Goddess of Mercy


Reviewed by: koalabear

November 22, 2004

Rating: three-point-five

Director: Ann Hui On-Wah
Cast: Vicki Zhao Wei, Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Liu Yunlong, Sun Haiying, Chen Jianbin

I saw this with two friends. I didn't know what to expect from this film. To be honest, I had been hoping for a love story. I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I did. I like Vicki Zhao a lot - she's so cute and wide-eyed and it's nice to have such an interesting female lead. I also liked Nicholas Tse as a sexy, charismatic, ill-fated drug smuggler - but the fate of these two and their doomed relationship was just so tragic that it was almost unbearable.

Vicki Zhao plays An Xin. At the start of the film, she appears to be a cleaner at a Beijing martial arts school. She attracts the attention of ladies' man Yang Rui (Liu Yunlong), who is attracted to her aloofness. Nonetheless, despite kicking the crap out of him at the start, she grows to like him and he also changes some of his rakehell ways. He bonds with her young son Xiong and is fascinated by the big-eyed An Xin, who is tough, independent yet haunted by something from her tragic past.

Yang Rui is thrown into jail on a corruption charge (courtesy of his ex-girlfriend) and he discovers that An Xin is not merely a poor single mother. In a previous incarnation, An Xin was in fact a very successful narcotics cop in the town of Nande. Her husband Tienjun (Chen Jiabin) died protecting Xiong and the movie flashes back three years earlier.

It is this way we learn that An Xin's path towards martial bliss was interrupted by an encounter with Maojie (Nicholas Tse). The water-splashed scene is quite cute and had this been a different movie, this could have been a sweet romance .....

Unfortunately, this is not to be. Instant attraction is followed by an affair. A guilt-ridden An Xin terminates the relationship, while Maojie still believes that she is a physical education teacher and just before a drug bust which discloses that Maojie is a drug trafficker for his family.

Although Maojie is jailed, many members of his family are killed and the "love" shared between the two rapidly turns to almost insane hatred - something which still haunts An Xin, as Maojie eventually secures his freedom.

An Xin is presented in a number of different lights. Cleaner, mother, policewoman, lover and then wife.

An Xin supposedly resembles Kwanyin, the goddess of mercy who is the subject of a pendant worn by Tienjun, then An Xin, and finally Yang Rui.

Bad boy Nicholas Tse is very successful as the sexy and charismatic Maojie. Chen Jiabin is quietly tragic as Tienjun the husband.

Yang Rui is a difficult character. Although he is the narrator, it is difficult to understand his character. He ostensibly develops from shallow playboy to ardent, soulful lover, but we never really know him as he appears to harbour a callow crush / obsession on the tragic An Xin.

I'll be honest I didn't like this movie, but the performances from Vicky zhao and Nicholas Tse were very impressive.


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