A good start loses touch in the end

Brandon Chang, left, Richard Roxburgh, Michelle Yeoh and Ben Chaplin star in The Touch. PHOTO COURTESY OF BUENA VISTA

For an Asian film trying to cross over into the international market, The Touch (天脈傳奇) has all the elements to make it work. It has as its heroine Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊), former Bond girl and female warrior in martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It has the plot of a classic adventure story, exploring the stunning and mysterious scenery of Tibet, Namtso Lake (the world's highest saltwater lake), the Silk Road of northwest China and Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province. It has Oscar-winner Peter Pau (鮑德熹) serving as both director and cinematographer, capturing those breathtaking landscapes. And it has British actor Ben Chaplin (Truth About Cats and Dogs, The Thin Red Line) engaging in a romance with Yeoh, while Australian actor Richard Roxburgh, the malicious Duke of Moulin Rouge, plays the role of the villain trying to hunt down the couple. Most importantly, the film is in English.

The Touch has an ambitious goal and a brilliant start. The opening scene of a circus show in which Yeoh leads the acrobats is fascinating, which, as Yeoh said herself, blends influences of both East and West. Behind the cameras, this is Yeoh and her business partner, Thomas Chung's (鍾再思) first production together, costing US$20 million (even higher than Crouching Tiger), and it has Miramax taking care of US market distribution.

However, as one follows the story, it is not difficult to become disappointed. To become an Oriental version of Indiana Jones or The Mummy, The Touch needs to pay a little bit more attention to its audience. Yeoh, as Yin, the elder daughter of a family of acrobats, is the center of the film and also its most complete character. Her family has been charged for centuries with protecting the Sharira, a relic purported to contain the pure essence of a Buddhist holy man. Generations of the family have passed on the martial art skills necessary to retreive the Sharira from its hiding place when the time comes.

Eric (Chaplin) plays an American who is Yin's former lover. He walks a fine line between good and evil. He's a professional thief of treasures -- especially for those acquired unjustly -- and one day he shows up again at Yin's with a medallion, the Heart of Dunhuang. The Heart is her family's treasure and is a key to unlocking the legend of Sharira. Eric's old employer, Karl, an unscrupulous rich man who covets valuable Oriental treasures, is eager to get the Heart for himself. Together, they travel through desserts, lakes and mountains to retreive it from the holy land that has long been its resting place. Facing the expedition team are a dangerous natural environment and deadly traps designed to kill any invader of the holy land, be they good or evil.

Peter Pau's cinematography is flawless and he presents the scenery like a soulful painting. Chaplin has an apt performance playing a naughty, but good-intentioned thief who steals Yeoh's heart.

But these cannot cover the major flaw of the film: the not-so-fascinating legend. Through out the film the legend is never explained well. The profoundness of the Sharira and its powers are kept mysterious. There is good action and spectacular visual effects when the characters step into the holy land full of traps. Pity that the scene is too short-lived. What follows is a sequence of unconvincing action scenes designed only to maintain the film's pace, including Yeoh's jump from a cave up dozens of meters to the edge of a cliff -- a shot obviously computer-generated, which ruins the atmosphere Pau and Yeoh worked to develop in the first half of the movie.