Easy Money (Tong tian da dao, 1987)
Stephen Shin
Hong Kong
92 mins, color, Cantonese (English subtitles)
I don't know what the IMDB guys were smoking when they gave this film an 8/10, but it must have been something pretty darn strong (yep, all six of them that voted). At best, this is a lame low budget quickie with some stunts, a little action, and a romance that is as cheesy as George Lam's mustache. At worst, oh wait! I already told you the worst. This remake of THE THOMAS CROWN affair has Michelle Yeoh failing to do what Pierce Brosnan failed to do in the US film. She is Michelle Yeung (uh-oh), the bored millionaire who gets her kicks by robbing stuff, riding expensive horses, driving expensive cars, wearing expensive clothes, skiing down expensive slopes in expensive countries, and falling rationally in love with insurance agents! Well, at least it is not encyclopedia salesmen. George Lam plays himself (talk about lazy scriptwriting), that is, the aforementioned intrepid insurance guy, who analytically solves cases by watching timeless Hollywood epics and running DOS batch files that list file names (does anybody ever pay attention to the computer monitor? I guess, it's just old programmers like me that do).
The latest heist of Miss Yeung's goes wonderfully right and she ends up $30 million HK dollars richer (naturally, in a Swiss bank, the epitome of greed). Lam starts tracking her down, bearing close, breathing down her neck, and then... achieving nothing because Lam is lame. He starts to like her (or pity her? or fear for her?) and they have a truly romantic outing with the traditional beer guzzling, shoddy hippie singing, and devouring of buffalo wings. At this point, they are hopelessly in love, and the film is hopelessly lost. Eventually, Lam's cop friend Ken (Kent Cheng) succumbs under the pressure of having to buy too much food and tries to steal the money that Miss Yeung has graciously donated back to the police. He is caught and the happy couple flies off to Greece so that the trailer can have more shots of exotic places.
The film is cheap, badly made, and quite boring. If it weren't for Michelle Yeoh, it would not be worth renting (and I have the DVD, damnit). There's no action for her, and this is another weakness. Oh well, maybe her double skiing counts as exciting, but then maybe not. The characters were such caricatures, I could not decide whether they were likable in that ridiculous way that stupid things often are, or whether they were annoying the living daylights out of me. I think the first 10 mins was the former, and the other 80 mins, it was the latter. Someone ought to tell Stephen Shin to lay off the fast forward before his films begin to resemble that breathtaking car chase through the streets of Paris. Don't get me started on the music; it was a charity bit for talentless hacks.
Some good things. Favorite scenes: (1) snotty French guy bites Alpine ice in Switzerland; (2) goofy car chase with goofy cars in goofy France with goofy cops; (3) wrong English subs on English dialogue; (4) Chaucerian dialogue: "I don't understand what you are saying (because one guy speaks French and the other Chinese), but if you say it again, I'm going to beat you up!" (loose interpretation of the loose English translation of what I can only surmise is the loose Chinese dialogue).
Michelle Yeoh. I know I always rave about her, but she is gifted and she deserves every bit of praise I can come up with. Unlike the subterranean performance of her colleagues, she gave it a noble try. She goes from an excited chick in a Ferrari to a melancholic chick, on whom it suddenly dawns that her adventures are not exactly harmless to others, to an elegant chick who sips some snobbishly overpriced wine, to a millionaire chick living la vida loca. Unlike most of her earlier appearances, in which she showed up as the energizer tomboy, she has long hair (much better), wears long dresses, and never raises her voice except when threatening to sue. Unusual, but not bad at all.
The Universe DVD is nothing exceptional. The video transfer is okay, not too shabby, but not very stable either. The sound is acceptable, and the English subs are written by someone who has at least grade school acquaintance with the language. There are some extras, like star bios (Michelle, George, and Stephen), the movie trailer, which has more shots of Greece than the film itself, and trailers for THE ROYAL WARRIORS and MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS. If you want to part with $5, then get the DVD. Otherwise, stay away from it (unless you are a rabid Michelle Yeoh fan, in which case <begin subliminal message>get it now! get it now! get it now!<end subliminal message>.)
May 16, 2001. BLS