MOVIE:Goddess of Mercy

[lovevicki]

[glow=red,2,300]GODDESS OF MERCY[/glow]
Cast & Crew:
Vicki Zhao, Nicholas Tse, directed by Ann Hui more » <br>Synopsis:
An Xin (Vicky Zhao) is an employee at a local martial arts school, where she catches the eye of Yang Rui; initially impervious to his advances, she is slowly won over by his charm and apparent affinity for her young son, Xiong. She hides a complicated past, however, as we learn in flashback of her deceased fiancee who was killed while protecting her and her child, as well as An Xin's former occupation as a policewoman. more »<br>
MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 50 minutes

[lovevicki]

Released:

2003(China-mainland)
2004(Hongkong)

[glow=red,2,300]My Rating:8/10[/glow]


Awards & Nominations:
Nominated 2004 Moscow International Film Festival Best Film
Nominated 2004 Hundred Flowers Best Film
Nominated 2004 Verona Film Festival Best Film
Won 2004 Verona Film Festival Audience Award
Won 2004 China Media Film Awards People's Choice Golden Award(Actress)
Won 2005 China Movie Academic Society Awards(Golden Phoenix Awards)-Committee Award(Actress)

[lovevicki]

BOX OFFICE:
2003 China mainland 9,200,000
(Rank 4 of the year)

[PacinG]

this is a good movie...... too bad she died at the end
though i cant imagine any other ending for the movie

[lovevicki]

agree~
In the novel Godess of Mercy,An Xin isnt died~

[PacinG]

really?
well, it isnt the first time that a movie ending was altered from a novel's ending

[lovevicki]

The novel was very popular in China,but I dont like it.

Director Ann Hui created a new soul of the film~
I love it

[PacinG]

that and the fact that zhao wei is the lead star........

[lovevicki]

:)yes~

Director Ann Hui is one of Vicki's good friend.
She said that I met her when she was a college student,Vicki Zhao is a talent actress.
In Jan.2005,Ann Hui attended Chinese Directors Committee.A reporter asked her who is her favorite artist in China mainland.
She said Vicki Zhao.

[lovevicki]

Goddess of Mercy
A film review by Don Willmott - Copyright ?2004 filmcritic.com Search 5,750+ reviews!

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Like America 150 years ago, today¡¯s China has sophisticated modern cities in the east and an untamed wild west where everyone seems to have a gun. Goddess of Mercy bounces between these two worlds, taking its indefatigable heroine An Xin (Vicky Zhao) on a journey with enough action, drama, and leading men to fill three movies. It¡¯s an operatic eyeful that has won much acclaim in Asia but appears on these shores without a theatrical release. DVD may have to suffice.

We first meet An Xin mopping up in the Beijing tae kwan do school where she works. Described as a ¡°bumpkin¡± by the city slickers who practice there, she catches the eye of man-about-town Yang Rui (Yulong Liu), a young playboy who has a brand new Jeep, a Vuitton-obsessed girlfriend, and lots of cologne in his bathroom. It¡¯s love at first sight for Yang Rui, but An Xin brushes him aside saying she¡¯s not interested and hinting that she has many dark secrets. When he persists she even kicks him in the face, but she can¡¯t shake him, and soon she¡¯s succumbing to his charms as he swears off his gallivanting lifestyle.

The jealous girlfriend, however, has hired a detective to track Yang Rui, and when his relationship with An Xin is revealed, she trumps up a corporate extortion charge against him, and he¡¯s off to jail in an instant.

To find out about An Xin¡¯s secret past, a flashback transports us out west to a provincial town where we discover that she¡¯s actually a cop involved in a Colombian jungle-style war again ultraviolent drug traffickers who challenge the police in frequent shootouts. She¡¯s also engaged to newspaper reporter Tienjun (Jianbin Chen), who hates her career choice but can¡¯t wait to marry her anyway.

