The Drummer (DVD) (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3
Angelica Lee (Actor)
| Jaycee Chan (Actor)
| Tony Leung Ka Fai (Actor)
| Josie Ho
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Customer Review of "The Drummer (DVD) (Taiwan Version)"
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Kevin Kennedy
See all my reviews
March 1, 2008
This customer review refers to The Drummer (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
See all my reviews
March 1, 2008
This customer review refers to The Drummer (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
Drumming up a fine film
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"The Drummer" opens with an adrenaline rush. Jaycee Chan, playing the ne'er-do-well son of a triad boss, is caught in bed with the girlfriend of an even bigger boss (Kenneth Tsang). Chan's father (Leung Ka-Fai) intervenes to try to save his son from the wrath of the big boss. The big boss demands that Leung cut off the hands of his son and deliver those severed members to him. Instead, Leung packs his son off to Taiwan in the care of his right-hand man (Roy Cheung). In Taiwan, the pace of the film slows dramatically. Chan wakes up hearing distant drumming. Since Chan is a drummer himself, he seeks to find the source of these beats. Chan climbs a nearby mountain to find on its top a troop of Zen drummers pounding away at their craft. Chan wants to join them, but resists their go-slow approach to learning. Here the film becomes quite similar to all those old Shaolin Temple movies in which Jaycee's real-life father or Fu Sheng or some other brash wannabe monk chafes at his onerous and seemingly irrelevant chores only to find that those chores have supplied the focus and discipline needed to master the martial arts. Director Bi intercuts the tranquil scenes of Jaycee's mountaintop training with violent scenes of Tony Leung wreaking havoc in Hong Kong, as Leung continues to deal with the fall-out from Jaycee's misbehavior. Bi also skillfully blends in storylines about Jaycee's yearning for his beautiful fellow drummer (Lee Sinje) and about Jaycee's sister (Josie Ho) battling her father for the right to marry the man she loves. This mix of stories may seem improbable, but director Bi stitches them together seamlessly and threads it all with a sense of dread. This tone of foreboding is supported by the film's splendid incidental music. It is a measure of the magic worked by Kenneth Bi that, with only 15 minutes left in the movie, I still had no idea how "The Drummer" was going to end and I remained on the edge of my seat right to the end. Jaycee Chan, Leung Ka-Fai, and Angelica Lee all deliver fine performances in which each of them grows into maturity. This is terrific filmmaking, with top-notch cinematography and editing. I can recommend "The Drummer" wholeheartedly to everyone. |
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