Framed by gracious occasions of Buddhist observance, Hong Kong’s Ann Hui’s Yu guanyin, from her birth country, China, is a fierce, stunning, viscerally thrilling film noir, in rich, vibrant color, about a young police woman, An Xin (Zhao Wei, superb—best actress, Golden Phoenix Award), who identifies, and is identified by others, with the Goddess of Mercy, whose amulet she wears. The film, based on a novel by Hai Yan, who co-authored the script along with Ho Ivy, involves three romantic entanglements in An Xin’s life, and these in turn cross her work as part of a drug enforcement team. Another element deepens the tangle: love for and loyalty to family, even to the point of fatal revenge. An infant is involved; one of the three men is his father, but all three are his custodians at different points. Ultimately, only one of the five—An Xin, her baby, the three men—is left alive, and he is headed one way, while Buddhist pilgrims, chanting, are headed in the opposite direction, from whence he has just come: a haunting finish—and an ironical one, as religious faith is shown in alternative co-existing forms: more hope than faith, committed faith; all-consuming faith, faith as an integral part of a complicated, challenging life.
An Xin writes one of the men a detailed letter explaining her extraordinary past involving the others, and this helps account for the film’s brilliant structure, where a long flashback—the past, tradition—seeks to absorb the present that contains it. The letter proves part of An Xin’s redemption, although her bravely independent showdown with the Mao brothers, one of whom once loved her but who, now mistrusting her, has joined his brother in trying to kill her, accounts for the rest.
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(JADE) GODDESS OF MERCY (Ann Hui, 2003)
By grunesFramed by gracious occasions of Buddhist observance, Hong Kong’s Ann Hui’s Yu guanyin, from her birth country, China, is a fierce, stunning, viscerally thrilling film noir, in rich, vibrant color, about a young police woman, An Xin (Zhao Wei, superb—best actress, Golden Phoenix Award), who identifies, and is identified by others, with the Goddess of Mercy, whose amulet she wears. The film, based on a novel by Hai Yan, who co-authored the script along with Ho Ivy, involves three romantic entanglements in An Xin’s life, and these in turn cross her work as part of a drug enforcement team. Another element deepens the tangle: love for and loyalty to family, even to the point of fatal revenge. An infant is involved; one of the three men is his father, but all three are his custodians at different points. Ultimately, only one of the five—An Xin, her baby, the three men—is left alive, and he is headed one way, while Buddhist pilgrims, chanting, are headed in the opposite direction, from whence he has just come: a haunting finish—and an ironical one, as religious faith is shown in alternative co-existing forms: more hope than faith, committed faith; all-consuming faith, faith as an integral part of a complicated, challenging life.
An Xin writes one of the men a detailed letter explaining her extraordinary past involving the others, and this helps account for the film’s brilliant structure, where a long flashback—the past, tradition—seeks to absorb the present that contains it. The letter proves part of An Xin’s redemption, although her bravely independent showdown with the Mao brothers, one of whom once loved her but who, now mistrusting her, has joined his brother in trying to kill her, accounts for the rest.
This entry was posted on July 10, 2009 at 4:28 am and is filed under Formal Capsule Film Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.