Dr. Wai in the Scripture with No Words

(1996) Dr. Wai: The Scripture With No Words (In Chinese with English subtitles) HISTORICAL FICTION ACTION/ DRAMA

One of Jet Lee's weaker films in terms of both action and plot which showcases the story line in different segments than to allow Jet Lee to really showcase his stuff. More drama than action and intended only for die hard Jet Lee enthusiasts. Like many martial art movies, I judged this movie by how much martial arts it has, as well as how much innovative martial art scenes it has. I must confess, I did not pay too much attention to the story, and just used the fast forward button while playing. Since I read somewhere during this time, because "action" and "comedic sequences" were the two genres that Hong Kong viewers prefer watching, I just assumed 'story' is sometimes built around comedy and action scenes.

Jet Li stars as the "King of Adventurers," a novelist who is having marital troubles and takes his feelings to his book that he is writing. The story was pretty interesting, but it was a bit slow paced for me. There were a few interesting fight scenes, especailly with the ninjas and the sumo wrestlers, but they weren't as good as Jet Li's other fights. It's a good rental movie.

This movie has an interesting premise (the depiction of and flip-flopping between a writer's fictional life as The King of Adventurers and his "real", problem-ridden -- he is in the middle of a huge writer's block precipitated by marital problems -- life). Although there may appear to be echoes of and borrowings from such American movies as "Romancing the Stone" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", it turns out to have characteristically Hong Kong elements ("wire fu" fights, cross-dressing, etc. -- all featuring the hero, as played by Jet Li; action -- in one case, whip-wielding -- women) as well as its own attractions (I particularly like the idea of the pen as a real as well as metaphorical weapon). All this having been said, it still seems to lack the extremes of and thus seem surprisingly tame compared to many another Hong Kong movie...which may explain why it is not a particular favorite of many Hong Kong movie fans. On the other hand, for those (relatively) unused to the pace, gore and quick mood changes of so many movies from that part of the world, this would be recommended as a movie which showcases the imagination of Hong Kong movie makers and the ability -- in terms of quality but also range of possibility -- of its actors and actresses.

I have to disagree with one of the previous reviewers who said that this movie would be ideal for Hong Kong cinema neophytes. I believe that only HK fanatics should even attempt to watch it - the less experienced viewers will probably turn it off after about 30 minutes (it's no wonder that no American distributor picked it up for re-release; it certainly doesn't have the wide appeal of a movie like "Meltdown" / "High Risk"). The idea is ambitious, the production is lavish, but the story is confusing and unengaging, and the result is a film too bizarre and self-indulgent for most audiences. Jet Li once again proves that he can act (in a dual role, no less), but the vast majority of the fighting is over-the-top and (intentionally) unrealistic. There are some memorable moments, however, like his brief encounter with two huge sumo wrestlers! (**)

Thomas Weissman, who wrote a supposedly major text on Asian cinema (which unfortunately probably blocked publication of better texts for some time) pee-ed off a lot of fans of Hong Kong cinema. One of the reasons is that he knows dam' well the difference between a good movie and a good "genre" film, but, instead of developing this difference critically, he prefers to smudge it, and thus frequently leaves readers with misconceptions.

Weissman's review of this film promised a real avant-garde transgression of time and space, of pulp and serious narrative. I'm afraid that's not what's happening here.

For one thing, we get no closer to any of this characters than we do in any other Hong Kong genre film. That's important; to make real transgressions of time, space, genre, etc., we need to see what's going on from a particular point of view. (If one doesn't care for "The Singing Detective" - and I don't - then refer to "Slaughterhouse Five".) Since this is really an "action-comedy". it can't do that. Instead, it scrambles its plot around from several different points of view; but the heart of the narrative remains action, not 'perspective'.

Well, is it a good action comedy? yeah, I enjoyed it, I'll probably watch it again. IS it the super-duper-transgressive New-wave make or break film that Weissman and a few others have touted it as? Nope. For that see Wong Kar Wai's "Ashes of Time".

But not every film has to be really really serious or 'great'. This is a fun film, with some weird displacements of time and space, just to make it interesting. Enjoy it as such.