Fei ying (2004)

User Rating:

5.2/10   

Director:

Jingle Ma

Writers:

Susan Chan (writer)
Jingle Ma (writer)

Release Date:

15 January 2004 (China)

Genre:

Action | Adventure

Tagline:

The law has limits. She Doesn't.

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Superhero | Martial Arts | Orphan | World Domination | Telephone

Cast

Michelle Yeoh	...	Lulu Wong
Richie Ren	...	Rich Man
Luke Goss	...	Alexander Wolfe
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Laurent Buson	...	Drug Dealer's Hitman
Brandon Chang	...	Kit
Daming Chen	...	Professor Ho Chung
Kouichi Iwaki	...	Akira Shiraishi
Wu Sai Kit	...	Lulu (young age)
Bingbing Li	...	Jane
Brandon Rhea	...	Poacher
Max Ruddock	...	Poacher
Lisa Selesner	...	Lisa Hayashi
Misato Tachibana	...	Tina Shiraishi
Lui Wei	...	Rich Man (young age)
Michael Jai White	...	Morris

Also Known As:

Silver Hawk (Hong Kong: English title)
The Masked Crusader (Hong Kong: English title) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for stylized martial arts violence.

Runtime:

Hong Kong:99 min | Argentina:99 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

English | Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Germany:16 | Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Singapore:PG | Hong Kong:IIB | Argentina:13 | USA:PG-13 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

China

Company:

Tianjin Film Studio

Goofs:

Continuity: Silver Hawk's trademark silver BMW bike seems to gain and lose the magnetic grapple/rocket launcher tubes at random - most notably when she escapes from her first encounter at Wolfe's lair - when she summons the bike, the tubes are there, but when Superintendent Man catches up with her, they're gone (although you can see the mounting points on the fairing).

Quotes:

Alexander Wolfe: So...is it the Silver Hawk or Ms. Lulu Wong?

Movie Connections:

References Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)

Cool light-hearted Sci-fi Action B Movie. NB: Very weird dubbing.

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.