But then comes leading man number three, Mao Jie (Nicholas Tse), who also falls in love with An Xin and sweeps her off her feet while Tienjun is out of town. He doesn¡¯t know she¡¯s a cop, and she doesn¡¯t know his family is in charge of the local drug trade, but it all becomes clear when the two meet each other on a ferryboat during an undercover sting. Oops. He¡¯s arrested, his family is killed, and revenge is on the agenda. But she¡¯s pregnant. With his baby. Oops again.

From this point the film rushes back toward the present with enough death, destruction, and tears to fill the stage of the Metropolitan Opera for days. No one is spared, and it becomes kind of funny that An Xin¡¯s boyfriends have told her she looks like the goddess of mercy figure she wears on a necklace. She¡¯s more like the goddess of incredibly bad luck, at least for the men who fall in love with her.

At the center of this wild storm is Vicky Zhao, who American audiences have seen in Shaolin Soccer and 2003¡¯s high-tech girl-on-girl chopsocky fest So Close. She appears in virtually every scene and holds the film together. She¡¯s one part Michelle Rodriguez (the girl can kick!) and one part Julianne Moore. In fact, it would be hard to pick any one American actress who could play the part were the film ever remade here.

Overplotted though it may be, Goddess of Mercy pulls you in and sweeps you along, especially when An Xin¡¯s impossibly cute toddler son is put in danger (and by his own father, no less). The film ends with images of Buddhist pilgrims chanting as they hike up the side of a Tibetan mountain. You kind of want to go along.


Aka Yu guanyin, Jade Goddess of Mercy.


Shoes off in the river, folks.


RATING (out of 5)


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Director: Ann Hui

Producer: Bolun Li, Buting Yan

Screenwriter: Ivy Ho, Hai Yan

Stars: Vicky Zhao, Nicholas Tse, Yulong Liu, Jianbin Chen

MPAA Rating: NR
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Year of Release: 2004

Released on Video: 08/17/2004

filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/84dbbfa4d710144986256c290016f76e/0167ef2ca6c00b8188256f3400759d8e?OpenDocument

[lovevicki]

Extraordinary Movie & Video Guide

A beautiful female cop An Xin is fighting against drug war in China. An Xin has also an affair with man called Tienjun, but one day she falls in love with interesting fellow, Mao. Unfortunately Mao hasn't told everything about his past and present to her, and An Xin has to face the fatal consequences on duty.

This summary above does not tell the whole truth about the plot in Goddess of Mercy. And there's a reason: otherwise sympathetic characters suffer of too complicated storyline, which makes them crucially uninteresting in the very end. Goddess of Mercy (aka Yu Guanyin) simply tells us a story of woman with (very) bad luck with choices she makes. In fact, most of the twists and turns are original and believable, but when all of it is crushed into less than two hours, comes an unfortunate effect that is fatal to overall feel and affection. And everything was fine for the first hour.

Vicki Zhao (of Shaolin Soccer) is appealing actress to watch; she portrays the character of An Xin with professional touch. Also worth of mentioning is pop idol Nicholas Tse as Mao. Visually Goddess of Mercy looks very nice - especially the editing is top-notch. In other words : Goddess of Mercy will remain in my point of view as one of those "could've-beens" - otherwise really fine films, that have some importantly fatal elements that drop their value radically.

Director Ann Hui (who was co-responsible of Chow Yun-Fat breakthrough in 1981 film God Killers aka "Woo yuet dik goo si", among other respectable things ) is at her best in character direction; she is able to find the right expressions and moods of actors and actresses. Too bad that Goddess of Mercy either lasts too long or it's plot should have been simplified. Or then it's my brains that aren't capable to follow to story.

www.emvg.net/reviews/goddessofmercy.php

[lovevicki]

Berlin

Posted: Sun., Feb. 22, 2004, 4:55pm PT
Goddess of Mercy
Yu Guanyin
(China)

A China Film Group Corp., Beijing Film Studio, Beijing Chengcheng Film & TV Co., Century Hero Film Investment Co. production. (International sales: Universe Films, Hong Kong.) Produced by Yang Buting, Li Baolun. Executive producer, Han Sanping. Co-producers, Shi Dongming, Ye Fu. Directed by Ann Hui, Dao Ming. Screenplay, Ivy Ho, based on the novel by Hai Yan.

