Parky at the Pictures (in Cinemas 14/2/2013)

Oxford Times
February 23, 2013

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/blogs/10226329.Parky_at_the_Pictures__In_Cinemas_14_2_2013_/?ref=erec

With one announcement, a documentary that might otherwise have slipped under the radar has become the most important film of the week. Alex Gibney's Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God follows his previous exposes Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Darkside (2007) in showing how a single shocking incident fits into a bigger and far more egregious picture. But, while Monday's announcement from Rome stands to deflect attention away from the crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, it will redouble the focus on the part played by the future Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in the Vatican conspiracy to cover-up the extent of child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church and to prevent those who betrayed the trust of the vulnerable individuals in their care from facing civil justice.

Between 1950 and 1974, Father Murphy worked at St. John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Served by a congregation of loyal nuns, he seemed to be a popular priest and ex-pupils Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Pat Kuehn and Arthur Budzinski recall the effort he put into fund-raising and ensuring that children who had often been abandoned by their parents felt an overdue sense of worth and belonging. But Murphy was also a predatory paedophile who used to walk the dormitories at night selecting victims and even formed a cabal of older boys to groom suitable victims for seduction. As many of the youths relied on Murphy to communicate with their non-signing parents, he prevented them from protesting about their treatment and, besides, who would take the word of a troubled kid over a well-respected cleric?

As former Benedictine Richard Sipe reveals, many abusive priests cloak themselves in this air of superiority to convince themselves of their inviolability. But another ex-monk, Patrick J. Wall, says that he spent much of his time in holy orders putting out fires by coercing accusers into feeling their own guilt and shame and persuading them that no good could possibly come of prosecuting a man whose value to the parish atoned for his sins. Kohut, Smith, Kuehn and Budzinski concede that they were initially silenced by such tactics. But, in 1974, they decided to report Murphy to the police and Bob Bolger remembers Smith and Budzinski printing fliers denouncing him as a pederast and urging the faithful to stop making charitable donations to the school.

Counsellor John Conway urged the quartet to pursue a different course of action and arranged a meeting with Archbishop William E. Cousins. While preparing his case, Conway discovered that a Fr Walsh had expressed his concerns about Murphy's behaviour back in 1957 and had even sent a letter on the subject to the Papal Nuncio. Yet nothing had been done to investigate Murphy, let alone remove him from such a sensitive post. Moreover, when Conway took his findings to the district attorney's office, he was informed that the statute of limitations had passed and that no prosecution would be possible. Enraged by this turn of events, dorm supervisor Jim Heydendahl threatened to go public with what he knew about Murphy's systematic abuse of his students. However, the diocese intervened and hoped that the fuss would die down when Murphy retired for health reasons.

At this juncture, Gibney starts to widen the net and has British human rights lawyer Geoffry Robertson explain the purpose of the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, an organisation founded in New Mexico in 1947 by Fr Gerald Fitzgerald to treat paedophile priests. At one point, it was mooted that perpetrators could be hidden away on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. But, instead, it was decided to spend millions on rehabilitating the 2000 or so known offenders who had been cited by victims from around the world and, thus, the Vatican put its faith in a policy of denial, suppression and counter-accusation that had been instituted in 1866.

Back in the mid-1970s, Murphy had been found a new parish and the authorities continued to rally round when Smith brought a lawsuit against him. As lawyer Jeff Anderson recalls, Smith was duped and bullied into accepting compensation for his ordeal. Yet he also had to issue an apology for besmirching Murphy's reputation. This cowardly approach appalled Fr Thomas Doyle, who became one of the first whistleblowers from within the Church and New York Times religious affairs commentator Laurie Goodstein reflects upon the pressure he faced to withdraw his evidence and how Cardinal Bernard Law was rewarded for keeping a lid on the scandal with the plum post of parish priest of the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Robert Mickens of The Tablet explains how the Vatican tried to present the problem of aberrant priests as being unique to America. But, as Marco Politi of Il Fatto Quotidiano recollects, Europe was also soon enmired and the Vatican was forced into following 1700 years of precedent by issuing flat denials and questioning the integrity of the accusers. Richard Sipe declares that Cardinal Ratzinger spent a quarter of a century using the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which is essentially the successor to the infamous Inquisition) to cover up cases and, as Mike Peelo from RTE infers, it was only when Fr Tony Walsh - the famous `Singing Priest' from Our Lady of the Assumption in Ballyfermot, Dublin - was arrested and charged with some 200 offences that a change of strategy was adopted.

