Digital kung Fu
It's boring
Hard to argue against hard cash Matrix Reloaded is bringing in, but as a kung fu connoisseur I'd say: give me Jackie Chan any time. By Seah Chiang Nee.
May 17, 2003

After joining in the queue the other day, I found myself watching Keanu Reeves beating off - with hard blows and high-flying kicks - a small army of machine clones without apparently hurting them.

The film was a best-seller, Matrix Reloaded. The bad guys keep coming back for more and Revees tries to oblige them. Bodies are flying all over the place, kicked 20-30 metres high up into the air and falling down with crunching thuds, then scrambling to go back into the fight.

To me, it was not innovative high tech, but special effects run amok. In some scenes, it was like watching my son's video games magnified wide-screen, with Dolby sound.

In the 50s, such kung fu films were a normal diet from Hong Kong, with equally mindless plots, the same flying bodies except, of course, they were in black and white.

There were special effects, too, in those days although they were nothing like Matrix Reloaded.

I found Keanu Reeves' digital kung fu action enthralling, but after a while it becomes a bit boring.

Why is Littlespeck writing a film review? Actually, it's a little more than that. It's about the role of high tech in films, which is on a roll.

In a town where money talks loudest, it must be working and here to stay like the computer.

The producers of Matrix Reloaded are already counting the money they can expect in the next sequence (audience beware - the current film incompletely ends with "To be continued")

Frankly, I don't believe the Matrix frenzy (don't forget the savvy marketing) will remain, certainly not overwhelmed by the human factor. Watching Reeves and watching Jackie Chan (or even Jet Li), there's a world of difference.

The latter, too, uses special effects but Jsckie's moves are human endeavours aided by high tech; Reeves' is high tech aided by good look and fine acting.

When the computer was introduced into the news floors, it was equally enthralling for me.

It made my work many times easier, faster. But it was just a journalistic resource, I soon learned; it could never replace good journalism.

The same, I guess, applies to films. Technology changed Hollywood with Jurassic Park. It was so good that it nearly killed Hong Kong's film industry.

After Jurassic Park's stomping dinosaurs, who wants to see an ordinary Chinese movie? Then came other winners - Star Trek, Superman and Batman, plenty of innovative stuff.

Matrix, too, will have to evolve to show a higher human content. Jackie's talent does not just lie in his dangerous stunts (he doesn't use stuntmen) but his own set-up of his fights - type of places, weapons used, etc.

Each plot differs from the last. It is also about his expression of pain when he gets whacked and he's funny, too.

The bottom line here is this: Technology is a great facilitator; it can help but never replace human endeavour - like cooking, producing music and writing poetry,

One of Asia's hits in recent years was a Japanese horror movie called "The Ring".

It was non-high tech, shot in black and white, without big names and a small budget but it gave as many thrills as Matrix for the same ticket price.

It may be a little harsh comparing anyone with Jackie, who is actually quite a unique fellow.

When Matrix ends, few will miss it but when Jackie retires, all of us will miss his kind of films.
By Seah Chiang Nee