Let's not be kind, or mince words in any way: Speed Angels (2011) is awful on almost every level.
Ineptly filmed, amateurishly scripted, and haphazardly staged, the flick tortures a viewer for nearly 2 hours.
I can sit through some pretty bad exposition if there's the promise of a few car crashes ahead. And, you'd think that a film like Speed Angels could at least deliver those cheap thrills.
Nope.
Sub-SyFy Channel effects remove any trace of possible excitement in the racing scenes and, to make things more pathetic, there are not that many scenes of actual racing beyond the opening car chase.
Just a dreadful mess made somehow more awful by the sight of a hammy Cheng Pei-Pei mugging it up as Tang Wei's mom in a series of horrid headbands -- Tang Wei rocks them too.
Cheng Pei-Pei deserves the right to simply act in junk like this for money, but what's Tang Wei's excuse?
She's the only vaguely human performer in this trainwreck and, to paraphrase what someone said tonight, it's almost as if she didn't know that she could just show up and collect her paycheck. She actually tries to act in some of these scenes.
My dear, the script just doesn't deserve your skills.
Rene Liu is a cartoon in here. The less said about her or her role, the better.
Now, as for Cecilia Cheung:
Time to put the fanboy hat on for a moment.
In 2002, I was watching HK films in a veritable vacuum. My best friend knew Jackie Chan and Jet Li and John Woo titles but that was it. For stuff like Para Para Sakura (2001), I was on my own.
"Rightly so," some smart-ass might say!
Then LoveHKFilm.com came along and I had a source for reviews of current Hong Kong cinema offerings.
Kozo's enthusiasm was infectious and when I was unemployed for 6 months (!) in 2004, I would watch 3 or 4 HK DVDs out of my collection every day and then go read Kozo's -- or The Golden Rock's -- reviews to gain a better understanding of what I had just seen.
Just 'cause they are sometimes harsh (honest) critics doesn't mean that they are not enthusiastic.
The worse the film, chances are the more fun it will be when viewed with the Gang of Film.
So, yeah, it was a heady moment to finally see a current Cecilia Cheung film on the big screen in Hong Kong with the very same guy whose reviews helped me keep at my hobby in the first place.
Not only that, but I guess now I'm sort of a member of The Gang of Film.
What that means is that I have to suffer through stuff like Speed Angels (2011) on a regular basis since I live here now.
The film is just awful but it was fun to see it with the cool kids and, honestly, Tang Wei is decent in the picture but the picture ain't decent to her.
This is the sort of post I do not to brag but to sort of highlight the fact that I stuck with my odd hobby -- even if my interest in current HK fare has lagged a bit lately, as has current HK fare! -- and to illustrate that the cool kids in life can turn out to be pretty nice people too.
Dinner at the food court. I picked Pepper Lunch and it was interesting...
Pretty soon and it will be time for horrendous Lunar New Year comedies including this one with Louis Koo and Kelly Chen...
Waiting for the ride home at the Olympic MTR stop...