The process was a slow one, however. As Grainne O'Sullivan, the co-founder of Countmeout.ie, explains, priests were revered around the world and there was great reluctance to allow one to be prosecuted for fear that it might undermine the apostolic authority of the remainder. Thus, complaints about Walsh dating back to 1979 were ignored and it was only when the clamour grew that Archbishop Desmond Connell of Dublin set up an inquiry. Under the terms of Canon Law, however, all testimony had to be kept secret on pain of excommunication and, as Colm O'Gorman from Amnesty International and One in Four expounds, this tied Connell's hands as he sought to set up an internal trial and it was only after Walsh was jailed in 1995 that he was finally defrocked.

Connell comes off badly in an interview clip in which he says that he had too many other duties to devote himself to the Walsh case. But it's hard to see what more he could have done when Rome was so reluctant to co-operate. Indeed, when Cardinal Sean Brady read out a 2010 letter from Pope Benedict begging for the forgiveness of the Irish people, several senior bishops protested at being made scapegoats for mismanaging a crisis over which they had been denied any control.

Eventually, the full story came out in the 2011 Cloyne Report. But the saga demonstrated Vatican complicity in the protection of paedophile priests and Gibney queries how the process to beatify John Paul II can continue when he turned a blind eye to the misdemeanours of the likes of Fr Marcial Maciel. A member of the zealous fund-raising body, the Legion of Christ, Maciel was a favourite of the late pontiff. However, as author Jason Berry reveals, he was also a morphine addicts and a serial sex offender, who fathered several children with his many mistresses. He was protected by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was a colleague within the Curia of Cardinal Ratzinger, whose response to the mounting evidence against Maciel and others was to lament the violation of holy orders rather than empathise with the victims. In his defence, Ratzinger sought to prosecute Maciel and, on the day that John Paul II died in 2005, agents were dispatched to New York and Mexico City to gather evidence against him. Yet, even after he ascended the Throne of St Peter, Benedict was powerless to bring Maciel to book and he was allowed to retire in considerable comfort in Jacksonville, Florida.

Lawrence Murphy was also granted a similar boon. But, in 1997, Terry Kahout wrote him several accusatory letters, while Bolger, Smith and Budzinski confronted him at his Boulder Junction hideaway. He ordered them off his property and wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger assuring him that he had repented of any wrongdoing and wished to live out his life in priestly dignity. Robert Mickens explains that this was a shrewd tactic, as the Vatican sets great store by the sacrementality of the divine office, which supposedly elevates priests above mere mortals as they have transformed bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. However, Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP) is less impressed by the tactic and accuses Archbishop Rembert Weakland of being too scared to have an old homosexual affair become public to press charges against Murphy.

Jeff Anderson offered to help Kahout sue the pope because he topped the hierarchy that had sought to protect paedophiles and installed them in parishes where they could continue to offend. But the status given to Vatican City under the 1929 Lateran Treaty allows it a degree of immunity in international courts and Geoffrey Robertson despairs that a document fashioned by Mussolini's Fascist regime should legitimise the code of Omerta behind which the papacy hides. He calls for the Vatican to be stripped of its statehood, while Maurizio Turco of Anticlerica.Le.net highlights the abuse of deaf kids in Verona to show how little has changed in the wake of a crisis that would have toppled most other institutions or, at least, prompted them to instigate fundamental reform. .

Many American dioceses have declared bankruptcy to protect themselves against further compensation claims by victims of abuse. But Kahout, Smith and Budzinski refuse to let Milwaukee off the hook and not only seek to outlaw self-defensive bankruptcy in such cases, but also campaign to have the Vatican archives opened so that the truth about the Catholic conspiracy to protect criminous clergy can finally be known. Pope Benedict had fiercely resisted this call and it will be fascinating to see what his successor does with the poisoned chalice he has been handed.

