starring Michelle Yeoh as the title character... who dresses up in a silver coat and mask and goes around beating up bad guys and making the police look bad. She meets up with a childhood sweetheart who now happens to be in charge of a police task force devoted to putting a stop to her vigilante tactics. They are forced to team up to fight a madman with a plan to take over the world with some mind-altering telephone technology. The story is pretty standard... but the stunts and fights (which are very reminiscent of The Matrix and Tomb Raider movies) are fun. I was glad to see that, while the movie does have lots of humour, the movie is not too "camp". Fun for the whole family!

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.

Silver Hawk is an enjoyable Cantonese take on the superhero genre. As such it's much more enjoyable than recent US additions like Spiderman 2 or Daredevil, taking a very Blade-like 'Good vs Evil in a knock-down drag out fight' approach as opposed to going for the 'tortured hero' take on things American directors seem to dig. If you want depth you are firmly looking in the wrong place (go for the original 80s Batman maybe?), but if you want action, humour and incredibly sharp fight choreography, you've come to the right place.

It's similar in style to both Blade and Sam Raimi's Darkman, also taking cues from recent Hong Kong movies like Twins Effect. It has a fantastic look, good strong characters and a simple but effective plot that keeps you glued to your seat. Additional praise must be heaped on leading lady Michelle Yeoh. Much like Jackie Chan, despite many would-be successors coming and going since her debut in the 80s, she still has what it takes to front an action movie in spades. She not only makes Silver Hawk a genuinely likable and unique presence, she's also still a mesmerizing fighter to watch. The fights in this movie are really good, some of the best non-period kung-fu I've seen since the likes of Versus. They're played with humour by Yeoh, with Silver Hawk cockily dancing around baddies before kicking their teeth in, but they're still imbued with an impact missing from many similar films.

So why the 6? Firstly, Silver Hawk is incredibly lightweight. If it wasn't for the balletic and convincing fight scenes, this movie could probably have been a 12A or even a PG, it's like a Bond movie only with a female lead. Get boy, send bad guys home with bloody nose, end. It's simple, and that's why it works so well, but it doesn't have much depth, and I'll mainly re-watch it to enjoy the great fights and Yeoh being cool as she always is.

Then there's the dub. It's not, as I originally thought, an entirely Americanised dub. It's like Gen X Cops 2, in that it's dual language, always has been, and was intended for dual release. However, much like a lot of Jackie Chan's movies and Jet Li's earlier films, it's dubbed in quite a slapdash fashion, in a sloppy manner that makes it obvious all the actors except Yeoh and Luke Goss have been re-dubbed by voice-over actors, and that Yeoh and Goss voices were added at post-production instead of using the original recordings. It's not awful, and it compares favourably with some more suspect re-dubs, but it's still glaringly obvious that most characters are not being voiced by the original actors, and that the voice-over wasn't done in sync with the film, it was done off in some studio somewhere with just a script. If you think you can put up with that better than I did (I couldn't help wincing during certain scenes, such was the complete disconnection between dialogue and on-screen action) add a point to the score, and if you don't watch subs, add two. That's the best way to approach it really.

Basically Silver Hawk is really good fun, a cool superhero movie with a great heroine played by a great actress. It's fast, funny and has really good fight scenes, but you could get put off by the awkward dub. It's good enough that I think it's worth the effort, and I'll definitely be watching it again soon.