Easy Money
This is Michelle Yeoh’s least known film from
her D&B days. I’d never been in any real hurry to see it because of
a number of negative things that I had heard about it. But it is still
Michelle so at some point it was necessary viewing for me.
This film was made after Yes Madam and Royal Warriors
and Michelle had been pretty banged up in those films. If you have seen
them, you can quite understand. So her future husband – the head of D&B
Dickson Poon - gives her a bit of a holiday with this film. She has no
fighting scenes and gets to do a lot of sightseeing. Lucky Michelle gets
to ski in Switzerland, hang glide in the French countryside, race cars
through Paris, ride horses in England and swim in the Greek islands. Somewhere
in there she somehow finds time to steal money from an armored car in HK.
This film is basically a remake of the American
film The Thomas Crowne Affair that starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway.
At one point in fact a clip from this film is shown to help solve the case!
Here though the genders are switched around as Michelle plays the wealthy
thief and George Lam plays the insurance investigator. As much as they
attempt to capture the chemistry and sophistication of the original, they
fall woefully short.
If you have never caught the Thomas Crowne Affair
– you should – it is a wonderful film with two high voltage stars. But
if not, the plot of both films is about a wealthy individual who plans
out and executes robberies as a hobby. The assistants are recruited anonymously
and thus can never identify the head. An insurance investigator realizes
who is behind the robbery but starts becoming romantically attracted to
them.
There are a number of things going against this
film. First there is no spark or sexual tension between the two leads.
I continue to find Lam as interesting as a bag of stale peanuts. His popularity
back in the 80’s is a total mystery to me and he sleepwalks through this
one. Michelle was not ready for this role yet. I could see her doing it
now – she would be wonderful – but she was much too young for it then and
was honestly not a good enough actress at the time to pull this role off.
Finally the script itself is very weak and creates practically no excitement
– not even the robbery itself or the investigation.
Kent Cheng also has a solid role as the brutal
cop who works with Lam in trying to track Michelle down.
I really can’t recommend the film except to those
who need to see all of Michelle Yeoh’s work or enjoy seeing her in a myriad
of different outfits !
