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*Gorgeous* is the story of a naďve country-girl, Bu, interpreted by the brilliant and extraordinarily charming Shu Qi (the tomboy from Golden Harvest's video-gamish *Storm Riders*), who, after being lured to the city by a message in a bottle, falls in love with an aloof, self-made businessman, interpreted by Jackie Chan. The film also has a subplot involving Chan's rivalry with a less principled businessman, whose hired goons repeatedly attempt to beat Chan up.
Seduced by the script written by Vincent Kok, Chan infused the lead male character with his own personality, down to his obsession with cleanliness, his fondness for white clothes, his martial arts prowess and his name. The production designer even copied Chan's real-life office and used Chan's training equipment for the movie. (The only difference between his alter-ego and himself, Chan says, is "I don't understand Wall Street"!)
The result is a mixture of fairy-tale, reminiscent at times of the Spielberg productions of the eighties, romantic comedy, Hong Kong slapstick and martial arts movie- a kind of Chinese Disney film, benevolent, healthy and moral. Even the fight scenes are good-natured, preaching fair-play, non-violence, humility and camaraderie.
As Chan explains in his audio commentary, some critics seem not to have found him believable as a businessman. But that is no reflection on his acting abilities, which have improved a lot since the 1970s. On the contrary, I believe such remarks are motivated partly by the same kind of tunnel-vision that is hampering the movie careers of the great sitcom actors and actresses, and partly by the rarity of thoroughly good businessmen on screen. As far as I am concerned, Chan can play any kind of character (there's a Chinese architect in my script for *Spicemoon*; hint-hint) and I think he could have scrapped the martial arts altogether in *Gorgeous* and given us a full-fledged romantic comedy (even though we would have lost the wonderful fighting scenes with his extremely talented student, Brad Allan.)
If you are tired of the depravity of most modern movies, *Gorgeous* may be exactly the kind of alternative you are looking for. I strongly suggest watching the film in Cantonese with subtitles, and treating yourself to Chan's audio commentary (in English), a loose series of reminiscences about the making of the film that will give you a glimpse of Chan's wonderful generosity, candour and intelligence.
What was i happy with? The widescreen enhanced picture quality is excellent since this movie was made so recently. Older jackie films tend to have that deteriorated hong kong film look. Sound is also very good with full 5.1 surround.
Well now for the problems. First of all, jackie isn't in the dub.. so the dub is only worth experiencing if your blind and don't understand chinese. Luckily they did include the cantonese track so you can experience the film the way it was intended. Jackies real voice just sounds right, and the girls bubble head character doesn't come through on the dub correctly. The dub voice acting is just bad. Its like dubbing meg ryans voice into chinese, you lose the certain quality that makes things work. The dub also is inaccurate as they seem to rewrite or omit information(i understand chinese). The subtitles have also been changed in this release to better match the english dub.. so they too are inaccurate. Basically you miss out on some jokes and get a slightly different impression of the film.
Another thing no one seems to have noticed is the film has been cut. I've watched the original film and there are atleast 3 scenes missing. You get a glimps of one or two in the making of featurette, but they appear no where else on this release. (also notice the featurette clip subtitles are the accurate version) These missing scenes were essential for making the plot more plausible.. but were probably cut for time. I guess the studio didn't think americans have much of an attention span or stomach for subtitles.
I read one review which said that the girls decision to go to hk was odd.. Its less odd in the original cut where there are scenes of her pondering over her decision a little more.. and recieving a sign from dolphins that she should go:P
Columbia/tri-star is going in the right direction with this release. Very good picture/sound, inclusion of the foreign language track, and special features. They should have also included atleast the choice of the original subtitles, and original cut of the movie. I hope in their next release they will continue to move in the right direction :)
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