Every Catholic in the country should see this film to understand the shameless deceptions that have been devised to bury centuries of heinous depravity. Gibney makes the regrettable mistake of using actors Jamie Sheridan (Kahout), Chris Cooper (Smith), Ethan Hawke (Kuehn) and John Slattery (Budzinski) to voice the St John's Four, while his decision to reconstruct Murphy's nocturnal prowlings as though he was a vestmented vampire or SS officer in a concentration camp is as hopelessly misjudged as Ivor Guest and Robert Logan's ominous and highly manipulative score. But these are minor criticisms of a courageous and meticulously constructed picture that makes bold use of printed and photographic archive material, as well as home movies and first-hand testimonies.

The Murphy case is grotesque and one can only admire those who have dedicated their lives to exposing criminality in the hope that future generations will be spared it. But, even though the evidence may be less verifiable, the most compelling passages involve the Vatican and the inability (whether wilful or otherwise) of the retiring pontiff to do anything constructive, either under John Paul II or during his own reign, to acknowledge the degeneracy or punish the transgressors. Kirby Dick and Amy Berg have covered similar territory in Twist of Faith (2004) and Deliver Us From Evil (2006), but Gibney follows the trail further along the corridors of power and the revelation that Ratzinger demanded that he was informed of every accusation of child abuse makes his decision to continue defending perverts and repudiating their victims all the more unforgivable.

Writer-director So Yong Kim has already demonstrated an understanding of the juvenile mindset in her first two features, In Between Days (2006) and Treeless Mountain (2008). In For Ellen, however, she sets herself the additional challenge of exploring the thought processes of a struggling rock singer, whose arrested development means that he is no more emotionally mature than the six year-old daughter with whom he is desperate to make a connection before a divorce settlement separates them forever. Drawing on her own experiences and shooting in a snow-covered upstate New York to reinforce the contrasting bleakness of the father's situation and his daughter's innocence, Kim tells her tale with affecting simplicity. However, by withholding crucial backstory and concentrating on the perspective of an anti-hero whose principal personality trait is opacity, Kim risks keeping viewers at such a distance that they can only regard the characters rather than engage with them.

Having spun off an icy road while driving directly from a distant gig, grungy musician Paul Dano arrives late for a meeting with estranged wife Margarita Levieva. She refuses to speak to him directly and lawyer Julian Gamble tries to bully Dano into signing papers that will give him a share of their joint assets, but deny him access to daughter Shaylena Mandigo Bemused that his own attorney, Jon Heder, had not made these terms clear, Dano requests more time to read the documents and tries unsuccessfully to appeal to Levieva, who has clearly had enough of his self-preoccupation and unkept promises.

Checking into a motel, Dano has an angry phone call with a bandmate over the quality of the songs for a new album and heads for a local bar to drown his sorrows after he appears to have been fired as lead singer. He flirts with Dakota Johnson over the pool table and wakes the worse for wear next morning. Fuzzily trying to channel his feelings into a song, Dano realises that time is running out to reach an agreement with Levieva and leaves her several messages in the hope that he can use his charm to coax her into moderate her demands. However, she refuses to budge and, when she threatens to take him to court unless he signs, Dano reaches such a low ebb that he accepts a dinner invitation from Heder and his mother, Mara Pelifian.

After the awkward meal, Dano takes Heder to a nearby bar. Aware that his straight-laced lawyer is out of his depth, he gets hammered and plays wild air guitar to Whitesnake's `Still of the Night' on the jukebox. When Heder follows him outside and cadges a cigarette to hold rather than smoke, Dano loses patience and, having sent his clueless companion home, proceeds to throw up violently in the toilets. Back in his room, he leaves Levieva a message reminding her that he persuaded her not to have an abortion and threatens to use the paperwork she filled out unless she proves more accommodating.

