The Great Magician (5/10)

I was just wondering the day before watching this movie: It's been a while since I last saw Tony Leung on the silver screen. And wondered if he's done anything lately.

Then I got invited to watch this by a friend, not knowing what it was at first until I YouTubed it. There's Tony!

So, with extremely high hopes, I anticipated.

And I was just left speechless with the mediocrity of it all.

Even when the movie first started, within that first five minutes with a special appearance by Daniel Wu; I had a feeling something was amiss. Wu not only did not add anything worth mentioning to those few scenes - which a "special appearance" usually entailed - but it was just misguided and messy.

And that became the theme for the whole movie as it progressed. The director never seemed to be able to produce the magic that the movie so deserved, because the story actually wasn't too bad. Everything went from messy to boring and back to messy again.

The only good thing worth mentioning really was the acting by both the two male leads, Tony Leung and Lau Ching Wan.

And once again, I do not understand the need for a dubbed version. I just don't. Even that short few scenes by Wu who dubbed himself into Cantonese sounded worse than amateurish - his voice didn't suit his expressions at all. 

Even Lau suffered in that aspect. Only Leung seemed to be able to deliver a competent dubbed version.