Daisy Review
With its high powered director and an international superstar in the lead, not to mention a basic setup that looks to hit all of the right buttons, Andrew Lau’s Daisy was one of the most anticipated films to come out of Asia in the past year. But instead of being the mega hit that Lau was hoping for it disappointed at the box office and negative word of mouth quickly deflated its fortunes outside of the continent. Is this a case of a film somehow misunderstood and overlooked or does Daisy deserve its fate? Sadly, despite a mix of ingredients that should have cooked up something spectacular, it is the second option.
Fresh off the massive success of the Infernal Affairs trilogy and his adaptation of popular anime Initial D director Andrew Lau was arguably one of the hottest properties in all of Asia and poised to make a major impact worldwide. His chosen vehicle to make that move was Daisy, an action romance with an all star Korean cast and set – somewhat inexplicably – in Amsterdam. Korean megastar Jun Ji Hyun takes the lead as a single Korean woman living in Amsterdam with her grandfather, helping him run his antique shop during the week and painting in the public square on weekends. It is there she meets a handsome stranger, also Korean, who comes back week after week to have her paint his portrait. What she doesn’t know as she slowly falls in love with this man is that he is actually an agent of Interpol tracking the drug route through Europe to Asia and he is using her as cover to monitor a gang hideout, although his initial motivations aside he soon begins to return her feelings. Also in the mix is the proverbial ‘hit man with a heart of gold’ who has long loved the young painter from afar, sending her daisies on a regular basis just so he can see her face. It’s an explosive love triangle and, sure enough, violence soon erupts.
Far fetched though the premise is, in the hands of an accomplished director like Lau this has the potential to be pure cinematic gold. And honestly, it does a lot of things very well. Lau is a sure hand behind the camera and he shoots beautiful film, making full use of his gorgeous setting. Likewise the cast is populated with experienced, talented and immensely likable actors. So why does Daisy not make more of an impression? Two primary reasons. First, he gets the mix of melodrama and action wrong, trending far too strongly on the melodrama end of the spectrum, stretching the ‘heart of gold’ aspect of his hitman far beyond the bounds of what the character can be expected to sustain and laying far more slow motion glamour shots in than any film should ever be expected to sustain. Second – and this is the far more serious and shocking issue given just how smart Infernal Affairs was – Lau has seemingly forgotten how to trust his audience. Lau is a fantastic visual storyteller and he puts his skills to good use with an interlocked, multiple viewpoint approach in the films opening act but he consistently undercuts his own work with incredible excessive voice over narration from all three of the principal characters, narration that does nothing but restate what Lau has already shown us better through images. Though the film also runs a touch long and could use a bit of tightening it would instantly become twice the picture that it is simply by dropping the narration, shutting up for a moment, and letting the actors’ performances and Lau’s camera tell us what is happening and what people are thinking rather than spoon feeding the audience with constant, nattering, pointless chatter.
Though the film disappoints the just released Korean DVD does not. It is a gorgeous three disc package including the theatrical cut, the longer director’s cut, and a disc full of bonus features along with a beautiful photo book. Sound and video quality are both excellent, as are the English subtitles.