Next morning, Dano is awoken by a call from Mandigo suggesting that they spend some time together. Dazed, but delighted, Dano goes to collect her and is instructed by Hamilton that they only have two hours and that no mention is to be made of his client or her motives during that period. Dano agrees and escorts the taciturn six year-old to his car. He gives her the doll he bought from the local toy store after peeping through the window at her as she ate with Levieva and her new beau. However, she already has that model and Mandigo takes an eternity to scour the shelves before finally choosing a replacement. She also turns her nose up at the ice-cream he buys her in the mall cafe, although she smiles when he says his favourite subjects at school were lunch and recess. Finding it difficult to hold a basic conversation, let alone get to know her, Dano tries to explain that he had set his heart on becoming a rock star and had to take his shot, even though this meant neglecting her. But, while Mandigo says she understands, she doesn't seem all that concerned to have drifted apart from her father and admits that she likes the man her mom intends to marry

Wanting to make their time together memorable, Dano suggests they go tenpin bowling and they have enough fun to go to a snowbound playground and play on the swings. But the time elapses far too quickly and Dano is crushed as he watches Mandigo disappear through the front door. Consequently, he sneaks back to the house and knocks on her bedroom window, as she practices Beethoven's `Fur Elise' on her electronic keyboard. He tries again to hold a meaningful conversation, but seems to realise that not only is he not cut out to be a parent, but that he can make no tangible difference to her life. Smiling sadly, he slips out of the window and drops into Heder's office to sign the papers.

On returning to the motel, he is surprised to find girlfriend Jena Malone waiting for him. He is torn between irritation that she has ignored his request not to follow him and relief at not having to be alone for the night. She is proud of him for showing some maturity and doing the right thing and lures him to bed. But, when he wakes early next morning and goes outside to smoke, Dano impulsively hitches a lift with a timber truck and runs away from both the reality that he has lost everything he has ever achieved and the awful prospect of having to start again as a failure.

With his lank hair, black nail varnish and air of spaced detachment, Paul Dano cuts a rather shambolic figure. He has clearly been a terrible husband and father and has driven his bandmates to distraction with his sense of self-importance and evident unreliability. Yet such is the vulnerability that Dano conveys that it is difficult not to sympathise with him, as he realises the enormity of the mistakes he has made and the anguish that they will cause for the rest of his days. His greatest disappointment, however, is the discovery that he can do nothing to improve his daughter's life and that she would be much better off without him. This feels even more painful after their brief liaison suggests that things might have been different if he had made a commitment earlier. But he is aware that he has no one to blame but himself and his climactic decision to disappear could be interpreted as magnanimous rather than cowardly, as he seems to waive his share of the house sale and spare Malone the pain of being let down by him somewhere along the line.

Yet, while Dano impresses and strikes up a touching rapport with Mandigo, Kim surrounds him with sketchily drawn supporting characters who add little or nothing to the story. Both Leveiva and Malone are mere ciphers, while Heder's momma's boy provides a little comic relief, while also suggesting that decent folks can be every bit as ineffectual as mavericks. Kim and cinematographer Reed Morano make solid use of the frosty landscape and the unprepossessing interiors. But Kim and husband Bradley Rust Gray impose a mannered languour with their editorial choices that is compounded by the decision to mix scripted and improvised dialogue. Thus, while this has its amusing and poignant moments, it always feels more like a vignettish character study than a fully realised narrative.

The same is also true of Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World, the second feature after Let's Stick Together of former NME writer Viv Fongenie, who draws on his experience of working with mental health issues to explore the effect of a sudden bereavement on a web designer and those trying to help him. The title character is compellingly played by Edward Hogg, who is becoming something of a specialist in depicting psychological (Bunny and the Bull, White Lightnin') and physical (Imagine) impairment. But, while Fongenie (who was also responsible for the 2004 documentary, Troubled Minds) and cinematographer Mattias Nyberg concoct some eye-catching visuals to suggest Hogg's skewed view of the universe, the scripting is often awkward and the supporting performances lack conviction. Thus, for all its good intentions and low-budget ingenuity, this scarcely lives up to the claims that it is a cross between Donnie Darko and Billy Liar.

Flashing back from an opening shot of Edward Hogg rushing along in testy conversation with a smiley kettle, the action settles on his cosy relationship with Jodie Whittaker. Accepting him as slightly eccentric, she jokes about his obsession with astronomy and quantum physics and wishes he would get the kitchen painted so they can get on with planning their forthcoming wedding. Dismayed by the news that best friend Andrew Knott is relocating to Sheffield, Hogg seems distracted as he spends Whittaker's birthday chatting and listening to opera in the park. But, just a few days after she complains of a headache, Whittaker dies of a brain embolism and Hogg's entire world implodes.

Despite being in a daze, Hogg returns to work and reassures boss George Keeler and secretary Jessica Pidsley that all is well. But his behaviour becomes increasingly unpredictable after he starts hearing voices, one of which belongs to a detested headmaster from his youth. Yet, while he insists to Whittaker's disquieted friend, Cathy Tyson, that he is coping with her loss, he is grateful when Knott suggests he stays at his flat for a while and he returns home to pick up some things. Once inside, however, Hogg thinks he sees Whittaker on the sofa and throws up in the bathroom in blind panic when she says she wants to talk to him.

Oblivious to Keeler's concern that his antics are bad for staff morale, Hogg turns up to work in a pair of purple Y-fronts and quits rather than accepting time off to regain his composure and seek medical assistance. He is interviewed for another job, but bemuses the panel with his incessant prattle and continues to resist efforts by the visiting Tyson to get him to a doctor. Now eating muesli for every meal (as it was Whittaker's favourite cereal), Hogg riles Knott over a spurned takeaway and he storms off after an argument and works himself into such a lather that he loudly corrects the mistakes being made by a couple of strangers discussing science in a cafe.

Convinced that someone or something is trying to freeze his brain, Hogg shows Tyson a small object that he found behhind the back of the fridge and explains that it is a microchip containing messages from Whittaker that he will only be able to decipher if he can create sufficient energy on the wavelength that makes the colour purple vibrate. Certain that his foes will try to steal the chip, Hogg hides it in a slab of cheddar in Knott's fridge and becomes so disturbed by the voices back at his own place that he tries to seal up the doors with masking tape.

While he is away, Knott uses the cheese to make sandwiches, which get tossed into his office bin. When Hogg accuses him of stealing the chip, Knott loses his temper and asks him to leave and he feels guilty on returning from work next day to find that Hogg has not only tidied the apartment, but also painted the kitchen to ensure he will recoup his deposit from the landlord when he moves out. However, as Hogg seems to be back on an even keel on the day he departs, Knott heads north with a clearer conscience. But it doesn't take long for Hogg to lapse and he becomes so agitated by the noise made by the boiling kettle that he takes it with him for an overdue hospital appointment.

Unfortunately, having told sceptical doctor Julia Barrie about his brain freezing crisis, Hogg overhears her calling him a `nutter' on referring him to a psychiatrist and he hurries away to buy a power drill that he presses against his temple in a bid to cure himself. Fortunate to survive, he ends up in an institution, where the visiting Tyson tries to convince him that Whittaker's death wasn't his fault. He befriends fellow patient James Aukland and seems to learn how to ignore the voices when they pester him.

A caption suddenly flashes up containing a quotation from Niels Bohr: `Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.' At various points throughout the film, Hogg has been seen peering from behind a superimposed map of the cosmos, while he explains scientific concepts and how they relate to his situation. Now, he concludes that, while the world is crazy, good things can still come from catastrophe and he is reunited with Knott while sitting in a pub listening to singer Craig Brauns. They smile at the possibility of getting back to normal - whatever that is.

There are few things more difficult to depict convincingly on screen than mental illness. A glimpse at a website eventually clues the audience that Hogg is suffering from schizophrenia, but they are offered few insights into the interior anguish he is experiencing, as he gives such a rigorously externalised performance. The tics and mumblings are poignant and persuasive, but they have the effect of distancing viewers, while also blinding them with science. Thus, they are reduced to watching helplessly as Knott and Tyson fail to respond to their friend's breakdown with anything more than tea and sympathy. Moreover, as these secondaries are so poorly developed, Hogg's powerful display becomes too big for the picture and this imbalance serves to highlight other shortcomings, such as the absence of a backstory to place the episode in a cogent context, the contrived nature of Keeler and Barrie's callous remarks and the refusal to explain how Hogg was `cured'.

Obviously, the condition itself can be used to justify the more idiosyncratic actions and pronouncements. But Hogg's mind isn't the sole source of muddle here and, while this means well and represents a considerable achievement on such meagre resources, it never entirely convinces as a drama, let alone a revealing investigation into a disorder of such dauting complexity.

Nevertheless, this challenging feature is infinitely preferable to Run For Your Wife, an updating of the long-running 1983 stage farce that has been co-directed by playwright Ray Cooney and John Luten. Firmly rooted in the saucy tradition that has sustained British popular entertainment since the golden age of the music hall, this will leave most viewers feeling as though they have been beaten around the head with a rolled-up Carry On poster. But, while the films in this franchise are now branded politically incorrect, they at least reflected the times in which they were made. By dragging a romp stuffed with off-colour jokes about homosexuality kicking and screaming into the 2010s, Cooney has not only opted to ignore changing attitudes, but also the social conventions and modern modes of communication that would make his already convoluted scenario as implausible as it is objectionable.

London mini-cab driver Danny Dyer has two wives. Sarah Harding resides in Finsbury, while Denise Van Outen lives south of the river in Stockwell. It takes a little planning, but Dyer is able to drift between spouses with little difficulty and enjoy the best of both worlds. One day, however, he takes a blow to the head while trying to stop bag lady Judi Dench from being mugged and winds up in hospital. Concerned by his absence, both wives contact the police and the heavily sedated Dyer is returned to Van Outen when he should been sent home to Harding.

Keen to lay low until the fuss sparked by the press passes, Dyer stays with buddy Neil Morrissey. However, Detective Sergeant Ben Cartwright thinks there is something decidedly odd about Dyer's domestic arrangements and follows him to Stockwell. But, when confronted about his movements, Dyer protests that he is bisexual and is having an affair with Morrissey that he cannot afford his wife to discover. Less than convinced, Troughton passes this information to Van Outen, who gets it into her head that Dyer and Morrissey are part of a gay sex ring.

This wild supposition confirms Cartwright's conviction that Dyer is upto no good and he hauls him in for questioning. Running out of credible excuses, Dyer admits that he is a bigamist. But Cartwright laughs off the confession, leaving Dyer to return home to each wife and try to lie his way out of his predicament. Eventually, Van Outen accepts that he is trying to help Morrissey cover up his multiple same-sex affairs and convinces her that Harding is really a transvestite. But Dyer's troubles are only just beginning, as the picture ends with both wives breaking the news that they are pregnant.

Returning behind the camera for the first time since Not Now Darling (1976), 80 year-old Ray Cooney employs every gambit he can think of to disguise the story's stage origins. But the endless array of wipes, dissolves and split screens merely create a sense of desperation to hammer home the punchlines and emphasise the slick timing that is always likely to be more impressive in a theatre than it is on a screen. In fairness, the much-maligned Danny Dyer just about holds the piece together. But he is given little assistance by the mugging Morrissey, the shrill Van Outen and the miscast Harding, who would be well advised to stick to her Girls Aloud day job in the future.

The real problem, however, lies with the supposed humour, which trades shamelessly in camp cliches and stereotypes that would have been barely acceptable in the 1980s. This either suggests an ignorance or an arrogance on the part of the film-makers that leaves one dreading the promised return of the `John Smith' character in Caught in the Net. But the blame cannot solely be shouldered by Cooney and Luten. Equally culpable are the claimed 160 stars of yesteryear who have accepted cameos in this regrettable farrago. So, shame on you Russ Abbot, Robin Askwith, Christopher Biggins, Lionel Blair, Richard Briers, Bernard Cribbins, Barry Cryer, Derek Griffiths, Rolf Harris, Louise Jameson, Maureen Lipman, Vicki Michelle, Geoffrey Palmer, Cliff Richard, Andrew Sachs, Prunella Scales, Donald Sinden, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Waterman, Timothy West, June Whitfield and Ray Winstone, amongst many others. You really ought to have known better.

Taiwanese writer-director Su Chao-Pin allows himself to include a couple of cheap below-the-belt shots in the epic adventure Reign of Assassins, which was partially co-directed by producer John Woo and boasts action sequences choreographed by Stephen Tung. Mercifully, however, ridiculing eunuchs occupies only a fraction of action that hurtles along with innate conviction in its convolution and its passing similarity to any number of classic Hong Kong wuxia pictures, as well as such recent Hollywood outings as Face/Off, Kill Bill and Mr & Mrs Smith. Seemingly designed to help Michelle Yeoh prove she could still cut it in this demanding genre a decade after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this may not be as poetic or precise as Ang Lee's martial arts masterpiece. But, if one can forgive the frequent blatancy of the storytelling and the calculated indistinctness of the fight scenes, this still makes for rattling and occasionally romantic entertainment.

According the legend, the mummy of a venerated Buddhist monk gives its owner complete control over all forms of the martial arts, while also having the magical power to restore lost body parts. Wheel King (Wang Xueqi), the leader of the Dark Stone gang, is desperate to possess the two halves of the corpse and dispatches his most lethal assassin, Drizzle (Kelly Lin), to murder government minister Zhang Haiduan (Lee Hing-cheung) and steal the relic in his possession. In the course of the robbery, Drizzle gets the better of Zhang's son, Renfeng (Guo Xiaodong), and leaves him for dead at the foot of an imposing bridge.

Having reneged on delivering the booty, Drizzle feels dissatisfied with her existence and seeks the advice of Wisdom (Li Zonghan), a monk whose mastery of swordsmanship enables him to detect the four flaws in her distinctive `water-shedding' technique. Drizzle begs him to help her improve her style, but he sacrifices himself to prove the unforgiving nature of her vocation and she decides to retire and reinvent herself as a humble cloth merchant. She asks Dr Li (Chin Shih-chieh) to transform her features and he fills her nasal cavity with poisonous insects until she ages sufficiently to pass herself off as Zeng Jing (Michelle Yeoh).

Relocating to the capital, Zeng rents rooms from Auntie Cai (Paw Hee-ching), who introduces her to bashful messenger Jiang Ah-sheng (Jung Woo-sung). After a charmingly hesistant courtship, they marry and Zeng seems to have found the anonymity she craved, as well as the happiness she could never dared have expected. But, when bank robbers threaten to kill Jiang, she unleashes her sword skills upon them and word soon reaches Wheel King that Drizzle has resurfaced.

Keen to exact his revenge, he dispatches Lei Bin (Shawn Yue); Turquoise (Barbie Hsu); and Magician (Leon Dai) who force her into agreeing to hand over the missing half of the mummy in return for sparing her life. But the killers go back on their word and the wounded Zeng kills Magician in making her getaway. A shocked Jiang tends to her injuries, but proves himself to be a more than capable swordsmen when Lei Bin and Turquoise launch a surprise attack. Zeng realises that her husband is really Renfeng and he reveals that he survived their bridge encounter and also had his looks altered by Dr Li. But he says he cannot forgive her for murdering his father and he orders her to leave.

While Zeng pines for Jiang, Wheel King reveals himself to be Cao Feng, a lowly eunuch at the royal court who hopes to use the mummy to restore his lost manhood. He is bitterly disappointed with the results, however, and has Turquoise buried alive beneath a bridge for mocking his efforts to seduce her. He is still seething when Zeng issues a challenge and he keeps a rendezvous at a graveyard, where he finds the lifeless body of Jiang. Employing the moves that Wisdom had taught her, Zeng slaughters Wheel King and Jiang revives from the potion she had given him to witness her loyalty without endangering himself and carries her home to start their second life together.

Basing his screenplay on the novels of Gu Long that had been so popular with the Hong Kong-based Shaw Brothers studio in the 1970s, Su Chao-Pin has created a yarn that will be richer in significance for those au fait with Chinese literature than for those merely passingly familiar with the region's cinema. Nonetheless, there is plenty to enjoy here, with Michelle Yeoh and the South Korean Jung Woo-sung revelling in roles that afford them plentiful opportunity to show off their sword and wire-working skills, as well as their gifts for comedy and romance.

Wang Xueqi and Taiwanese chanteuse Barbie Hsu also make the most of their splendidly hissable parts. But Su rushes the opening segment as he tries to pack in too much information and it's not until Yeoh and Jung begin their courtship that the characters start coming to life. Yet, the emphasis remains firmly on plot and the need to slot the pieces into place distracts Su and Woo from building any suspense. Moreover, editor Cheung Ka-fai shreds Horace Wong's imagery during the action sequences and, as a consequence, it's often impossible to tell what's going on.

This is becoming an increasingly frustrating problem across the entire action genre, as flash cuts are utilised to disguise computer generation or stunt work. True masters like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung used to film in medium to long shots to showcase their artistry, but too many of today's so-called action heroes are content to strike poses and leave the thrills to the post-production crews. Yeoh can evidently still move with athleticism and grace, so why not show her in all her glory?