BLOCKBUSTER REVIEW
“The film that struck GOLD!”
reported by Kiki Wadhera
This East-Western action thriller had been the year’s most anticipated film. In its first public opening, tickets to see “The Kiss from Midas” were instantly sold out. Not only is it record-breaking, the movie is widely depicted as one of the best action films ever produced. Top magazines predicted that “The Kiss from Midas” would rank fifth on the movie chart, but with its fast progress such a prediction has been shown to be way off base.
Many of Fei Long’s movies have been blockbuster hits, so why is this particular film causing such a stir?
When starting out as an actor, the twenty-year-old Fei Long, now in his late thirties, had been scrutinized and mocked by fans. Every operating media force had scorned his pure intentions, shaming his name in disgust because he had become a Bruce Lee clone. Long was seen as an exaggerated faker on the brink of tarnishing the great work of the late Jeet Kune Do master.
During the early 1990s, no adversary would accept another man to mimic Bruce Lee’s revolution, especially in and near China. In true likeness, having studied the traditional arts of Kung-fu, Long would thank his hero after showing off his talents in televised tournaments showcased across the globe. But Fei Long was generally hated. Fans nicknamed Long as “Da fei gae” the Chinese insult meaning ‘jack off’ for copying Lee’s style and they felt genuinely deceived by him. Sometime later, however, Long’s good name was slowly but surely established when Rob de Chow, the successful Hong Kong-raised director, took him under his wings.
Since then, Long has been enjoying the fruits of his solo acting career by collaborating with Chow. Accordingly, Chow has been laboring hard with his follow-up on Bruce Lee classics, avoiding criticisms of outright copyright infringement and imitating Bruce Lee’s style with Long.
Recently Long decided to share the limelight with someone who was a little less unconventional, a minor American actress, Tawnya Blaze. The Kiss from Midas has already boosted her credibility as an actress.
Long bashfully remarked, “My celebrity status had nothing to do with making Tawnya an instant star.”
The director’s trademark – flash stunts, quirky dialogues, winds of Chinese whisper - rarely appear in this latest hit. The characters themselves are juxtaposed to a Japanese anime and Western action twist.
The film is jam-packed with balletic martial arts in all their brutality and beauty, and all stunts are performed by the stars themselves. The latest in spectacular special effects techniques create the illusion of turning still and moving objects into solid gold.
The storyline was clearly inspired by the 3,000-year-old Greek myth of King Midas, the cursed sovereign of Phrygian, who had lost his sense of touch. His foolish wish to turn everything he touched to gold had been granted by the God Dionysus, and soon Midas’ greed had created tragedy and disasters.
The Kiss from Midas is an action love story with no happy conclusion. The plot revolves around the martial artist Chang Cao [Fei Long], who is in search of the murderer of his family, Jihan Mai [Anth Gan], but falls in love with Mai’s cursed daughter Miya Mai [Tawnya Blaze]. An old lonely man joins the quest to kill Mai. Miya’s father is naturally possessed with all things evil. Like most hero-turned-villain characters, the once caring father becomes a voracious, selfish sorcerer to the point of compelling his daughter to do his wicked biddings.
On her twentieth birthday, Miya’s father bestows her with a poisonous gift that she will forever possess, upon which she has no control. She finds out the truth about this dubious present after bedding her fiancé, who soon becomes the shiny and lifeless property of her malevolent father.
Crossed between the warrior type and a bitter homemade princess, it has been Blaze’s challenge to play an uncompassionate yet lustful woman, who is blinded by rage, desire and desperation. Unfortunately the daughter’s curse cannot be washed away in the river Pactolus, as it was in the Greek myth.
Blaze has remarked, “At times I can relate to this tortured, vengeful character. When a person’s soul is poisoned straight to the core, it’s difficult to live a normal life and pretend that everything’s okay. Miya’s life is filled with despair and loathing, and this is like times in real life when women feel as though the world wants to keep them down. I’m glad that somehow, her honor is redeemed at one point, but it is unfortunate how her life ends.”
Blaze goes on further to explain, “Despite her rebellious fighting exterior, deep inside lies a woman who is tortured by her own femininity, becoming an easy target of extortion. Strange things happen to her, where she is unable to separate reality from fantasy.”
By all accounts, the fight training for the film was not as tedious as the rigors most actors are subjected to. Being a former martial artist, Long had the upper hand in conducting the fight sequences and stunts. This athletic preparation was a key approach in bringing Blaze and Long closer together professionally.
Long’s character is fairly archetypical, yet not the dashing hero as one may have come to expect. He is just as evil as the character of Miya’s father.
Though both Blaze and Long are keeping tight-lipped about further processions, it is highly suspected that Rob de Chow is already writing up the movie’s follow-up.
*****
Chapter 12:
THE NEWS
Street Fighter: Dream Never Ends Page 14