Ah Kam

Before the film I was watching the actors list. It seemed impressive with the names Michelle Yeoh and the legendary Sammo Hung. I immediately thought of kung fu fights and action. This is not what the film delivered even if the title suggests it. It's mostly a drama revolving around Yeoh's character Ah Kam. Ah Kam is an ordinary woman trying to get by, having success at some things and bad luck with others, just your typical basic drama plot with some twists thrown in. It starts nicely with scenes on an action movie set where they are shooting the stunts. After that it's downhill and towards the end it gets very jumpy, with weird scenes out of nowhere. I found it very difficult to follow the plot because the scenes felt somehow out of place and inconsistent. So what to expect of this film is Michelle Yeoh and Sammo Hung without the great action sequences you are used to seeing when associated with these names. The film delivers only a couple of average action scenes, but not enough to satisfy the people watching this for the action. Plus the end is totally mixed up and unsatisfactory. Even if I watched this without my "action glasses" as a drama, which it is, I wouldn't find it very good and I like a good drama film every now and then.

"The Stunt Woman" is far from a perfect film - it is quite slow and meandering - but it gives Michelle Yeoh the chance to show her stuff in an atypical dramatic role: instead of playing an aggressive, super-confident superwoman, she is just a simple, easygoing, unassuming, brave woman trying to earn her living by doing what she's best at, doubling actors for dangerous movie stunts. Her mature, restrained performance is pretty much the whole show here - and she looks great, too. The film is absorbing most of the way, but I have to be honest here: when Sammo Hung's character (an action director) advises an aspiring screenwriter to "liven up" his romantic tragedy with a few fight scenes, I thought that this film itself might have benefited from a similar approach. OK, it was obviously designed as a change-of-pace for its stars, but it still seems kind of wasteful to have Michelle, Sammo and Ken Lo in your movie and have a total of about 3 short fight scenes in it. (**1/2)

A film that starts strong, with Michelle Yeoh playing a stunt woman and offering the viewer a behind the scenes glance at the making of action movies in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, Yeoh was seriously injured while leaping 18 feet off a bridge for a stunt she didn't consider particularly dangerous, but landed vertically, on her head. Reports vary on the extent of her injuries, from fracturing a few vertebrae, to dislocating her neck and cracking some ribs, to "only" deep-tissue bruising and a cracked rib. She would say later, "I heard a snap in my back when I landed and said, 'Uh-oh, I'm going to paralyzed for life.'" She was in the hospital and in traction for many weeks.

The script was altered so that the film could be completed, but the result is a hodge-podge of tepid romance and an organized crime story. On the positive side, it allowed Yeoh to show off her acting chops, and not unexpectedly, she commands the screen. If you're a fan of hers, this is probably worth seeing. The plot just falls apart, however, meandering through a collection of story lines that lacked cohesive vision. There are several scenes of the guys getting drunk, and the character of the obnoxious young boy was grating. During the end credits we see footage of Yeoh following the stunt that went wrong, which was gripping to say the least but got a little uncomfortable. The crew moving her is alone cringe-inducing even if it was as gently as possible, and it then goes on for too long, almost as if director Ann Hui was trying to over-compensate for the messy second half of the film.

The film tries too hard. It tries to be a behind the scenes look at Hong Kong action film making. And a thriller. And a love story. It also intends to give Michelle Yeoh a chance to play three very different aspects of the same woman. The film spends not enough time on the first theme and too much on the others.

That said, it is an extremely effective little film And more important: it gives Michelle Yeoh the chance to do some of the best acting of her career. She creates a wonderfully complete and charming character as a stunt double getting her big break.

The woman she plays is, especially in the first third, different from anything you have seen her do before. It proves that she is one of the greatest living actresses -- and not just in action films.

Stunt woman Michelle Yeoh finally gets her break in the hardscrabble world of Hong Kong film, when director Sammo Hung's leading lady throws a fit. No, she doesn't get to play the lead, she gets to be a stunt woman on the production, and discovers an unlikely and erratic collection of people who produce the most amazing effects in the sloppiest and most haphazard fashion possible.

Ann Hui's is bolstered by these two performers, as well as the other performers. Like many a Hong Kong production, it has a third act that seems to come out of nowhere to seal the emotional arc of the story, but I'm fine with it and the fine stunt work of Yuk-Sing Ma.