Reviews

Movies The Replacement Killers

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Chow Yun-Fat, Mira Sorvino

The two-pistol clutch, the slow motion shots, the balletic violence - this looks like the work of action director John Woo. It's actually the feature debut of Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, although Woo does serve as producer and the Hong Kong filmmaker's favorite leading man, Chow Yun-Fat, stars in the lead role. Beside him is Mira Sorvino, who plays a document forger that reluctantly helps Chow's character escape the clutches of a crime king pin.

John Lee (Chow) is a hitman with a conscience, in that, he'll kill other criminals but draws the line at innocent people. This code lands him in deep doodoo when he refuses the order of his employer, mob boss Mr. Wei, to kill a policeman's son. In fear for his family in China, Lee seeks the services of dodgy passport gal, Meg Coburn (Sorvino), but during the transaction the couple are met by Wei's henchmen and are forced to go on the run. Many gunfights and neck-snappings ensue with Meg proving surprisingly handy with firearms.

A runway model of a movie, The Replacement Killers is aesthetically spellbinding but it doesn't have a lot to say. Questions surrounding the plot, such as why Meg feels sudden loyalty to a man who has endangered her life, are never satisfactorily answered. Chow is a graceful actor when he remains silent, however, when his lips begin to move things go pear-shaped. Sorvino does what she can in a largely unforgiving sidekick role in which she is forced to wear Madonna hand-me-downs from the mid-1980s. Ben Davey

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy

Despite it's admirable, yet somewhat overwrought plea for racial equality, Stanley Kramer's film about a mixed race couple seeking parental approval has not aged gracefully. Weaknesses in plot aside, this is a movie so firmly rooted in the 1960s that it is difficult not to chuckle at scenes that were intended to give the comedy-slash-drama a youthful appeal. Youngsters dance in the streets for no reason and in perhaps the most hilarious sequence, a delivery boy drops off a package while gyrating like a hep cat on Ritalin.

But back to the story. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) is a brilliant African American medical researcher who despite being more than 10 years older and having only known her for a few weeks, falls for 23-year-old white college girl, Joey Drayton (Katharine Houghton). The couple is in San Francisco to meet Joey's parents Matt and Christina (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) and seek their blessing to be married in a few weeks' time. The parents, although staunch liberals, then mull over their feelings about the relationship for most of the film's duration.

Poitier's Prentice is an impossibly nice and successful man who quickly gains the respect of his prospective father-in-law, who nonetheless still grapples with the prospect of his daughter marrying a black man. So, if Prentice had been just a mailman like his own father, would he had ever stood a chance with his girlfriend's parents? Equal parts touching and hamfisted, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner drags out considerably towards the end and it's only a final dynamite Spencer Tracy monologue that brings it back to life. BD

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page20)