"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, April 26, 2019

A Little TLC(w): The Great Magician (2011)


I’ve had my eye on this film for a while – Tony Leung Chiu-wai hasn’t been in a ton of movies since I started getting into his work in the mid-2000s, so any film of his that’s come out in recent years catches my attention.  Unfortunately, most of them aren’t available through Netflix, so it wasn’t until I stepped up my game with A Little TLC(w) and started poking around in other places that I’ve been able to get my hands on some of them.  Luckily, I was able to rent a streaming video of this one through Amazon.

Bully Lei, a warlord, has been trying to woo his seventh wife, and all she likes are magic shows.  Of course, there’s the small matter of the facts that 1) he’s holding her father as a political prisoner and 2) he married her against her will, so it doesn’t seem like a magic show will really be the key to her heart, but he’s trying.  A small theatre is touting their new magician Chang Hsien, rumored to possess real powers.  Now, if you were a group of rebels looking to kidnap a warlord on the hunt for the perfect magic show, wouldn’t you want a magician on your side?

A very interesting premise, and I love all the scenes pulling back the curtain, so to speak, on the mechanics behind Chang Hsien’s tricks.  On the whole, though, the movie falls a little short for me.  It’s hard to put my finger on the exact why – some of the humor is overly-broad, there are places where the plot gets unnecessarily busy – but it doesn’t quite live up to its promise.  That said, I repeat:  I do love the magic scenes, both the ones that reveal “howdy doodat” and the ones that don’t.  They’re well-shot and well-executed.  I also appreciate that Yin, Bully Lei’s seventh wife, isn’t a poor damsel, nor is she merely a “feisty captive.”  The story gives her some agency beyond waiting for rescue.

Bonus point:  the movie features a very brief appearance by Daniel Wu, who plays Sunny on Into the Badlands.  Now, Wu is an American who became a big-name actor in China and has since been breaking into Hollywood, but I came at his work backwards with Bandlands, so this is the first Chinese movie I’ve seen him in.

As Chang Hsien, Leung is at the center of the film.  “Mysterious” is his whole shtick, so he gets mileage out of being just a little unfathomable.  His expression is often vague, and even when he smiles, it rarely reaches his eyes.  For me, that makes the character a bit hard to connect with, and I think it’s probably exacerbated by the fact that this is a mainland film, so Leung’s Mandarin is dubbed – I’m not sure if his own line delivery would’ve brought the performance home a bit more.

Not that it’s a bad performance; it’s just kind of remote, and even then not throughout.  There are some long, still moments when Chang Hisen’s expression becomes a private book for an audience of one to read, and those scenes are highly effective.  He also carries off the magician aspect well.  I’m curious to know how much of it is camera trickery and how much of it is Leung performing the illusions himself.  Enquiring minds…

Recommend?

In General – Maybe.  It’s all right but not great.  Might be worth a watch.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Eh, maybe.  Other than the magic (which, again, is fun,) there’s not a whole lot here that you can’t see Leung do better elsewhere.

Warnings

Violence, sexual references, language, drinking, and thematic elements.

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