Daisy

Cast:
Jeon Ji-Hyun: Hye-Young
Jeong Woo-Seong: Park-Yi
Lee Sung-Jae: Jeong-Woo
Cheon Ho-Jin: Inspector Jung
David Chiang: Triad Boss

Director - Andrew Lau
Screenplay by - Kwak Jae Young

Warning, spoilers ahead!

Summary:

Hye-Young (Jeon Ji-Hyun), a street painter is caught between two opposite sides, Park-Yi (Jeong Woo-Seong) a professional assassin and Jeong-Woo (Lee Sung-Jae), an Interpol agent. She mistakes the guy who sends her fresh daisies daily for Jeong-Woo while Park-Yi, the actual secret admirer is left resenting in the background. An incident during Jeong-Woo's exchange of fire with some gangsters leaves Hye-Young physically hurt and she loses her voice, while Park-Yi takes over Jeong-Woo's place to take care of her when the latter leaves out of guilt. Park-Yi is later ordered to kill Jeong-Woo, which sees a tragic love triangle played out against the backdrop of Amsterdam.

Comments:
The brilliant Kwak Jae-Young, who also wrote the successful scripts of "My Sassy Girl" and "Windstruck", again creates a love story, which is fresh and interesting as it plays with misunderstandings and secrets but the plot is mediocre, which unfolds a stereotypical tragic romance among the midst of cop-killer confrontations. From the part when Hye-young dies after shielding Park-yi from a bullet onwards, the ending starts to lack creativity and rushes to adopt stale and predictable scenes such as Park-yi grieving briefly and succeeding in revenging Hye-young by doing his one-man stunt, killing off his fellow assassins and finally, his boss in a matter of a few minutes.

The film is beautifully shot and styled by Andrew Lau (the Hong Kong director of the award-winning "Infernal Affairs") with clever use of colours, which shifts between bright and dull to set the mood and plenty flashbacks, which carries the plot through the different narrative views of the lead characters. Scenes switch between the bustling city of Amsterdam and occasional flashbacks to the picturesque countryside where the leads, Hye-young and Park-yi, first meet. The sceneries are spectacular, the vintage props and quintessential sets evoke a sense of timelessness and nostalgia. As the title suggests, flowers serve as a tool to introduce a deeper insight into the story. The daisies reflect the chain of relationships and their purity and freshness juxtaposes against the plentiful thrilling and violent gun exchanges between the male characters just as the black tulips signify the dark nature of Park-yi's profession. The music is appropriately chosen for different scenes and particularly emotional and moving is the ballad piece played when Hye-young dies in Park-yi's arms.

Being the only female, Jeon Ji-Hyun is charming as usual and commands presence. She is very beautiful in the long and plentiful shots taken of her as she sits in the middle of the city drawing her portraits. She portrays the poignant but flat and somewhat boring character of Hye-young convincingly and was telling in agitated scenes when she first meets Jeong-Woo again after he left her and when she later confronts Park-yi about his true identity. The way she expresses her anger and frustrations through her expressions and actions was compelling since she could not use words to bring across her emotions.

Jeong Woo-Seong exudes coolness as the professional sniper but touches you with the love and concern he carries for Hye-young. Especially amusing is the way he smiles while he secretly peeps at her from his window and the jealousy that swarms him when Hye-young is smiles with Jeong-Woo. I like the way they made his character learn how to read lips so as to communicate with Hye-young and especially touching was the last part when the latter begs him to appear and he reads her lips and speaks out whatever she was saying in an emotional and poignant way.

Compared to Jeong Woo-Seong's character, Lee Sung-Jae's cop character is significantly less appealing and the character does not give Sung-Jae much to do with, his acting is rather stiff and somewhat boring. The fact that his character dies halfway into the show further lessens his chances of displaying any interesting twists to his character. Veteran Hong Kong actor David Chiang, who makes a guest appearance in here, gives a convincing performance as the cunning and sinister triad boss who gives orders to Park-yi.

In conclusion, a beautifully shot film, which makes use of interesting symbols and tools as well as lots of eye candy. However, the unexceptional plot, which lacks creativity, especially towards the end, and the average, if not bland characters fail to bring the movie on a whole to a higher level.