The Touch | Blu-ray (Imprint)
Director: Peter Pau
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Ben Chaplin, Richard Roxburgh, Dane Cook, Kenneth Tsang, Brandon Chang, Margaret Wang, Winston Chao, Zhenhai Kou
Running Time: 103 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Imagine for a minute that the year is 2000 and you’re Michelle Yeoh. You’ve just gained an international level of fame thanks to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, garnering far more attention than when you were cast in a 007 movie, and the question of what to do next looms large on the horizon. The answer of course was to strike while the iron is hot. Set up your own production company – Mythical Films – and produce an epic Indiana Jones (or an updated take on Magnificent Warriors for those who were already fans!) style action adventure. Take on the starring role, contribute to the script, bring in established actors from Hollywood, shoot the whole thing in English, and let’s hire Skywalker Sound for the sound design! While we’re at it, grab CTHD’s director of photography Peter Pau to helm it, and spend the next 2 years travelling around the farthest reaches of China to film it. The result could only be one thing – epic.
Instead though, the result was The Touch, and if you were going to call it epic anything, then epic disaster would be the most accurate. It’s hard to call Yeoh’s next film after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon anything other than a misfire, and it never did become the next global box office smash it was intended to be. Miramax purchased the rights for U.S. distribution, who were so shocked at the horrendous CGI dominated finale, they included a clause allowing them to re-shoot the special effects themselves. Is that the first time for such a thing to happen Continue reading
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