From: upham@cs.ubc.ca (Derek Upham)
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies
Subject: HK film review: "Spy Games"
Date: 22 Nov 1992 00:22:02 -0800
Organization: Raven's Auto Body Repair Shop, Mega-Tokyo.
NNTP-Posting-Host: pacific.cs.ubc.ca

Takako, an up-and-coming Tokyo rock star, has an up-and-coming
birthday.  Her band wants to throw her a surprise party, but to do
this, they have to somehow deal with their evil-stepmotheresque
manager.  So a plan is hatched.  A group of masked men break into the
manager's house and threaten her.  They say that they are going to
kidnap Takako and use her to lure her father out of hiding in Hong
Kong; the manager had better stay away from Takako if she knows what's
good for her.

A reasonable plan, except the woman they threaten is Takako herself,
not the manager.  Takako flees in a panic.  This is the first time she
has ever heard the slightest rumor of her father's whereabouts, and she
decides to fly to Hong Kong to find him, and if possible, save him.

During her flight she is so haunted by imaginary villains that she
provokes a fake bomb scare; then in the airport, running from the
``bomber'', she grabs a van and drives for about a kilometer before
crashing.  All this is quite a shock to Ken, a local TV anchor who was
in the back of the van at the time.  When Ken comes to after the crash,
he finds himself charged with the accident and diagnosed with
schizophrenia.  On television.  By his girlfriend.

And then later that day Ken notices Takako in a shopping mall, and
tries to capture her to show her to the police, and Takako runs, and
so on...


One standby movie plot is ``The Fantasy That Turns Out To Be Serious
and Quite Real''.  "Year of the Gun" was the last film (that I can
recall) which used this sort of device.  Well, "Spy Games" is another
example, although it probably only qualifies for ``Real Enough''.  I
can already hear people muttering about how I've ruined the story for
them, so let me state that this plot element is only a small portion of
the film; "Spy Games" is actually a romantic comedy.  Don't be
surprised; they _can_ mix genres like that---this is a Hong Kong film.

What _is_ surprising is that this is offbeat comedy (Hong Kong films
tend more towards slapstick), and very good offbeat comedy at that.
The direction (by David Wu; Tsui Hark produced) and writing and
scripting (Ng Fan Mai, Philip Cheng, Lam Kei To, and Lau Tai Mok) are
top-notch; gags fall in right in the soft spot between the mundane and
the bizzare.  And the dialogue?

    ``He's scared.''
    ``How do you know?'' 
    ``Tough guys don't fart.''

The writers are helped by some excellent acting work.  Kenny Bee (as
Ken) and Noriko Izumoto (as Takako) play their roles completely
straight-faced, which offsets the humor perfectly.  Wang Tsu Hsien,
usually cast as a damsel in varying levels of distress, plays a
straight-shooting and drop-dead sexy cop, and Saburo Tokito is a band
member who falls head over heels for her.

Two other points of interest: Noriko and her friends are Japanese, and
the writers have decided to play straight with language issues
throughout the film (mostly; the exception is minor).  This means all
the dialogue in the first portion of the film is in Japanese, and once
the action (and the people) have moved to Hong Kong, you'll hear a lot
of English (unless you're listening to the Mandarin soundtrack, which
dubs _everything_, the jerks).  The music, done by Kou Otani, is
first-rate; Takako's rock songs are much better than your average
J-pop.  Otani's background music is equally good; at one point it
switches to Bluegrass, and somehow, it works.


I'll recommend "Spy Games" to anyone who wants their humor a bit
weirder than normal.  Do not watch it if you are profoundly offended
by gratuitous plot twists.  If you're only slightly offended by them,
note that they give the writers more time to be humorous; give the
film a chance.


Derek

-- 
Derek Lynn Upham                               University of British Columbia
upham@cs.ubc.ca                                   Computer Science Department
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"Ha!  Your Leaping Tiger Kung Fu is no match for my Frightened Piglet Style!"
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies