Plot: Young and beautiful Bu (Shu Qi) finds a romantic message in a bottle near her family restaurant in Taiwan. On a whim, she flies to Hong Kong to meet her potential soul mate, who turns out to be Albert (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a gay beautician pining for his ex. Taking pity on the girl, he brings her to his workplace, where she falls for the wealthy and lonely C.N. Chan (Jackie Chan). But when Chan’s lifelong enemy, Lo (Emil Chow), discovers Chan has a new love, he decides to ruin their happiness.
I feel like not enough people praise Gorgeous starring Jackie Chan and Shu Qi; yes, it is more of a love story than a full-on action picture, but there are still some phenomenal fight scenes. The two fights between Jackie Chan and the late, great Brad Allen are incredible and make this movie worth watching for that alone. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, but I like the love story too even if it is predictable.
Shu-Qi is mostly adorable as the naïve Bu and Chan plays a more serious character who is all business and rarely feels anything for women. When the two meet, Bu begins to melt his cold exterior. There is still plenty of Chan-esque humour with the various goons especially idiotic, but it was still funny at times. Tony Leung is hugely entertaining as Albert which is quite different from the kinds of roles I’ve seen him in, but the first time he played a gay character was in Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together (1997).
It’s all a bit silly especially with the dolphins and yet I enjoyed that aspect as it made it feel like pure fantasy. The most depressing thing I realized while watching this movie is I’ve never been in love in my entire life. The feelings they describe I’ve never felt for anyone which is really pathetic. Oh well.
I was reading on IMDb that “Director Vincent Kok had wanted to use Jackie Chan’s office as the set for C.N.’s apartment, but this proved to be impractical, particularly as that section of the office is on the third floor. However, many props from Chan’s office were used, including his own training dummy. Chan said of his character, C.N., that he was “sixty to seventy percent Jackie Chan”. The clothing the character wears, the training routine he undergoes, and healthy lifestyle he maintains, his general good nature, and his environmental role are all traits and actions of Jackie”.
The score is arguably the weakest aspect and doesn’t hold up that well, but most people don’t really care aside from me.
Overall, Gorgeous may not be for everyone, but the fights with Brad Allen are amazing and that alone makes this film worth watching; the love story is enjoyable enough and Shu-Qi is perfect.