Hrmm, I don't know about this one. An American criminal investigator from the FBI is sent to assist a Taiwanese police group to figure out a bunch of creepy murders. How and why this guy is assisting them is sorta unexplained, but okay.
The first half of the movie builds up the suspense pretty well, but the rest of it gets kind of clunky and includes a lot of CG clipshows and gore, segway that relies on music, unnecessary (and yet somehow predictable) plot twists full of tepid villains or lazy pacing.
I do like the Taoist mysticism they try to throw into the whole thing, but it ends up being a lot less cool or scary than "Ghostbusters" by the end. The mysticism isn't explained in very much detail, which I suspect is to deliberately cover up its lack of depth. There are a few points where the movie is a launchpad for typical conversations about mysticism/religious belief vs. science. *snore*
Tony Leung's main role is pretty cliché'd, at least as far as western cop dramas go. Some event from his past haunts him, isolates him from colleagues, his family, blah blah blah. David Morse is okay, but there's no real point to him being there. We also get almost zero character development out of him. And the script's attempts to get one-liners or sarcastic quips from his character are pretty poor.
Seriously, if you hadn't seen these characters already a million times before in better movies, you'd be pretty damn confused by their stories and motivations. The flashbacks and home movies and whatever else you see here, they're so random, they're given almost no introduction so you have no idea what you're seeing or why it's relevant to the story.
So it's a typical cross-cultural cop-drama, which mixes with light mysticism and horror instead of comedy or martial arts, and with somewhat choppy editing and pacing. Don't get me wrong, I really loved getting to see Taiwan and all the Taoist symbolism and what-have-you. It just wasn't implemented that well. It's like the movie couldn't decide on what to be. Oh, and the ending is poorly thought out too.
The '80s flick "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas does the serious cross-cultural cop-drama thing much better. That one has finer ambiance, a cheesy soundtrack with charming characters as well as a better look into the customs of Japanese law enforcement and organized crime.
The first half of the movie builds up the suspense pretty well, but the rest of it gets kind of clunky and includes a lot of CG clipshows and gore, segway that relies on music, unnecessary (and yet somehow predictable) plot twists full of tepid villains or lazy pacing.
I do like the Taoist mysticism they try to throw into the whole thing, but it ends up being a lot less cool or scary than "Ghostbusters" by the end. The mysticism isn't explained in very much detail, which I suspect is to deliberately cover up its lack of depth. There are a few points where the movie is a launchpad for typical conversations about mysticism/religious belief vs. science. *snore*
Tony Leung's main role is pretty cliché'd, at least as far as western cop dramas go. Some event from his past haunts him, isolates him from colleagues, his family, blah blah blah. David Morse is okay, but there's no real point to him being there. We also get almost zero character development out of him. And the script's attempts to get one-liners or sarcastic quips from his character are pretty poor.
Seriously, if you hadn't seen these characters already a million times before in better movies, you'd be pretty damn confused by their stories and motivations. The flashbacks and home movies and whatever else you see here, they're so random, they're given almost no introduction so you have no idea what you're seeing or why it's relevant to the story.
So it's a typical cross-cultural cop-drama, which mixes with light mysticism and horror instead of comedy or martial arts, and with somewhat choppy editing and pacing. Don't get me wrong, I really loved getting to see Taiwan and all the Taoist symbolism and what-have-you. It just wasn't implemented that well. It's like the movie couldn't decide on what to be. Oh, and the ending is poorly thought out too.
The '80s flick "Black Rain" with Michael Douglas does the serious cross-cultural cop-drama thing much better. That one has finer ambiance, a cheesy soundtrack with charming characters as well as a better look into the customs of Japanese law enforcement and organized crime.