In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

Q: " desperate measures " was something i was excited about seeing back when it was originally scheduled to be released : summer ' 97 . for some reason , it was delayed until hollywood 's traditional dumping ground : january .
now that it 's out , i see no real reason for that delay , as it 's a simple yet highly entertaining film .
michael keaton stars as a maniacial murderer who 's bone marrow can save the life of the dying son of a san francisco police detective ( garcia ) .
keaton agrees to the transplant , only so he can attempt escape .
he succeeds , in a plan that of course could only work in the movies .
the police force is now trying to kill keaton , while garcia is working against them trying to keep keaton alive in order to save his son .
the film definately has it 's flaws .
the plot is strictly tv movie of the week fare , but the acting and direction certainly boost it far above that status .
also , after keaton 's escape , garcia 's captain barks at him " how many men have to die to save your kid 's life ? " which the film treats as such an evil and insignificant remark .
the thing is , it 's a vaild point .
how many people have to be needlessly crippled , burned , and killed just to save this one child ?
what 's the greater good here ?
many lives or one life ?
if movies really had guts nowadays , i would have loved to have seen this movie come down to a final choice for garcia 's character .
place him in a situation where he knows that he has to kill keaton because keaton is about to kill someone else .
alas , movies these days generally have no such ambition to pull the audience 's strings in ways which might make the uncomfortable .
despite a few silly moments ( and one or two really stupid ones ) , the good things about " desperate measures " outnumber the bad .
the main highlight would be keaton 's performance .
the character could have easily been an overacting , scene chewing freak , but keaton underplays it nicely .
he 's not as menacing as he was in " pacific heights " or even as menacing as he was in " batman
" ( yes kids , batman used to be a dark character ) , but you certainly get the idea that he 's evil .
even the final scene of the film , which normally i would just hate , seems strangely appropriate for this film .
so much so that i did n't mind it in the slightest . and another bonus : the film takes place in san francisco , which usually means a car chase on those hills that you 've seen a billion times before .
and for a moment , it looked as though it was about to happen .
but it does n't ,
and that 's creative .
[ r ]

A: P
****
Q: the new austin powers film continues a movie tradition begun in the eighties .
produce something , anything , that will get the high school and junior high kids in the theater because they buy more soda and popcorn than senior citizens .
the usual hallmarks of this filmmaking tradition are all here .
gross humor , sex jokes , silly sight gags , more sex jokes .
and the film is a strong contender in the current race to be cruder , grosser and more outrageous than that last film .
what the film is not , however , is funny .
the plot centers around the return of dr .
evil , who goes back in time to steal austin powers ' mojo ( a liquid with red stuff in it extracted from austin 's pelvis ) which gives austin his sexual prowess and the charisma to defeat his enemies .
austin must go after him , and returns to the swinging sixties where free love and sexy secret agents had their heyday .
i almost avoided this film because i did not like the original .
but the films premise sounded like an excellent comic vehicle and the film received many good reviews .
i wish i had stuck to my first impression .
myers is trying to be the jerry lewis of this generation .
and he has the talent to do it , at least as an actor .
but the material he is working with here , much of it his own , falls short of anything resembling comic genius .
this movie tries to carry the day with sight gags about drinking distilled feces , a five - hundred - pound fat man 's butt crack , and a barrage of sex jokes aimed at the level of the average 15 year old .
after some of these scenes , one has to wonder how gross the next generation of films will have to go to get an audiences attention .
the direction also helps the film achieve a new low point in cinematic humor .
for the most part , i felt as if i was watching a saturday morning chalderns live action tv show .
there is no sense of comic timing or subtlety .
the director just throws the material at us , giving us nothing except the hope that anyone with a camera could be a film director .
i am sure the film will have appeal to many of the under 22 crowd , at least the one 's who have yet to discover literacy .
certainly the movie is directed towards the generation that prefers everything described as ' in your face , kick you in the teeth , take no prisoners ,
( action - verb + blah blah blah ) .
' if you see the film and you find you 're not laughing , there is nothing wrong with you .
it just means you grew up since seventh grade .

