From Beijing With Love
Director: Super Spy -Stephen Chow Sing-Chi, Lee Lik-Chee A tonnage of verbal comedy can't offset the fact that this Stephen Chow film works on both physical and emotional levels. Slow to start and rough around the edges, the film still rounds into one of Chow's most satisfying yet. Stephen Chow stars in (and co-directs) this wacky spy flick that's more Casino Royale than From Russia with Love. Chow plays dumb but cool as pork vendor/secret agent Ling Ling Chat (007), a forgotten Mainland agent called into action when some dinosaur bones go missing. Ubiquitous Anita Yuen shows up as his Hong Kong partner, who also happens to be double-agent working for the opposition. She's assigned to kill him, but slowly starts to melt before his strange, non-sensical charms. Meanwhile, any semblance of an actual plot is destoyed beneath various timeouts for physical and verbal gags. And there's laughter. The pairing of Chow plus Yuen yields surprising laughs, though their chemistry is nonexistent to begin with. The film starts deceptively slow, and appears to go nowhere through the first half-hour. However, when things pick up, they pick up incredibly well. Chow's superspy is more fool than fantastic, but he manages to create a thoroughly loveably spy savant who packs more toughness than even the viewer can imagine. As the assassin in paw-print pajamas, Anita Yuen seems miscast, but her comedic charms prove an excellent foil to Chow's inanity. What makes the film a bit tough for casual <b>...</b>
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