Anything But Gorgeous

Poor characterization, inane dialogue and lots of fight sequences. Can you say Jackie Chan?

In "Gorgeous", Jackie Chan plays a filthy rich businessman, Chi Wu, looking for the woman with whom he can share his empire of recyclable materials. Shu Qi plays a young, hollow-headed girl who sets off to Hongkong just because she found a note in a bottle, brought to her attention by her dolphin friend. Sounds slightly daft already? Wait, there’s more...when she gets there, she faces a crushing disappointment, but then falls madly in love with Chi Wu, who has to then save her from her menacing ex-boyfriend.

The movie runs for around an hour and a half, but does have some funny scenes that save the brain from falling asleep. Chan, in typical style, has many scenes displaying his agile body, loose limbs, martial-art stunts and mid-air spins, oriental style. Shu Qi is pretty, with quaint, fishing-village ideas in her head. The end is palpably false.

Directed by Vincent Kok, the film is decent enough to make one laugh at moments of absurd stupidity displayed by the bad guys - there’s always one fat guy who, with fantastic precision, keeps falling into the sea in the first half of the film. However the one thing that might make you happy is the soundtrack; it starts off with a lovely, Eastern tune and matches the pace and action perfectly.

The characters are exaggerated and stretched - the good guys are saintly and the bad ones are inanely stupid. The poor characterization is matches by some equally inane dialogue, with the martial-arts action often appearing to take the place of filler.

Of course, much of this is par for the course in an average Jackie Chan film. Fans already know what to expect...the rest of you should stay home!

This article was first published on 04 Jun 2001.