With: Vicki Zhao Wei, Nicholas Tse, Liu Yunlong, Sun Haiying, Chen Jianbin.
(Mandarin dialogue)

By DEREK ELLEY

The actors go through the motions, the scenery is fine, but the earth never moves in "Goddess of Mercy," a partly pleasurable misfire by Hong Kong director Ann Hui that won't get the same mileage on the festfest circuit as her previous "July Rhapsody." Hui's erratic, uncategorizable filmmaking, which has never fitted neatly into pockets like "arthouse" or "mainstream," is never more curious than here, a tale of a distaff Mainland cop who's torn between three men. Auds in Asian-centered festsfests will groove on seeing stars Vicki Zhao Wei and Nicholas Tse, but that's about it, outside ancillary.

Plot is based on the novel of the same name by Mainland writer Hai Yan, already turned into a popular 27-part TV series in China, though Hui and scripterscripter Ivy Ho have made several changes, including cutting back on details of police procedural. In interviews, Hui has stated how she deliberately mixed up the elements of love, romance, action and crime detection -- all of which she's dealt with separately in past movies -- as well as making the action scenes deliberately heavy-handed. The experiment doesn't work, especially in such an unstylized frame as here, though as a piece of pure narrative cinema, it passes the time.

Film's curious structure starts from the point-of-view of young Beijing blade Yang Rui (Liu Yunlong), who repeatedly hits on a young woman, He Yanhong (Zhao), doing cleaning work in a taekwondo gym. She eventually gives him time and he falls hard for her, to the point where his businesswoman g.f., who's also his boss, kicks him out.

He reveals her real name is An Xin, that she's really a cop, and she needs 3,000 yuan ($350, but much more in real terms) for an operation on her baby. She then disappears, and pic slips into a long flashback.

Turns out An was a narcotics cop in the border town of Nande in the southern province of Yunnan. Engaged to journalist Zhang Tiejun (Chen Jianbin), she met and fell for handsome young charmer Mao Jie (H.K. idol Nicholas Tse), though when she discovered she was pregnant, she quickly married Zhang. Mao turned out to be a drug smuggler and, when his parents died in a police raid led by An, he vowed revenge. An changed her name and moved north, where she met Yang.

Final act returns to the present, as Yang hunts her down in Yunnan. An then decides, against the better judgment of her boss, Pan (Sun Haiying), to flush out Mao and settle things with him once and for all.

There's almost no time, apart from the more leisurely outset, for any real emotion to grow between the characters, as the dialogue is 100% narrative-driven and the plot moves along like a stripped-down TV series. Though attractively shot in various locations (including scenic Yunnan), pic moves its characters around like figures on a chessboard, putting passionless, novelistic sentiments into their mouths.

Charismatic, pixie-ish Zhao is miscast as a dedicated DEA cop, and the three male leads hardly register, apart from Tse as the icy Mao. Best performance is by veteran Sun, as An's seen-it-all-before boss. Film was released in China in late December, and made no impression at the box office.

Camera (color), Kwan Pun-leung; editor, Zhou Ying; music, Zhao Lin; art director, Li Zhouyi; costumes, Zhao Yanjie; sound (Dolby Digital), Zhai Lixin; assistant director, Zhang Changzheng. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Forum), Feb. 14, 2004. Running time: 108 MIN.


www.variety.com/review/VE1117923216?categoryid=31&cs=1&s=h&p=0

[lovevicki]

LoveHKfilm.com

The Skinny:

Ann Hui's latest film is an interesting potboiler/character drama that's probably too commercial for the art house crowd and too arty for commercial audiences. At the same time, it's an involving thriller told in Hui's assured, hands-off style. Viewers with patience may find this an interesting, though somewhat slight film.



