A R O U N D T O W N 發光的城市 17 TAIPEI TIMES • FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2009

Romance tames Who’s watching the the beast and director By Ho Yi Staff reporter Watchmen? Known for his phenomenally successful tough-guy action fare, Hong Kong’s Andrew Lau (劉偉強) returns to the big screen with Look for a Star (游龍戲鳳), a romantic comedy By STEVE PERSALL film about a business tycoon and a cabaret dancer. NY Times News Service, St Petersburg, Florida Though locked and loaded with a stellar cast that includes Andy Lau (劉德華) and Shu Qi (舒淇), the blockbuster director fails to establish his name in the chick- flick sphere with this effort, because he is unable to save the formulaic story line from making a, well, formulaic film. In Look, Andy Lau plays the handsome, charming billionaire named Sam, while Shu plays the perky Milan, who works as a cabaret dancer and croupier to make ends uperheroes have become a rather meet. The two quickly fall in love after a chance encounter dull lot, in a personality sense. How in a Macanese casino. S much vengeance for murdered However, Milan, a romanticist who longs for love rather relatives or, in Iron Man’s case, rearranged than fame and fortune, begins to have doubts when she priorities, can one genre sustain? Absent Watchmen uncovers Sam’s true identity. a fresh face like Tony Stark’s, or a The prenuptial agreement forced upon Milan by Sam’s magnificent villain like Heath Ledger’s DIRECTED BY: Zack Snyder mother, and his connivance in the accord, leaves the bride Joker, superhero movies are all sound and heartbroken. STARRING: Patrick Wilson (Dan fury signifying box office. Besides the main story focusing on how Sam and Milan Which is why Zack Snyder’s Watchmen Dreiberg/Nite Owl II), Jackie Earle Haley (Walter Kovacs/Rorschach), Malin overcome the odds, two subplots, which involve Sam’s thrills, at least the first half of its epic Akerman (Laurie Jupiter/Silk Specter secretary Jo (Denise Ho, 何韻詩) and Lin Jiu (Zhang Hanyu, running time. This is a movie unafraid of II), Billy Crudup (Dr Manhattan/Jon 張涵予), an honest worker from Shandong Province as catering to a narrow audience that pawed Osterman), Matthew Goode (Adrian well as Sam’s chauffeur (Dominic Lam, 林嘉華) and single through Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ The cast of the Warner Bros movie Watchmen, from left, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, Malin Akerman Veidt/Ozymandias), Jeffrey Dean Morgan mother Shannon (Zhang Xinyi, 張歆藝), are introduced as graphic novel as if it were a Dead Sea scroll. as Silk Specter II, Billy Crudup as Dr Manhattan, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II (Edward Blake/The Comedian), Carla variations on the rich-guy-marries-poor-girl drama. Anyone coming along simply for a roller Gugino (Sally Jupiter/Silk Specter), and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. photo: ny times news service Director Lau ingeniously sets the film mainly in Macau, coaster ride is out of luck. Watchmen is Stephen McHattie (Hollis Mason/Nite whose Portuguese-style churches, cobbled streets and the anti-superhero flick, as off-the-hook blue motion-capture animation) and the lore and super-soap opera, dovetailing Owl), Matt Frewer (Edgar Jacobi/ grand casinos provide a fanciful feel. serious as the equally deconstructing sociopathic Comedian (Jeffrey Dean into a wan finale. Moloch the Mystic) But the footage of Shu and Andy Lau scooting around Mystery Men was silly. Morgan), whose cold-blooded nature Wading through personal conflict is RUNNING TIME: 163 MINUTES the city’s enchanting vistas isn’t enough to lift the film from I know from flipping through the likely hastened passage of the Keene Act rewarded with brilliant set pieces that leap mediocrity. Crosscutting three plots, the narration feels comics that Snyder’s movie is reverent to outlawing masked vigilantes. off the screen: opening credits superbly TAIWAN RELEASE: TODAY messy and is at times incoherent, while plot devices such its dense source, although softening the Crimefighters cast out left the establishing an altered time and place; as a televised confession of love and the appearance of a apocalyptic finale a bit. Theaters will be Watchmen dysfunctional. Dr Manhattan Rorschach’s graphically violent prison stint; Note: In Taiwan, the complete version cockhorse in a park appear tired and contrived. filled this weekend by much more slavish lives a godlike existence as an Army Dr Manhattan’s self-exile on Mars; and the of ‘Watchmen’ is screening in IMAX readers, who will call this a masterpiece weapon, unable to connect with humans, Comedian’s brutally superhuman murder. format only and is rated R (restricted or feel content that Snyder did the best even his lover Silk Specter II (Malin Nobody gets shortchanged in the action to 18 years and over). The version anyone could with this material. Akerman), who turns to Nite Owl II department. showing in all other theaters has I’ll defer to admitted Watchmen fan and (Patrick Wilson) for companionship. He Haley has the meatiest role, a been modified to gain the lower colleague Eric Deggans about the deep has gone soft since hanging up his cape, seething, Taxi Driver-style avenger of rating of PG (restricted to 12 years Look for a Star (游龍戲鳳) political meanings of an alternate universe bored by inactivity and sexually impotent. morality whose mask shifts with his and over) set in 1985, in which Richard Nixon is There’s Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), mood. Morgan’s Comedian is the most DIRECTED BY: Andrew Lau (劉偉強) a five-term president and the Vietnam a holdout against the Keene Act whose charismatic Watchman — think of beefy, about its social importance, it loses steam. War was won in a week. Like most sci-fi, continued vigilantism gets personal when belligerent Robert Downey Jr — although There isn’t enough room in one movie STARRING: Andy Lau (劉德華) as Sam, Shu Qi (舒淇) as Milan, Watchmen is steeped in social and political the Comedian is murdered. Least of all, his amorality is tough to cheer. Other for all of Moore’s backstories, making Denise Ho (何韻詩) as Jo, Zhang Hanyu (張涵予) as Lin Jiu, allegory. Unlike most sci-fi, Moore’s vision there’s Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), who characters’ more humane problems and Armageddon personal. Yet it marches Dominic Lam (林嘉華) as Tim is exceedingly nihilistic. never lives up to his billing as the world’s performances are eclipsed by Rorschach along, loud, bloody and proud, confident Victory in Vietnam was achieved by smartest man, except for the fortune and Comedian’s twisted vigor and the that viewers who matter can fill in gaps. RUNNING TIME: 116 MINUTES two Watchmen — the nuclear mutant Dr made by exploiting his past. Watchmen impressive destruction around them. More sound and fury, signifying what only Manhattan (Billy Crudup in gloriously doesn’t have a plot as much as origins When Watchmen becomes deluded fanboys and fangirls understand. Language: in Cantonese and Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles

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