The Executioners
This is the sequel to Heroic Trio, but what a
difference a day makes. I enjoyed it for the most part, but what
a dark, disturbing and desolate work. Johnnie To must have been taking
downers by the dozen to come up with this story.
It was fun watching both movies back to back
at the Michelle Yeoh Film Festival. In Heroic Trio the crowd was totally
into it - cheering and laughing, while in The Executioners it was dead
silence as they watched the jarring plot unfold. Not to give away too much,
but lots of unpleasant surprises take place. No swirling cape ending in
this one.
The film is set in the near future after a
nuclear explosion has contaminated all the drinking water and life feels
hopeless and miserable. The government headed by the President (Kwan Shah
- father of Rosamund) is tottering under pressure from a religious prophet
(Takeshi Kaneshiro) and under threat from a fascistic military Colonel
(Paul Chun Pui). Behind much of the chaos and the political maneuvering
is a ghoulish madman (Anthony Wong) whose face lies in tatters behind his
mask. The lives for the three heroines have changed as well. Michelle aided
by her disfigured croaking friend Kau is helping deliver supplies to the
needy, Maggie has turned to stealing and re-selling clean water and Anita
has put her life as Wonder Woman behind her as a promise to her husband
Damian Lau to take care of their child. Events lead them to come together
once again.
Though clearly working on a limited budget directors
Johnnie To and Ching Siu Tung still manage to put an amazing amount of
frenetic activity and plot twists on the screen. Though this film is missing
the astonishing magic of Heroic Trio, there is still much here that is
surprisingly good. The sense of a world falling apart, the train station
scene in which the killers appear through the tear gas to annihilate everyone,
Wonder Woman breaking out of prison and of course the wonderful bath scene!
The film's main weakness really is the natural comparison to Heroic Trio
- on its own I think it would have been considered an imaginative and intriguing
film - but it pales a bit by comparison. It's a film that once I got over
the initial shock I have come to enjoy more with each viewing.
My rating for this film: 8.0
Reviewed by YTSL
"The Heroic Trio" is an extremely enjoyable
-- even if surprisingly violent and sad in parts (I think here of a scene
where two of our heroines come across cannibalistic monster children, blow
them up to save them from a fate worse than death but still display regret
at having killed so many young half-human lives in one fell swoop...) --
production that has been known to convert its viewers into major Hong Kong
movie fans. In contrast, this overwhelmingly emotional and amazingly
dark work -- whose mood change is signaled by "The Heroic Trio"'s ebullient
signature song (sung by Anita Mui) having been transformed into the melancholy
instrumental piece we hear right at the start of that made back-to-back
with it, stars the same three charismatic actresses (Michelle Yeoh, Anita
Mui and Maggie Cheung) and is once more co-directed by Johnnie To and Ching
Siu Tung -- can make (other) people decide to never watch a film from that
part of the world ever again. Trust me when I say that I've seen
the former happen and damn nearly had the latter occur to me.
Political and economic reasons have been publicly
offered as explanations of why EXECUTIONERS is the majorly downbeat production
that it is. The second movie that features three female butt-kicking
superheroines who hitherto were collectively known as "The Heroic Trio"
has been described in all seriousness as "a remarkably grim post-1997 allegory"
(See Fredric Dannen and Barry Long's "Hong Kong Babylon", 1997:225) which
is "[s]uffused with bitter echoes of the Tiananmen Square Massacre" (Howard
Hampton in "Hong Kong Babylon", 1997:338). Those who think this all
rather far fetched surely would also not be too satisfied with Johnnie
To's account of the film ending up this way -- in his words "less creative"
as well as having "less (sic.) action scenes and more dramatic ones" than
its sister work -- due to its having been allocated a smaller budget than
the earlier work (See Miles Woods' "Cine East", 1998:121). This is
not least because there clearly appear to be so many less painful and depressing
ways to be "less creative" and more cost effective measures taken than
those decided upon. This (re)viewer also wonders whether labor is
that cheap in Hong Kong for a movie that definitely features a larger number
of supporting actors (including the film debut-making Takeshi Kaneshiro
and the man who seems to have latterly have become Johnnie To's on-screen
alter-ego, Lau Ching Wan) as well as extras to be substantially cheaper
than that which marginally saw more destruction to material objects.
If it is not abundantly obvious by now, most people's
dissatisfaction with EXECUTIONERS does not arise from its being a technically
bad or thoroughly unwatchable film. Rather, it really primarily is
that the general tone it possesses -- and tack it takes -- is absolutely
not what one would expect of a production that features characters such
as a former Invisible Girl along with gal-pals of hers who are known as
Thief Catcher and Wonder Woman (much less lead actresses who are a former
Miss Malaysia, a Miss Hong Kong runner-up and "the Madonna of Asia").
To be sure, this is not to say that this work does not have other problems
(not least that of continuity, scientific logic and technological sense)
but all that pales when compared to what I will call THE BIG MISTAKE (which
you will undoubtedly recognize as such when it unfolds on your screen).
Again, if it had not happened to me personally,
I also would think it very unlikely that a somewhat flawed movie with this
implausible a plot premise could cause a viewer to care so much about the
main characters, their situation and their fates. We are, after all,
talking about a story which involves: A post nuclear bombed world,
where uncontaminated water has become a scarce commodity; so much so that
the masked as well as scarred boss of a water company (this is the larger
of Anthony Wong's two roles in this film, both of which require him to
express himself without the audience seeing much of his face!) -- aided
and abetted by a high ranking military officer (Like Wong, Paul Chun Pui
has a role in EXECUTIONERS which is quite different from what he did in
"The Heroic Trio") -- could have serious along with warped ambitions to
become head of government.
It is a measure of the significant dramatic abilities
of Michelle Yeoh (who really ought to be given due credit for being much
more than just a superb action actress), Anita Mui (whose considerable
talents I am increasingly coming to appreciate) and Maggie Cheung (a star
performer who appears equally adept at slapstick and showing pathos, not
at all out of place in a Wong Jing or Wong Kar Wai movie, and at home in
France as well as Hong Kong) that they can make the (re)viewer actually:
Feel Ching's pain and understand her willingness to sacrifice herself for
what she perceives as a greater good; respect Tung's devotion and be touched
by her loss; and sense Chat's tenderness as well as guilt underneath her
tough act and bravado. Still, I must admit to wishing that they had
appeared in more fun scenes like that which infamously put these three
physically (as well as in myriad other ways) attractive women -- plus Wonder
Woman and Mr. Lau's (Damian Lau also reprises his role) little daughter,
who invariably gets cropped out of the pictures which captured these moments
for posterity! -- in a single bubble-filled bathtub! And wouldn't
it be nice if there could have been a Heroic Trio Trilogy...?
My rating for the film: 7.
DVD Information:
Distributor - Universe
The transfer is generally quite good - certainly
much better than the Tai Seng video I have.
Letterbox
Trailer
Previews: Heroic Trio, Yes Madam and Royal
Warriors
8 Chapters
Subs - English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified
Chinese and Malaysian
Easy to read subs - one annoying thing that
appears to be happening for many DVDs is that some of the sub-titles were
changed - and usually for the worse - and Wonder Woman's name inexplicably
was changed from Tung to Dong Dong. Dong Dong?! (I
have actually been informed that Dong Dong is actually the proper name
to be using! Just hard to get used to.)
Star files on Michelle Yeoh, Johnnie To and
Ching Siu Tung