Savior of the Soul (1991) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Weird, wild, giddy Andy Lau HK something-or-other that breaks every rule it can lay its hands on.
SAVIOR OF THE SOUL is one weird movie. I say that as praise. It freely mixes a love story, AIRPLANE!-style slapstick, HK mega-action paradigms, and God knows what else into a movie that moves so fast it feels twice as long as it really is, and ends way too soon.
Andy Lau stars as a lithe and high-spirited young assassin -- one in a cadre of three: his ladylove (who does very wicked things with knives), and his brother. The two of them are vying for the girl's affections, of course. The girl herself is, however, the target of a vicious and ruthless assassin: years ago, the girl blinded the assassin's master and put out one of his own eyes, and after an eye-popping jailbreak, sets out after the girl to even the score.
The plot gets complicated by leaps and bounds, but never loses its grip on us. A whole galaxy of oddball characters gets slotted in: the enigmatic Pet Lady, who lives in a gigantic castle with her female servants/soldiers; the girl's sister, who develops a crush on Lau's character; the weird onnagata-esque "mama" of the assassin trio, who can't even iron her laundry without screwing up.
One of the endearing things about HK movies, especially movies as outrageous and fantastic as this, is how easily it spans all of the available territory. A Western movie that tried to get away with mixing and matching genres and styles as freely as this one did would feel bathetic; here, because we're so obviously being given a story of the fantastic, we let our imagination have free reign, and the whole thing works.
One of the bad guy assassin's most dangerous weapons, for instance, is a bizarre gas which, when inhaled, allows you to *run through your opponent* and transfer the gas to him. (If he doesn't get magical treatment in twenty-four hours, the poor sucker becomes your slave.) Instead of just using this as a cheap one-shot gimmick, the movie builds on it, making it into a device on which a fair amount of the plot -- and relationships -- turns. The whole movie works like that, always at right angles to itself, always breaking new ground with itself, and always fun.
Three and a half out of four Deadly Angels.
FOOTNOTE: SAVIOR is also one of up-and-coming Wong Kar-Wei's earlier screenwriting jobs, and shows off his penchant for blending styles handily.
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device... you can crush me as I speak/write on rocks what you feel/now feel this truth =smilin' in your face, all the time wanna take your place, the BACKSTABBERS=
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