A: N
****
Q: "
a man is not a man without eight taels of gold .
" starring sammo hung , sylvia chang ; directed by mabel cheung ; written by cheung and alex law ; cinematography by bill wong eight taels of gold begins as a fish out of water story and at some point becomes a love story involving two people whose past choices prevent the fruition of their love .
neither aspect of the movie is entirely successful , but both are good enough .
and along the way there is one perfect scene , which is one more than you find in most films
.
slim ( played by portly sammo hung , better known as a star and director of hong kong action movies ) is a chinese immigrant who drives a yellow cab in new york .
when the movie opens , we see him shouting obscenities at another taxi driver .
he does not seem particularly out of place .
in fact , he is about to return to visit his home in rural china for the first time in sixteen years , spending most of his life savings in the process , and it is there that he will become the proverbial fish out of water , as he realizes that you can never go home .
he brings with him some statue of liberty cigarette lighters , cheap sunglasses , and lobsters ( which have to be large , to prove they 're american ) --the tokens of his success .
he also wears a gold chain and a gold watch , because without eight taels of gold , a man is not a man ( my dictionary tells me that taels are a unit of weight used in the far east , and i assume the phrase is a chinese proverb ) .
he loses most of this stuff -- except the gold -- when his van crashes into a river and he has to hitch a ride , so to speak , on a raft along the river which runs past his parents ' village .
when he arrives unannounced , he almost induces cardiac arrest in his father .
all of this has the makings of a routine comedy , and the movie has its amusing moments , as when the villagers take turns giving slim gifts during a celebration of his homecoming , and they all give him birds , so by evening 's end he is surrounded by turkeys , ducks , geese and other sundry fowl .
but eight taels is not a comedy -- it is a sad , sweet story about the choices people make , and how they are sometimes irreparable .
director mabel cheung ( an autumn 's tale , the soong sisters ) sees clearly what it is like to have lived half of your life in one country and half in a country on the other side of the world -- what it is like to no longer have a place to call home .
slim does not belong in china , nor does he belong in america , where he can barely speak the language .
seeing water buffalo in the fields and rafts poled down the river and fireworks exploding gloriously in the sky over a small village , we come to know the world slim left behind , and it seems as if he too is knowing it for the first time , and wishes it felt more like home .
the condition of the expatriate is eloquently portrayed ; i , being one , was sympathetic .
on his way to his parent 's village , slim hooks up with jenny ( sylvia chang ) , whom he knew when she was a girl nicknamed odds - and - ends , which is what he continues to call her , although she is now a mature , professional , attractive woman , to be married in the spring to an american - chinese man .
slim and odds - and - ends fall for each other .
that 's predictable .
the manner in which their ( non- ) romance is played out is not .
the emotions involved are adult and complex , and the film avoids cheap solutions to their dilemma .
it 's typical , for instance , that the fianc ?
in this sort of plot be a colossal jerk , because it makes it easier to empathize with the unrequited lover .
but here the fianc ? is a decent , ordinary guy , and although slim would like to feel anger , he can not .
the fianc ? has done nothing wrong ; the situation is the result of bad luck or bad decisions , take your pick .
eight taels has its share of flaws ( the early sequences in america and on the plane to china are especially weak ) , but it compensates with insight .
when odds - and - ends tells slim that her future husband wants to move to san francisco , she notes resignedly , " it 's all the same .
wherever we go , we 'll be in chinatown , " and her straightforward statement expresses much .
there is insight , too , in the understanding of the consequences of slim and odds - and - ends ' decisions : he to move to america , she to marry a chinese - american .
both their choices were perhaps born of impatience , perhaps of a sense that the grass is always greener -- and it turns out that both choices were wrong .
but they can not undo them ; they must live with what they have done .
such is life .
the movie is tender toward these people , but it offers no false comforts .
everything that is right and true
about eight taels comes together in one great scene , which is the culmination of the love story .
slim and odds - and - ends sit in a secluded spot and talk hesitantly , with the muted pop - pop of fireworks exploding in the night behind them , and it seems the conversation will lead to a kiss .
the exchange that follows , and what slim then does , is poignant and perfect : with clarity and understatement , we see two people 's lives , their heartbreaks and virtues , summed up in a single moment .
yes , the film is flawed , but moments like that justify most of its inadequacies .

A:
P
****