Review
by Kozo:

Ann Hui's Goddess of Mercy is a difficult film to pin down. While the plot screams routine suspense thriller, the slow, opaque storytelling and generous focus on star Vicki Zhao would seem to indicate a female character study along the lines of Hui's more personal films. On the other hand, having Nicholas Tse appear as a charismatic, ill-fated drug smuggler would appear to be large concession to the commercial powers that be¡ªexcept his role will likely turn off most of his teenybopper fanbase. This juxtaposition of commercial and artistic elements is what makes Goddess of Mercy intriguing¡ªand ultimately only partly successful. While an entertaining and interesting enough thriller, the film doesn't truly commit in either an artistic or commercial direction, and thus comes off as rather moot. The ride isn't half-bad, though.
Vicki Zhao stars as An Xin, who we first meet as a menial employee of a Beijing martial arts school. She attracts the attention of player Yang Rui (Liu Yunlong), who is drawn in by her continued denial of his advances. Still, despite some initial troubles, she warms to him, and in turn he starts to change his ways. He even forms a bond with her young son, Xiong, though An Xin is a little iffy on the exact details of his birth. It's not hard to see why Yang is so drawn to An Xin; aside from the fact that she's portrayed by the lovely Vicki Zhao, An Xin is tough and independent, yet emotional and sensitive. It's clear that her actions hide inner turmoil, and quite possibly a tragic past. On the list of Stock Attractive Female Protagonists, An Xin might be #7.
Still, that isn't enough to guarantee any sort of happy ending. When Yang Rui gets thrown into jail on a corruption charge (courtesy of his ex-girlfriend), An Xin's past comes into sharp focus. While Yang believed she was merely a poor single mother, An Xin was in fact a narcotics cop in the town of Nande, and the local Tae Kwan Do champ. Her former husband Tienjun (Chen Jiabin) died protecting Xiong under murky circumstances, which only come to light in a massive flashback to three years earlier. There we learn that An Xin's impending nuptials were interrupted by an ill-fated affair with hot young fellow Maojie (Nicholas Tse). The two had a hot-and-heavy flirtation, but An Xin called it off¡ªironically right before a drug bust which reveals Maojie to be a regular drug trafficker. An Xin gets her former fling thrown into jail, but the fallout is tragic. A lot of people die as a result of Maojie's arrest, subsequent trial, and eventual freedom.
Given all of the above, it's no surprise that An Xin is a little leery of relationships, but there's supposedly greater depth to her conflicts. Ivy Ho's script (from a story by Hai Yan) affords us the opportunity to observe An Xin in a variety of roles, namely mother (to little Xiong), policewoman (her narcotics-busting activities), and finally woman (her attraction to Maojie, and subsequent acceptance of Yang Rui). The all-encompassing situations provide Ann Hui a large canvas to paint her picture of An Xin, a supposedly remarkable woman who gets frequent comparison to Kwanyin, the goddess of mercy AND the subject of a pendant worn by Tienjun, then An Xin, and finally Yang Rui. However, that lofty symbolism is questionably appropriate, as An Xin never becomes a character that truly warrants such grand respect. She's certainly an intriguing character, and Vicki Zhao tries gamely to flesh her out. Still, her casting might have been a mistake; Zhao is impressively photogenic, but she doesn't bring across the layers of turmoil An Xin must be experiencing. The character has experienced, and even caused, a lot of heinous stuff. Her eventual strength of character is probably the result of her trials, but Ann Hui's distant camera makes connecting to her difficult. Oddly enough, her emotions aren't truly felt.
Bad boy Nicholas Tse fares better as the charismatic Maojie, and Chen Jiabin brings a quiet integrity to the character of Tienjun. Unfortunately, Liu Yunlong has the inenviable task of bringing Yang Rui to life. Yang is the "storyteller" of Goddess of Mercy, meaning much of what happens is filtered through his experience. He's also a character that changes during the film, but his growth from shallow playboy to ardent, soulful lover is one that only seems to exist on the printed page. Yes, the script calls for him to be insightful and empathetic towards An Xin, but his character doesn't feel real. Yang Rui feels like a character from a simpler, more commercially-minded script. He's the bad boy turned good thanks to an emotionally wounded woman, which qualifies as Stock Male Supporting Protagonist #4.
Not that the usage of stock types is necessarily a bad thing, as pretty much all commercial cinema uses stock types. Hell, Wong Jing probably has a file of stock types in his office, listing male and female characters from 1-100, each with a checklist of prescribed character traits. However, the problem here is Goddess of Mercy is not really a commercial film, though its plot lends itself to certain commercial instincts. It has a bubbling revenge storyline, as well as seedy criminal badguys who tote shotguns and threaten to kill kids¡ªtraits of your usual multiplex features. At the same time, the film boasts reflective interludes and grand character aspirations, and is told in Ann Hui's trademark observational style. Her style can create excellent results, such as July Rhapsody. However, that film was a character drama, and not a crime thriller. Goddess of Mercy is more of a thriller, but possesses all the storytelling hallmarks of a character drama. The big question: which is it? Probably both, but the film never seems to commit in either direction. As such, it doesn't really succeed at being either.
Still, the story manages to be intriguing, though with questionable long-lasting effect. Goddess of Mercy features many quiet plot points which get slowly revealed over the film's languid 110-minute running time. The revelations can be surprising, though more astute cinematic readers will probably see them coming a mile away. Or, you can simply read the back of the DVD cover, which gives away every plot revelation as if they were explained in the film's first five minutes. Someone at Universe Films should smack around the marketing department, because this sort of tell-all marketing copy simply ruins films for a lot of people. Goddess of Mercy still manages to reach a suitably dark, and even haunting conclusion, but the film doesn't really come off as something worth remembering. This is probably decent viewing for those with the patience for Ann Hui's slow storytelling style, as the cinematic distance gives us plenty to mull over. Also, despite questionable ultimate meaning, the storyline provides enough conflict and suspense to maintain interest. Still, when it's all over, one has to wonder if there was really anything going on. (Kozo 2004)

