Weekend in Taipei

I can't really say for sure, but I feel like there would be at least a couple nifty stories about George Huang in Entertainment Weekly or Cinematical or the like if we had the sort of mainstream film & entertainment media we had when Huang directed his last feature, there'd be a nice, meaty story about just what he's been up to in the 30 years since Swimming with Sharks pushed a bit outside of the indie bubble, because it sure looks like a ride: One raunchy mainstream comedy of the type that were in style in the late 1990s, some TV, including a good chunk of one of those America telenovelas that MyNetworkTV debuted after the UPN/WB merger, a few behind-the-scenes jobs with friend Robert Rodriguez, the script for Hard Target 2, and enough work on scripts with a couple writer/directors to get WGA credit. It's an IMDB page that probably excludes some script doctor work and a number of scripts that probably got pitched, written as treatments, and maybe completed and into pre-production, but just sort of vanished because they never started shooting. I've read interviews where someone said, yeah, I've been working in the ten years between my first two features, but it never became a finished product, and that kind of looks like what happened with Huang.

But we don't really have that sort of coverage today; the nearest thing I've seen to what I'm suggesting look to be clips from a junket interview he did with Sung Kang on websites that are too SEO'd to be worth paying attention to. Which is a real shame; I raised my eyebrow when I gave Weekend in Taipei a cursory IMDB lookup after seeing the trailer in September, and was hoping I'd see something about it, but there just isn't an outlet, and this is the sort of thing that could maybe pique a little curiosity in a reasonably decent movie.

It might also be interesting to hear about EuropaCorp doing a Taiwan co-production when this could maybe be an issue with the Mainland, which seems to be willing enough to let studios cast/hire Taiwanese talent (as in this week's The Unseen Sister) but has on occasion taken a dim view of actually showing the place. Maybe it's okay if you imply all the cops are in the pocket of a Korean gangster and American cops can wave their badges around and make arrests. I don't know if this film would actually play there anyway - they've got plenty of iQIYI stuff to fill screens - but does someone hold a grudge against Besson if he wants to shoot there someday?

(I know, you've got to go to Danvers or Franmingham to see it Thursday, but there was a lot of noir this weekend! I only got to it Tuesday night)


Weekend in Taipei

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 12 November 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #12 (first-run, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, this will show where when it is

Weekend in Taipei is more or less what it looks like - a mid-budget action movie from Luc Besson's factory that has a bit more gloss than the stuff which goes straight to video - but it's fully aware of that, giving the audience what it wants a little earlier than expected and putting in the work even if it's mostly doing the basics. Besson and George Huang mix things up just enough that you won't forget it on the way to the subway.

It opens with "King" Kwang (Sung Kang), a Korean immigrant who had risen to become a billionaire seafood supplier, appearing in court over a number of seemingly minor violations of fishing law, considering how the business is a front door rubbing drugs; wife Joey (Gwei Yun-Mei) was not there, instead buying another Ferrari seemingly on a whim, and Joey's 14-year-old son Raymond (Wyatt Yang) really hates his stepdad. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, a stuff bust has gone sideways, and when DEA Agent John Lawlor (Luke Evans) discovers a possible source within Kwang's business, he wants to go to Taipei for a hand-off, and possibly misinterprets his supervisor's refusal to allow this, "especially after what happened 15 years ago", but suggesting he take a leave of action for a few days, as tacit approval.

Writer/director George Huang looked like he was going to be someone twenty or thirty years ago - Swimming with Sharks was at least a moderate deal - and while there's maybe a bit of rust, he's still got good fundamentals. Indeed, he seems to be having fun here, with an early Breakfast at Tiffany's homage that's a lot of fun and a fistfight in a movie theater that doesn't quite hit the notes he's probably looking for but which at least feels like he's trying something rather than serving up the expected action beats. I wonder a bit how much of the action is him and how much is Besson and his team; there's bits of slapstick violence in some and slick gunplay in others that feels a bit like Besson's house style but It's also kind of quirky, with the first action scene being especially shaggy-but-really-violent. Either the stunt drivers or visual effects crew has great fun when Joey gets behind the wheel.

I like the central pair a fair amount: Luke Evans understands the assignment and doesn't treat this as an audition for something bigger or mail it in, just vibing with the audience that came for some fun action. Gwei Yun-Mei is initially more severe as an elegant, lead-footed mom who takes no guff, and probably gives the movie a bi of a soul as a tomboy hellion repressed by her miserable marriage but ready to leap out at any notice, even as she has matured over that time. She's kind of great and while she's been in a fair number of the few Taiwanese films made it to American cinemas in the last decade or so, but it would be nice if we could see more of her, which didn't exactly happen after Qi Shu was in The Transporter.

Also, the movie handles flashbacks not with digital de-aging, but a grainy filter, a little makeup, and wigs. The wigs are terrible and I love them for it. It's a thing that works better than it should - the characters are relating these stories to Raymond and maybe that's how he's seeing it. It lands right between silly and clever and may not even click as what Huang may be doing until a day or two later, when it's suddenly even funnier.

I don't know that this makes Weekend in Taipei that much smarter or more rewatchable than the average EuropaCorp action flick, but maybe it's just odd enough to not feel like it's disappearing as you watch it. It's only getting one or two shows a day at relatively few multiplexes, but there are, at the very least, worse uses of a couple hours if you've got a monthly membership in those buildings.