Of all the films picked up in The Weinstein Company‘s flurry of acquisitions so far this year, if we were gambling men, we’d wager that Peter Chan’s “Wu Xia” has the biggest chance of wasting away on Harvey’s movie shelf where films like the still unreleased “Shanghai” still reside.
Playing Out Of Competition at Cannes in May as part of the Midnight Movie selection, “Wu Xia” certainly reflects the kind of film that interested Harvey and Bob even back in their Miramax day. It stars the legendary Donnie Yen in what promises to be an old school chop socky flick but winds up being something much, much more banal and dull. As we detailed in our review of the film, there are only three fights in the film — at the beginning, middle and end — and while they are very good, they are surrounded by a thoroughly dull story about a killer turning a new leaf and some ponderous philosophical musings about how we are all accomplices in each other’s sin, and that karma is a reflection of that (yeah, it might put you to sleep). We suggested at Cannes that a good 10-15 minutes cut from the film could do wonders to speed up the pace, so we hope Harv gets out his scissors before releasing this into theaters stateside.
As for those of you overseas, it will open on July 28th presumably in all its lethargic glory. Check out the trailer below but be warned, the last twenty seconds or so are kind of spoiler-ish.
