User reviews

* LEAVE ME ALONE * Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Ekin Cheng (sic) Dir: Danny Pang - 2004 - Hong Kong / Thailand

With recent hits from the Pang Brothers such as The Eye, I had pretty high hopes for this movie. Danny Pang, one of the brothers goes solo as director in this cheesy, seen-before plot, and despite some good innovation, this flick falls somewhat short of expectations.

Man and Kit are twin brothers (both played by Ekin Cheng). Kit, who lives in Thailand, visits his younger brother in Hong Kong and on seeing his brother's car decides to take it for a spin, switching identities with their driving licences. However, Kit has an accident and is left in a coma, when Kit's girlfriend, Jane (Charlene Choi), calls needing him back to take out a loan from the bank to pay off some sharks. Man steps in and flies to Thailand, only to find that Kit and Jane may be in deeper trouble than they thought.

The film's plot is too familiar to many people, particularly when it's been used by so many others such as Jackie Chan (Twin Dragons), Jean-Claude van Damme (Double Impact) and Jet Li (The One). However, I do admire the attempt to give the characters more depth. Cheng's portrayal of Man and Kit are clearly different, and not only because of Man being a gay character in the film. Cheng almost pulls off the act of being two different characters, but there were certain parts of the script that made it too unconvincing. I found it amusing that Cheng had a hairstyle that is commonly reminiscent of his girlfriend's, Gigi Leung. Charlene Choi is gradually improving in her roles, but she doesn't have the maturity on screen yet.

As for the story, well, it's somewhat disappointing. There are some incoherences in the film, the action scenes were rather ordinary and unoriginal and frankly, I felt little excitement in watching them. But as a Pang film, the movie does have one saving grace and that is in the cinematography. Interesting camera angles, some good direction, and some quite clever editing did at least provide me something to keep me interested. But overall, it just didn't hit the mark.

In terms of action films, there are plenty of other, better films to see. As a Pang film, it's definitely a disappointment, particularly as the bar for the Pangs was set high with The Eye. But if you want something the pass the time, this film is at least watchable. One for a night in.

Not too bad Action-Comedy by Danny Pang, starring Ekin Cheng, Ekin Cheng and the always charming Charlene Choi. A homosexual fashion-designer from Hong-Kong (Ekin Cheng) has to close a deal with a Triads-Boss in Thailand, otherwise his twin brother (Ekin Cheng, who after a fatal car-crash lies in a hospital) will lose all his property plus a finger. Yeah, it's shallow comedy and the CGI during a "Bad Boys 2"-style car chase sucks, but characters come along rather likable and there are a couple of really good jokes (Homo-Cheng giving styling tips to the sulky father-in-law of his brother), so if you're equipped with a big forgetting heart and don't mind Not thinking a lot, you're in for some pretty amusing 90 minutes. Some (tame) shootouts have the camera concentrating on slow-motion posing, rather than actual bullets flying, and if you look closely, you'll notice a terrific cross-over-reference to Pang Brothers' "Ab-normal Beauty".

The Pang brothers have been worthily credited for some of their movies. "The Eye" and "Bangkok Dangerous" were both excellent films. "Leave Me Alone" though is a complete U-turn to those other efforts. Film centres round a pair of twins, with one substituting for the other to help sort out his debt problems to loan sharks. The twist is though that one is gay and the other is straight. Cue the flogged to death jokes and you get the idea.

Action is poorly handled (and quite unexciting), acting is nothing special and the storyline never really grabs you. One film that is certainly best well left alone, and I just hope that the directors get back on track!