Seoul Raiders

Year:2005
Director:Jingle Ma Chor-Sing
Cast:Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Richie Ren, Shu Qi, Meme Tian, Choi Yeo-Jin, Cho Soo-Hyun, Cho Han-Na
Description:
It's
been five years since Tokyo Raiders was a Lunar
New Year hit, and nobody was really clamoring for
a sequel. Regardless, they made one anyway: Seoul
Raiders. Director Jingle Ma, whose last film was
the egregious Silver Hawk, brings back Tony
Leung Chiu-Wai as Lam, the toughest Chinese private
eye in Tokyo, and a secret member of the Japanese
Security Bureau. Lam is essentially a secret agent
who possesses free reign to engage in whatever law
enforcement梠r chaos-creating undercover activity梩hat
he chooses. His latest target: "The Avenger",
a set of flawless counterfeiting plates created by
Middle Eastern interests as a way of sticking it to
the United States. Lam steals them from a lockup in
Central, and manages to escape with a pack of suit-clad
baddies AND cat burglar JJ on his tail. But
Lam is double-crossed by his CIA contact, Chinese-American
agent Owen , who drugs Lam and takes off
with the plates. Doh!
Owen plans to sell "the
Avenger" to Polar Bear, a mysterious Korean gangster
who's wanted by every law enforcement agency around.
Ergo, Owen heads to Korea and Lam follows him. True
to his established modus operandi, Lam quickly
enlists a trio of hot Korean babes to act as his entourage.
Played by virtual unknowns Choi Yeo-Jin, Cho Soo-Hyn,
and Cho Han-Na, the girls are all too happy to drop
whatever it is they're doing when Lam whistles. Besides
being a super-cool secret agent, Lam is apparently
an incredibly popular ladies man who has women in
every country at his beck and call梕ven though
he seems to have no desire to touch them. The women
hop on board the Lam vs. Owen train just in time for
a series of nonstop chases through Korea's clean urban
streets. Meanwhile, JJ shows up wanting a cut of Lam's
action and the Korean bad guys glower, overact, and
generally act ineffectual. All this, plus fighting
and an abundance of smarmy acting by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai.
Somehow this is all supposed to be amusing.
Amazingly, it is
amusing, though in the slightest way possible. Seoul
Raiders has a ridiculous concept that's thin even
by Hong Kong's usual paper-thin standards. Jingle
Ma has referred to his Raiders franchise as
a Hong Kong James Bond, but Bond would never get worked
up over cases this silly or bad guys this inept. Even
though there are supposedly serious things at stake
,
it's all put aside for the jokey, smarmy antics of
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, who's billed as the most super-cool
Asian spy EVER. Granted, since Chow Yun-Fat is no
longer available, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is probably
the coolest Hong Kong actor around, and he gamely
mugs and smirks his way through the incredibly slight
script. Richie Ren is a likably dopey foil, and Shu
Qi barely registers enough screen time to charm. Jingle
Ma and action director Alien Sit string things together
with lots of obviously-doubled fight sequences and
sometimes draggy cat-and-mouse antics. After a while,
the chasing just gets old, and one has to wonder if
anything else is going to happen besides the "Lam
finds Owen, fights Owen, then loses Owen" pattern
that gets repeated ad nauseum.
Thankfully, the film
does improve via a plot twist that's as obvious as
it is welcome. Ultimately, sides are chosen, people
put in peril, and Lam must save the day with more
slow chase sequences and some thankfully-reduced smarminess.
Once it's all over, everyone goes back to their current
countries, and the possibility of a Tibet Raiders,
Kuala Lampur Raiders, or maybe Istanbul
Raiders is created. This is ultra-fluffy, audience-friendly
entertainment at its most frivolous梬hich is
why slapping around Seoul Raiders for being
mediocre , insubstantial ,
or just plain unnecessary feels a tad
too harsh. There are much better films than Seoul
Raiders, and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai could even be
judged as slumming, but the utter lightness of the
production prevents it from becoming insulting. Unlike
the first Tokyo Raiders, which injected some
annoying soul-searching from Kelly Chen into the film,
Seoul Raiders' brief attempt at emotional weight
is played for laughs. The laughs themselves are not
very substantial, but at least they're not bothersome.
If it sounds like I'm shrugging my shoulders at this
movie, you're not far off.
Those who check out
Seoul Raiders looking for another Kung Fu
Hustle will be rightfully pissed off; this is
recycled, unoriginal commercial filmmaking that's
not inspired in any way whatsoever. Jingle Ma is not
a director known for his originality anyway; not only
does he rip off music from Kill Bill, but he
recycles jokes from the original Tokyo Raiders
as if they were supposed to be memorable, classic
comedy. Big surprise: they're not. The funniest stuff
about Seoul Raiders梑esides a brief sequence
with Shu Qi in drag梚s the fact that nobody other
than Leung can speak Cantonese fluently. Some chase
sequences go on far too long, and are weighed down
by labored attempts at smarmy comedy, all punctuated
by the omnipresent Tony Leung smirk. Jingle Ma rightfully
leans on his star's established screen charisma, but
sometimes a star can't do everything. Ma is credited
with the direction AND the script of Seoul Raiders,
and neither credit furthers the notion that Ma is
a real filmmaker.
Still, it should be noted
that the Lunar New Year is rarely a time for real
filmmaking. Most films that get released during this
period are designed for mass consumption, and Seoul
Raiders handily fits that bill. Actually comparing
this to real filmmaking would be fruitless, and the
fact that the film isn't annoying is the main reason
that I don't give it the unequivocal thumbs down.
That said, the film is not as interesting as the first
Tokyo Raiders, if only because that attempt
at urban action-comedy was a somewhat fresh concept.
All Seoul Raiders does is prove that the formula
is passably entertaining, culturally indistinct ,
and really, really thin. This is middling stuff, but
most people probably wouldn't care enough to figure
that out. And if you like the stars, you're salivating
to see this movie regardless of any criticism I heap
at it. Ultimately, you could do a lot better, but
you could do a lot worse. Take that for what it is.