The Drummer

Year:2007
Director:Kenneth Bi
Cast:Jaycee Chan, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Angelica Lee Sum-Kit, Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung, Josie Ho Chiu-Yi, Kenneth Tsang Kong, Yumiko Cheng Hei-Yi, Liu Ruo-Yu, Huang Chih-Chun, Eugenia Yuan Lai-Kei, Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, Glen Chin
Description:
Ill-conceived may be the
best word to describe The Drummer. Director Kenneth
Bi's exceptionally well-produced film is fine to look
at and a joy to listen to, especially during the scenes
involving the rhythmic performing of the film's Zen
Drummers. Part of the story brings the viewer into the
strict philosophies and austere daily lives of a Taiwan-based
Zen drumming clan, and the glimpse is appreciable for
its presumably accurate and usually unseen detail. There
is a certain enchantment and energy to their drumming
performances, and the film has dynamite sound design
to make it sound all the more powerful and exciting.
However, that's only the film's A plot. The film's B
plot involves a brewing triad gang war, recycled plot
devices from the greatest hits of Tony Leung Ka-Fai,
and more canned melodrama than any single film requires.
Worst of all, the film's two parts don't seem to be
compatible, making the whole an attractive, but pretentious,
unconvincing and even bewildering affair.
Jaycee Chan has recently impressed
as an actor, distancing himself from his forgettable
Twins Effect 2 debut with a string of solid,
professional performances in 2 Young, The
Sun Also Rises, and even Invisible Target,
though his minor overacting in that last film was a
bit taxing. The Drummer is proof of Chan's professionalism,
as he handles a role with high physical and emotional
demands, and comes through admirably. Unfortunately,
his character is an obvious screenwriter creation, and
not very convincing. Chan plays Sid, who's a drummer
in a rock band at night, and an insufferable pain during
the day. Sid sleeps with the sexy Carmen ,
who warns him that her boyfriend Stephen Ma won't be happy that they're playing around. Stephen
catches the two in the tub and gets unhappy, whereupon
Sid screams at the top of his lungs, "You can't touch
me! Do you know who my father is?" Yes, we do, it's
Jackie Chan! After seeing Jaycee yell about his pop,
one almost expects the elder JC to come busting in carrying
a stepladder for some quick prop-induced action, but
obviously that would be completely unrealistic.
Then again, the film has a
hard time convincing of its reality regardless of a
Jackie Chan cameo appearance. Sid's dad is actually
triad kingpin Kwan , a fact that
Sid parades around your proverbial "Get Out of Jail
Free" card. Kwan actually owes Ma from a previous triad-related
encounter, so he's put in a tough spot because he wants
to save his son and also make good with Ma, who's a
triad kingpin who wears a suit, and not an open shirt
with gold chains like Kwan. For those who don't understand
underworld hierarchy, wearing a suit means you rank
higher than guys with gold chains. Kwan responds to
this dilemma by going ape, which is when we realize
that Kwan is basically a slightly more subdued version
of Big D, Tony Leung Ka-Fai's award-winning role in
Election. Leung brings the same cartoony excess
and brimming inner emotion to Kwan that he did to Big
D, except he sometimes opts for cartoony excess during
inappropriate scenes. The result: epic overacting that
can be sometimes quite funny, especially when he's throwing
house pets or writing a letter with the same manic glee
as he would disembowel a treacherous underling. Tony
Leung Ka-Fai is a fine actor, but in The Drummer,
it's like he's parodying himself.
Sid has to go on the run, which
sends him to Taiwan, along with his official triad babysitter
Chiu . One morning he discovers
a group of Zen drummers practicing in the nearby mountains.
Immediately, Sid is enchanted by their powerful and
rhythmic drumming, so he cajoles them into an open audition
where he bangs on a bunch of drums like a wannabe Tommy
Lee. Bizarrely enough, the group decides to let Sid
join, supposedly because he has talent, but also possibly
because they want to teach him a lesson in humility.
They subject him to menial character-building tasks,
which test his patience because hey, he just wants to
rock! Sid also wants to romance Hong Dou , a fiery junior member of the group who
initially clashes with Sid. However, to earn her respect
and become a better drummer and person he must learn
such lessons as how to "drum without drumming", or how
to become "one with the moment". Will Sid become a better
person, embrace Zen drumming, win Hong Dou's heart,
make peace with his father, escape the clutches of Stephen
Ma AND exact justice from the triads for all that they've
done? And can all these plotlines conceivably be solved
in less than two hours?
Yes they can, but not convincingly.
Kenneth Bi assembles a multitude of themes and storylines,
but some of his ideas just don't work well together.
The film's triad storyline is more generic than inspired,
and is given to the same posturing, plotholes, and narrative
sloppiness as your standard gangland thriller, albeit
with a healthy helping of family dysfunction and parental
issues, courtesy of Sid's problems with both his dad
and his wayward mom . The
generic handling of this storyline drags down the film's
more evocative details, namely those involving the Zen
Drummers and their craft, which is actually quite interesting
when it's not seeming pretentious. Kenneth Bi introduces
his subject poorly: he uses a blatantly manufactured
character, Sid, to introduce a spiritual subject, which
he paints in an objectified and too-reverential manner.
That he uses Zen drumming to enlighten a spoiled triad
brat makes it all seem a bit too cloying.
There's wisdom in the Zen Drummers'
spiritual teachings, but the way Sid is integrated into
them is pandering, like the Zen Drummer version of The
Karate Kid. In any realistic film, the drummers
would tell Sid to take a hike when he first forces them
to give him an audition, and his subsequent behavior
doesn't make him any more endearing or tolerable. However,
because he's so talented and they're so patient and
wise, they accept his crap, allowing him to one day
become enlightened and a better man, drummer, and probably
son. The revelation that he's the son of a triad boss
and that he's marked for maiming or murder by sordid
underworld types is apparently no big deal to them,
either. Basically, the two storylines - triad thriller
and inspirational drumming film - are ill-fitting for
one another. The former is too commercial and cloying,
and the latter uplifting only if you factor out the
cheesiness of the triad drama and accompanying characters.
There's actually two competent, if not good films in
The Drummer, but together they make one uninspiring
whole.
The worst part is that the
triad portion of the film literally drags down the drumming
portion. About three-quarters into the film, the triad
stuff has faded into the background and the drumming
comes to the fore, and Kenneth Bi actually seems like
he's on to something. Once the audience gets past the
awkward set up and cloying storyline, the film seems
to find some visual splendor and rhythmic poetry in
the mountains of Taiwan. The art of the Zen Drummers
does seem to seduce, and Sid's acceptance of their training,
and his subsequent enlightenment does strike a few chords.
Then...it's back to Hong Kong for clashes with duplicitous
triads and ham-handed moralizing! That the Zen Drummers
accompany Sid to triad functions and even play a part
in his saga of triad angst, lust, revenge, and Young
and Dangerous-style posturing is just bizarre and
even hilarious. For The Drummer to work, they
needed to seriously subdue the triad storyline, and
take out all the over-verbalized moralizing and uplifting
touchy-feely conceits. Or, they could have simply excised
the triad stuff and tried to make a film about, say,
just drumming, because the Zen Drummers do seem worthy
of our attention. But The Drummer? Not so much.