Sip si 32 dou

One can't be convinced that Wu Chien-lien, a woman with a body temperature of only 32 degrees Celsius, is actually a merciless assassin! How unfortunate that the filmmakers missed their chance of exploring the interesting implications of a person with a body temperature five degrees lower than everyone else and who only has a one-in-a-million chance of survival. Superficial as it is, the film is both alienating and romantic. Its most intriguing parts are the romance between Wu, the female assassin, and Lau, the noodle-seller, conducted in the tradition of a "midnight love affair with a beautiful ghost", and Wu's persistence in finding her roots.

"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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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.

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.

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.