If you come to Jingle Ma's Silver Hawk without any foreknowledge, as I did, then you are in for a few surprises, not all of them happy ones. As the film opens, the delightful Michelle Yeoh, dressed in a silver costume that even a Power Ranger would only wear to a Halloween party and riding a motorbike with Trigger's sense of timing and loyalty, leaps over the Great Wall of China, kick-boxes a collection of dressed-in-black villains into surrender, and saves a stolen Panda from a who-knows-what fate. The execution is lively but familiar, at least in modern martial arts terms, and the heart can't help but sink a little under the weight of ‘here we go again', flavoured with the unmistakable tang of cheese. But as Yeoh stands triumphant over the defeated bad guys, her first words are of disappointment that the fight is over so fast, and she suggests that they fight for another ten minutes, which prompts the terrified mob to cower behind raised hands and hurriedly tie themselves up.

So what's going on here, exactly? I'm glad you asked. Celebrity businesswoman Lulu leads a secret life as masked crime-fighter Silver Hawk, whose activities the police wish to curtail, presumably because she makes them look inept. Young, self-assured Detective Rich Man (honestly) is charged with the task, and what do you know, it turns out he and Lulu were school friends and studied kung-fu together, though Lulu was always the better fighter and used to sort out the bullies when they hassled the young Man, much to his embarrassment. Lulu's mother, meanwhile, wants to pair Lulu off with Professor Ho Chung, inventor of a smart new video phone, who is kidnapped by would-be world-conqueror Alexander Wolfe with the intention of using the phone as a mass brainwash device. With me so far?

Based on Xiao Ping's 1940s comic book of the same name, many of the genre's usual absurdities are paraded here with a knowing wink. The super-hero's identity is concealed simply by covering part of her face, and no-one, not even her most obsessive fan, can guess her true identity, despite her picture being plastered over the cover of half the country's glossy magazines. Wolfe, however, has only to see both pictures once to work it out (well he is an evil genius) and even Detective Man susses it well before the end, aided by a home computer and a graphics program. That Wolfe is bald and foreign (the only non-oriental main character) completes the picture, though he does not so much recall Dr. No as Austin Powers' Dr. Evil, at least in appearance. Elsewhere there is an amusing recognition of genre conventions with an inventively staged fight in which the goons are suspended on bungee ropes, providing very visible vertical assistance in a film that has its share of flying wire work, and Silver Hawk herself fights with a permanent grin on her face, battling crime less out of a sense of social justice than because it's enormous fun.

If this suggests a sophisticated generic parody then I'm leading you little astray. The characterisations are largely simplistic in the extreme, the plot development played out by thumping big numbers and the level of narrative sophistication is….well, there isn't any. You're barely a third of the way in when you realise that this is essentially kung-fu for kids, Barbie-doll James Bond targeted at an audience who in the UK, ironically, have been deemed by the BBFC as being too young to see it.

All of which leaves the film a little stranded. Its fights are constructed largely in the editing and lack the brutality and style of recent standard-setter Ong-Bak, its plot and characters make the average Hollywood actioner look sophisticated, and many elements are too familiar to provide much in the way of surprise or spectacle. Which is a shame, as technically there is plenty to admire, from the steely blue sheen of the photography and the antiseptically futuristic sets and (one presumes) locations to the brisk pace and athletic skills of its acrobatic lead.

But almost all of this effectively sabotaged by Ma's choice to shoot the film, with an eye no doubt on the international market, in English. This decision is in itself not a problem, but its execution most definitely is. The dialogue is banal at best, and though voiced in English has obviously been post-dubbed, in many cases by voice artists rather than the original performer. This results in some stark face/voice mismatches, as an almost all-oriental cast speak with accents ranging from 'oh gee' American to 'oh I say' English. This also plays merry hell with inflection, providing some odd moments of emphasis: "You CARRY a badge and I don't!" Lulu says to Man at one point, suggesting she does have one but keeps leaving it at home. Even Luke Goss - who help inflict Bros on us but was rather imposing as Nomak in Blade II - appears to have re-voiced himself. All of which makes the English sound like a bad dub, rending this move a little pointless - it's no coincidence that the best scenes are the flashbacks to the kiddie kung-fu school, which are voiced in Chinese.

We are left with an uneven mix, with well shot and edited action, inventive moments and an undeniable energy undermined by simplistic characters and plotting, some overly bright-eyed acting and sometimes painful dialogue and post-production delivery. Which begs the question over just where the film is going to find an audience in the UK.

Sound and Vision