The Umbrellas of Hong Kong
In its spirit, Johnnie TO's
Sparrow is closer to the assumed glamour superficiality of
Yesterday Once More than to the movies that established TO's leadership on HK post-1997 genre cinema. But it achieves better its small goals than this film. As much as Exiled was a tribute to John WOO, PECKINPAH and Spaghetti western, Sparrow pays tribute to GODARD, DEMY and 50's Hollywood cinema. The jazz-like score and the coolness of the character played by Simon YAM send us back to
Breatheless. And of course Kelly LAM and Simon YAM are no Cary GRANT/Grace KELLY but they act with a sense of glamour the movie's situations allows them to bring. As a consequence, the first half of the movie is a heaven for those who can appreciate assumed coolness as long as it's shot with style, a thing TO does have as a director. But after the characters' installation comes the trouble in paradise: TO doesn't know which story to tell and the humour reminds us of the heaviness of HK bad comedies. In its end, the movie finds again a little bit of grace, despite the fact that the final 'tribute to DEMY' action sequence doesn' equal the greatness of TO's action scenes in
The Mission,
PTU or
Exiled. But
Sparrow has enough charm to make forget it isn't vintage TO...