www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/goddess_of_mercy.htm

[lovevicki]

illuminatedlantern.com

Goddess of Mercy
Hong Kong , 2004
Directed by Ann Hui.


Yang Rui (Liu Yunlong) is a Beijing businessman and womanizing pig who tries to nail the plain-looking but attractive An Xin (Vicki Zhao) on a bet from a friend. Instead, he falls in love with her. She keeps her distance, due to a tragic past involving two lovers (Chen Jianbin and Nicholas Tse) and a son, whom she is raising by herself, much to Yang Rui's surprise. They try and make a life together before their pasts catch up with them.

An Xin is given a jade necklace of Kwanyin, and is told she looks like the goddess in some way. In a way, she becomes the goddess to Yang Rui, who finds peace in his soul through her presence ("An Xin," we are told, also means "peace"). He makes a transformative journey in the film, while many of the others remain unable to break the bonds of their past mistakes.

Director Ann Hui obviously has left her past behind her, GODDESS OF MERCY is the best film she has made in many years. As usual, she pulls excellent performances out of all her principle players; but beyond that, the cinematography is focused, the music adds depth without distracting, the script is clean, clear, and polished. Every aspect of the production is exceptional.

GODDESS OF MERCY is a mostly dark and depressing film, though, which no doubt detracts from any popularity it might otherwise have had. The first line is, "This is the most depressing day of my life," and it doesn't get much better from there. The conclusion is as violent and bleak as they come. But An Xin has moments of happiness, we treasure those moments as they pass. And as her friend and former boss says at the end, "I don't understand Love. But I can understand hope." Sometimes, it is all we have.

Rating: (Highly Recommended)


www.illuminatedlantern.com/cinema/review/archives/goddess_of_mercy.php