It is unfortunate that hollywood's "Osama Bin Laden of Sex" interfered with this so much. There is a lot of good photography and the tortured relationship between the man and woman repeats the same patterns to the point of comedy; they both seem highly averse to making any kind of real decision. Some scenes go far too long, like a 10 minute interlude in a cafe where they keep telling waiters to fuck off, or some of the interactions with normal poor people that feel bolted on to the narrative.
In Miami Vice, the characters each exist not as fixed points in space but as vectors in time-- something that can be observed but never located. The climax of every Mann film is in which all trajectories collapse to a point and time stops momentarily. It wasn't until my second viewing of Heat that it occurred to me that the strange checkerboard buildings the final shootout occurs among are actually navigational markers at LAX, a sort of secret visual language…
My expectations from a Shaw Brothers films usually stop at incredible choreography and sick fits. This one delivers, but also brings a great screenplay that is way more character driven than the average Shaws. The fantasy wirework and hand animated special effects - which are admittedly totally over-the top - might alienate some viewers whose only other reference is 36th chamber, but the choreography is just as fluid and impressive as you'd expect.
Thrown totally off balance by a strange nic cage performance, a focus on the body instead of cosmic horror, and a narrative shift towards a more interesting character that happens too late.
