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A new
super hero movie?… When you hear about Black Mask,
that 's what you think. Tim Burton already brought the genre to
a new life with his two Batman episodes, exploring
the dark side of his invincible hero. What could possibly add to
this theme a young director who was known mostly for TV series or
his first movie (and Box-Office memorable failure) What price
survival at the time?…
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1996's
Black Mask is a combination of talents : Daniel Lee
comes from Hong Kong TV, but was contacted by director / producer
Tsui Hark after the release of his martial arts TV series on TVB
Channel… Tsui later asked him to direct one episode of his Wong
Fei-Hung TV series, The Eight Assassins.
Satisfied of the curious but interesting result (the unexpected
pearl among boring and stupid episodes of this forgettable series),
and unable to direct Black Mask himself because of
his overbooked planning, he hired Lee to replace him at the head
of this ambitious project -one of Hong-Kong's biggest-budgetted
movies: the adaptation of the HK comic-book Ah hap.
The
prestigious casting of Black Mask is composed of Jet
Li in the leading role (working again with Tsui three years after
Once upon a time in China III), Lau Ching-Wan (Lifeline,
Beyond Hypothermia), Karen Mok (Fallen Angels),
Françoise Yip (Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx)
and even Anthony Wong as a guest-star, not to mention the unexpected
appearance of Xiong Xin Xin (Clubfoot in Once upon a time
in China III to VI) !…
This exciting team allowed us to expect much from this movie, although
the theme seemed to had been run out… and Black Mask
is actually worth the expectations. However, the main problem when
we try to speak about this movie is the way it was finally executed
: Daniel Lee complained he didn't have that much control on it,
as he endured pressure from producer Tsui Hark on the set (Tsui
Hark was shooting Double Team at the time in Italia
and came back to Hong-Kong from time to time, changing all the directives
at each of his visits ) and from the Win's producers too who sharply
cut it to focus on the action scenes, in order to please the Western
audience… the irony is that this version was not enough either for
American distributors who transformed it into a Z-movie for its
American release in 1999…
What's
Lee's part in Black Mask?… Black Mask
is an action movie, but Daniel Lee wanted it more intimate, he wanted
it darker and more radical, like his previous work. After seeing
his other movies numerous times, we can although glimpse his great
influence on the success of Black Mask. The controversial
paternity of this movie obliges us to take side for a critic between
the several actors of its making. We'll talk here of Black
Mask as a Daniel Lee movie, as it appears like it to us.
No matter the intervention of Tsui Hark, Black Mask carries the
whole stamp of Lee's art.
The
single opening scene, extensively copied in recent American movies
like in Blade's first scene, is a complete success
which plunges us in the upsetting atmosphere of this strange movie.
Jet Li flies across a big warehouse filled with an army of anonymous
bad guys, carried along in his deadly mission by the rhythm of a
cool and Sixties fashion music… The set is already laid down : high-tech
atmosphere, dark and gloomy colors, frantic rhythm and loneliness
of our hero…
The high-tech trend implies complicated script, which is the case
here. We learn that Tsui Chik (Jet Li) is a former member of a the
701-squad, in charge of deadly missions lead by Patrick Lung. These
professional killers have been deprived of their sense of pain and
emotions in order to become the most efficient in their job. When
the movie begins, Tsui has escaped from his teamers to live a normal
life in Hong-Kong as a quiet librarian, searching for his lost emotions
through the company of books. His collegue Tracy (Karen Mok) desperatly
tries to date the shy and gentle Tsui Chik, who obviously prefers
talking and playing mahjong with his only friend "The Rock" (Lau
Ching-Wan)… The reappearance of the 701-squad in a attempt to control
the worldwide drug-market forces Tsui Chik to face his past and
to fight his former comrades. That's where the apparently simple
story becomes confused and hard to get. The schemes of the 701-squad
come one after another without real introduction, which make us
ask ourselves "what's happening?" several times… but never mind.
We get hooked by the frenzy and by the specific aesthetism of the
whole…
Black
Mask offers us several remarkable action scenes, though
we can't call it a martial arts movie. Its stylized action type
concentrates on the whole movement rather than on individual techniques.
The great action scene which involves The Rock against the gangsters
in a big warehouse, and which lasts with Black Mask's first public
intervention, is absolutely amazing. Delirious car purchases which
end in apocalyptic explosions, dozen of victims dying in horrible
conditions… this sequence could refer to Hard-Boiled's
famous warehouse scene in a more panicked and less graphic way…
Lau Ching-Wan's nightmare takes place in alternance with sado-masochist
sex-scenes between Anthony Wong's pervert character and Tsui Chik's
former student, Yeuk Lan (Françoise Yip), dressed in short leather
clothes and studded accessories… until Black Mask's appearance,
coming from the sky with a parachute and determined to save his
friend by clearing up this mess.
Jet Li's physical skills do not give us the opportunity to watch
real martial arts, although Yuen Woo-Ping's involvement in the choreography,
but are a way to give the Black Mask character his unreachable and
graceful style. One very significant example of this unique and
beautiful style is this single moment when Tsui Chik escapes Yeuk
Lan's attack on a roof : he jumps on a rolling car, and then runs
on its top in a slow motion camera shot… the opposite movement between
the car and his graceful silhouette lightly running creates a surprisingly
poetic impression, as if time had briefly suspended its course…
The
other major action scene takes place in a hospital, when Black Mask
tries to deliver Yeuk Lan from the policemen's trap. Once again,
the closed settings exude panicking sensations. Some stroboscopic
lightning effects let us see in flashes a horrible human monster
who doesn't fear guns… Daniel Lee's camera is wobbly and perfectly
restitutes the nightmare atmosphere of this deadly trap. The fights
in What price survival were shot in speed-up/slow
down effects which insist on the unsteadiness of the whole, leading
our eyes from the fighters to one point of the setting (the sky,
the leaves of trees.) with whirling camera moves. We can find the
same will in this scene of Black Mask, as the camera
voluntarily makes us forgot our elementary sense of orientation,
which means that we can't distinguish the top from the bottom anymore…
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