Customer Reviews

Hidden Heroes

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A well acted dive into strange, disjointed mixtures of time travel, androids, love stories, bad guys, and saving the world by sheer luck and strangeness, this may drive you crazy. If you use the English subtitles you swear that they must not be translating all of it, but the people who actually listen to the Chinese dialog swear that the subtitles are good, and that the dialog is meant to be strange and confusing.

About one third of the people who watch it love it, about one third like it, and one third are confused as all get out when it is over.

See which group you belong to.

Where to begin with this film?

Ronald Cheng plays the character of Yohji Ho. Perhaps one of the dumbest individuals in the police force who meets a girl played by Charlene Choi.

The two agree to go out on a date after his work (when he's actually involved in a stakeout to capture a criminal)

During a stakeout, Yohji comes close to a clever-disguised criminal who is armed with dynamite. During the chase, the criminal is stopped by the girl (Choi) and next thing you know, the girl risks her life to save Yohji's by setting off the detonation killing both her and the criminal.

You then realize a little later into the storyline that Yohji is actually being protected by androids that all look like Charlene Choi.

It appears that the androids have come from the future (and is created by a brother he doesn't know) to make sure that Yohji survives until August 15th, the day he dies.

Through several incidents, Yohji is determined to change the future which starts when he meets Mei Ling (also played by Charlene Choi), a tough orphaned girl who lacks emotion and Yohji suspects that she is an android or somehow responsible for them.

Yohji is determined to kill Mei Ling to prevent himself from being killed in the future.

But Yohji starts to learn that he likes Mei Ling and Mei Ling likes him (in her own way) and thus the two start a friendship that will make them fugitives.

Through this process, Yohji learns more about his relationships with family and others that will affect his future.

Why there are andoids? Who created the androids? What is the head investigator really hard in taking down Yohji? And why will Yohji die on August 15th?

From reading the synopsis so far,it sounds serious and perhaps very Terminator-ish like. The truth is that this film is far from that.

It's actually a comedy that tends to go back and forth from serious to comedy and the comedy is literally stupid humor (ie. "Dude, Where's My Car").

Granted, if you are a Hong Kong (especially the Christy Chung and Michael Wong era) fan of these type of movies and you enjoy Ashton Kutcher, Adam Sandler and Bob Schneider films, you will be able to somewhat enjoy "Hidden Heroes".

Unfortunately, even though I can easily watch these types of films, "Hidden Heroes" tends to switch from stupid and ridiculous humor to serious and the fact the characters are off-the-wall, it's hard to accept them when they are serious.

Heck, it's hard to even understand how Yohji got into the police force since he's so dumb.

But I will say this, Ronald Cheng does play the part of Yohji very well. Very idiotic but well-acted.

As for Charlene Choi, I've said this many times in reviews of films starring her that we can see her playing various roles and when she shines, she shines. When she doesn't, she doesn't.

In "Hidden Heroes", she plays several characters like Mei Ling and the various androids. As Mei Ling, she plays a person that lacks emotion, while as a android, she lacks emotion but smiles all the time and talks in an annoying voice.

So, I kind of wondered why she took part in this film, when she has been in so many other good films, it's like taking a step backwards.

As for the positives of "Hidden Heroes", the film features cameos by many Hong Kong stars. For Stephen Chow fans, you will see familiar faces from "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kung Fu Shuffle".

Second, I am quite amazed of how many scenic shots were taken in this film. Many outdoor shots were taken for this film and it made things much easier to watch for this film.

But what hurts the film aside from the comedy to serious segments is the pacing. With so many cameos from stars, I sometimes wondered if they had to work around the schedules of other stars.

As for the DVD, special features include the teaser and theatrical trailers. Also, the making of the film featurette.

As for the video, the quality wasn't that great in terms of video quality. Also, the DVD case shows that this film was available ala DTS but the setup only offers Digital 5.1.

All in all, "Hidden Heroes" is not a terrible movie and I'm sure that a lot of the jokes may get lost in translation and those who depend on the English subtitles may not get it compared to people who speak and understand Cantonese.

The film has its fun moments but unfortunately the dumb moments are just too many and are quite annoying.