Déjà Woo
The Replacement Killers is an unmemorable Chow Yun-Fat crossover vehicle shot in English, classic ’80s style.
It’s a measure of its lameness that it was actually released in 1998. The movie is so unmemorable, in fact, that it wasn’t until halfway through the rental last night that I realized I’d already seen this cheesefest years ago.
Around 17:37, the sublime Talvin Singh track ‘Jaan’ from Anokha plays in the runup to a Chinatown action scene. It’s just the ethereal opening vocals (’O mere jaane jaan, aankhon se door na ho’ — ‘o love of my life, don’t stay far from my gaze’), but it’s moody. Spike Lee also used ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ to bookend Inside Man, and not just a clip, the entire song.
The tech in the movie is really anachronistic: small CRTs rather than LCDs at the airport, $3,000 PCs, brick-sized cell phones. While I swear by Hong Kong bullet ballet, this Hollywood B-side reminded me that Bollywood isn’t the only one churning turgid cliché. I still don’t buy Yun-Fat as an action star. Like Abhishek Bachchan, he’s only cool because the script tells you so.
This being Hollywood, the Asian hero never locks lips with Mira Sorvino. Jet Li was similarly robbed, and worse, it was Aaliyah. This is the same film industry that had the chutzpah to make the Last Samurai a white guy who lectures the emperor on Japanese tradition. As my friend Anuvab observed, Hollywood eats up books like Shantaram and, in a more racist time, A Passage to India, because they let you do India with a white lead (Johnny Depp, in Shantaram’s case). If they ever do a movie on the Last Lotahwallah, rest assured that Generic White Guy Martin Henderson or John Corbett will be the hero.
on Thursday, July 6th, 2006, 11:42 pm in Film › 
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Jet Li is more worthy of your Abhishek Bachchan comparison- there is really little that is cool about him (maybe he was a little cool in Hero).
On the other hand, Chow Yun Fat is just put in the wrong roles. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, his coolness is very undeniable. The problem is that there are very few roles like that (the stoic, noble variety) in American cinema.
However:
-will have me laughing for days to come. ;) Um, and don’t forget, when including Passage to India and Shantaram, to also throw in City of Hope (?- the one with Patrick “nobody puts Baby in a corner” Swayze). Iyuck.
Disassembling a hand gun with one hand in Lethal Weapon 4? Very cool.
That was City of Joy, and it was Dirty Slumming for the horny-for-Swayze NGO set.
Oh, see, I’d erased LW4 from my brain because Mel Gibson made so many off-color remarks in that movie that my mind exploded. ;)
Maybe I just think Jet Li has an inherent goofiness that Chow Yun Fat does not– so it could just be personal bias.
And thanks for the correction on City of Joy- now I know what to gag at. How did they get Shabana Azmi & Om Puri to appear in that disaster?!?
Same way you get Aishwarya to get all giggly on David Letterman– you dangle ‘crossover’ ;)
There’s an important difference between Jet Li and Chow: Jet Li was a Kung Fu champion from a young age, whereas Chow Yun Fat isn’t a martial artist at all. Who that makes cooler is a matter of argument. Some people I know argue that Chow is cooler because he has to act and emote, others are just in awe of Jet Li’s badassness (his stunts are always far better). BTW, to really appreciate Chow Yun Fat, you should look at his earlier films like God of Gamblers or the incomparable Hard Boiled. I don’t think he’s really been badass since he left HK.
Oh, Hard Boiled, that was the one that hooked me on him being cool!
Jackie Chan is a great martial artist too, but I would never call him cool. I would call him a badass, or an amazing choreographer, or a great screen presence, but not cool. Am I getting caught up in semantics? Probably.
I loved Hard Boiled, but Chow Yun-Fat was pretty unimpressive in this Hollywood flick. I’d pick Jet Li in a heartbeat.
How about this- I will give you Jet Li in American films if you give me Chow Yun-Fat in HK films (b/c I just thought of another that I thoroughly loved- A Better Tomorrow). Phrends? ;)
Phrends :) But who gets the Tony Leungs?
Oh, that’s easy: Maggie Cheung, of course.
Chow Yun Fat was also in City on Fire, the movie that Tarantino borrowed from to create Reservoir Dogs:
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, “I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don’t like that, then tough tills, don’t go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don’t do homages.” [Link]
That makes Chow Amitabh’s “grandfather” (via Kaante).
Shoot - Manish, that’s supposed to be blockquoted in the middle.