Review: Fun.
Remember that word, because we will be coming back to it. ‘The Touch’ is, in the grand scheme of cinematic things, rubbish. Hundreds of films of this calibre are released every year. How often have you heard this formula; There is a thing which gives an individual power. Evil wants it to do evil, and good wants it, because then evil won’t have it, and we just can’t have evil all over the place, now, can we?

Any plot present here is skin deep, and serves as a vehicle for ‘stuff’ to happen. It really is scriptwriting by numbers, and despite the presence of Michelle Yeoh, this is no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There aren’t even as many martial arts battles as promised in pre-publicity, and to top it all, the acting is often wooden, the occasional computer generated imagery is nice to look at but artificial in appearance, you can often guess ahead of the script, and the pacing and tone of the film is uneven. It should – SHOULD – be garbage. It isn’t.

Our word for today, children, is FUN. Most hardened Kung Fu fanboys will deride this movie, and by now it should seem quite obvious that ‘The Touch’ is never going to play at festivals alongside ‘Trois Coleur Bleus’, but on a wet Tuesday night this film takes up an hour and a half of your TV time between ‘Friends’ and ‘Americas Most Diarrhetic Daschunds’ nicely, and it’s fun.

If you are a fan of Michelle Yeoh, it’s obvious that her talents are never really explored to the full, and her acting is even a little dubious in places, but considering that this is one of the few English Language films she has made, it is nice to think that ‘The Touch’ and her role in a certain Bond film are holding their own against some of Jackie Chan and Jet Li’s poorer attempts at cracking the English-speaking market.

Ben Chaplin, who U.K. readers will recognise from vulgar English comedy ‘Game On’ (and a romantic U.S. comedy movie, but lets brush over that) is surprisingly watchable too. Despite the fact that only Benny Hill would beat him to the prize of ‘most unlikely British man to show up on-screen with a Hong Kong movie legend’ award, he carries off his role of lovable rogue with dignity. At times he is very funny, and even though his brief display of martial arts is pitiful, he avoids the foppish Hugh Grant British stereotype with mastery. Coupled with Yeoh, they form an East meets West partnership that is not as good as Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson (Shanghai Nights), but leagues above Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker (Rush Hour).

One area where the film really excels is in its visuals. The cinematography is beautiful in places, and the shots of the Chinese landscapes and huge ancient temples provide the film with some much needed scale. At the very start of the film, we see the acrobatic routines performed by Yin’s family, lit in bold neon blues and pinks. It certainly is unique to the genre, and it is a shame that this idea was not explored further in the name of doing something new.

The climactic battle at the very end of the film is laden with computer imagery. It looks false as hell, in a video game kind of way, but it is interesting and bold, and holds the attention in the way a chimp likes shiny things. Again, the film chooses style over content, and it is easy to see the joins, but fun, once again, prevails.