Reviews

Movie

Primal Fear

Directed by Gregory Hoblit, starring Richard Gere, Edward Norton

The best suspense film to me features one twist after another, each one a complete surprise. Primal Fear fits the standard.

Big shot lawyer Vail decides to defend an altar boy suspected to have brutally killed a bishop, because he knows the case will help him hit the headlines again. But when he approaches the truth, he finds both the boy and the case are much more complicated than he expects.

The primal reason to make the film a must on your shelf is of course the plot. The brilliant performance of Richard Gere and Edward Norton deserve your time, too. Norton, then only 27, presents a gorgeously convincing performance of a hysteric, shy and sinister boy; while Gere proves that he is not only a beautiful face through his sophisticated portrayal of a seemingly shrewd lawyer who actually struggles to hold his own faith.

Liu Wei

Invisible Target

Directed by Benny Chan and starring Nicolas Tse, Shawn Yue, Jaycee Chan

This Hong Kong action flick packs a wallop. The formula is pure Hollywood, with a slightly justified band of Soviet-born, mainland gangsters wrecking havoc in the special administrative region. Their nemesis is a troika of local cops, each with a strong motive to bring them down. The arch villain - spoiler alert - is someone with the facade of uprightness and high position.

Nicolas Tse gets beaten so badly that he jokes he took on this role to "earn the baby formula money for his soon-to-be-born boy". He gets some acting done in between the fighting scenes, too. Jaycee Chan, aka Jackie's boy, has a role tailor-made for him, showcasing his too-good-to-be-true innocence. Mainland-trained kungfu professional Wu Jing, who plays the bad boy, has a menacing presence you won't be able to forget soon. About the only one left colorless is pretty boy Shawn Yue.

This is a reminder of Hong Kong cinema in the golden age of 1980s when non-action stars would do anything for a perfect shot. The movie breaks so much glass it should be renamed The Destruction of the Glass Menagerie.

Raymond Zhou

Music

The Breath of Grasslands

This album of Inner Mongolian songs mixes a few chestnuts, such as The Song of Praise and The Sun Never Sets on the Grassland, popular during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), with rarely heard authentic numbers sung in the local tongue. All 12 tracks have the touch of Yong Rubu, the 74-year-old conductor who extensively employs Western-style harmony in the arrangement, adding a layer of richness but somewhat diluting the original flavor.

Mongolian folk songs have such a unique style that one can almost feel a steed galloping on the grassland, a herd of sheep roaming and clouds rolling over the sky. Much of the style, vocal and instrumental, is preserved in this sonically balanced, yet not ideally atmospheric recording. To a Western ear, it may be the right mix and an appropriate introduction to the wilderness and abandon of Mongolian music. RZ

(China Daily 08/02/2007 page20)