DAISY REVIEW BY A DUTCHMAN

This is my first post here at ScreenAnarchy and reviewing this may seem an odd choice. I know Daisy is neither loved nor new, but I kept reading in the forums that it made my home country Holland look pretty. That made me so curious I simply couldn’t resist it. And a hundred angry critics can’t all be right, right?

One of the things I really appreciate is how the Koreans make glorious presents of their Limited Edition DVD-releases. Cardboard boxes which magically close (it’s all done with magnets), foldout posters that protect the hidden DVD’s inside, booklets… Every time one arrives in the mail I’m giddy as a little boy.
The Daisy LE is no slouch.

Again there are magnets, slipcases, a photo-album… but this time they’re put together a bit oddly. Magnets keep the dvd-case closed (cool), and the slipcase fits snugly around it, making the magnets, eh… totally unnecessary. Then the photo-album fits perfectly… but on the outside of the slipcase! A paper wrap surrounds it but not all the way, making the package fall apart the moment you’ve torn it out of the shrink foil.
It looks very pretty, but you wonder “What Were They Thinking”? Oddly, this is fittingly foreshadowing the movie itself.

So what is Daisy? Daisy is a typically Asian (read: tragic) romance with occasionally a bit of action and it takes place in, of all places, the Netherlands. It concerns the love triangle between a Korean girl who paints portraits for a living, a Korean assassin and a Korean Interpol agent. They all meet in Amsterdam and tragedy follows.
Interestingly, there are big differences between the Director’s cut and the original cinema version. Both contain additional scenes not seen in the other one, story details differ (like the age of the girl, or how often she gets flowers from her secret admirer) and the order in which the story is told is shuffled. As an example I will give a synopsis of the first 20 minutes of each version (mild spoilers).

Director’s cut:
Hye Young, a beautiful girl living in Amsterdam is a street painter. We see how she lives, and in a voiceover we hear her musing on life in general and her wait for her one true love. When she meets a handsome Korean stranger she keeps meeting him, and she mistakenly thinks he is the secret admirer who keeps sending her a pot of daisies. He knows he’s not but keeps that to himself, and despite the fact that he sometimes inexplicably runs away or turns up bandaged the two start a relationship. All is good and well, but suddenly there is a shootout in the streets and Hye Young gets hit. She wakes up in hospital it turns out her boyfriend is a Korean police officer who won’t see her any more. Then, another mysterious Korean stranger shows up who starts befriending her…

Korean cinema version:
Park Yi is a Korean assassin living in Amsterdam. We see how he lives, and in a voiceover we hear him musing about his work and the girl he silently worships from afar. We see him killing people, discussing relationships with the crime boss he works for, and secretly admiring and protecting the girl he loves. Every day he sends her a pot of daisies. Then he sees her starting a relationship with another mysterious Korean…

Spot the twenty differences! It continues like this throughout the two versions. Most is shown in both, with the beginning of one version turning up as multiple flashbacks in the other, but each version has its own scenes. The Korean cinema version looks like it’s supposed to be an action drama with a lot of romance (or rather an action romance with a lot of drama), while the Director’s cut is more of an unapologetic tearjerker with occasionally some action.

With Andrew Lau directing expectations were very high, but the general consensus about this movie was as follows: wonderful visuals, terrible script, but decent acting. And all of this is true, but let me elaborate a bit.

If you look at Daisy as an action romance, like the Korean cinema version sort of wants you to, it is a failure. There is not enough action in it to keep your attention, and the voiceovers are grating to say the least.

Watch the Director’s cut as a romantic tearjerker though, and it all suddenly slips into place. You don’t expect any action scenes (the sudden use of DTS when the first one starts actually made me jump) so you’re not missing them. Pre-warned as I was of the movie’s supposed crappyness, I have to confess I enjoyed watching Daisy more than I thought I would, and here is why:
One, I was very much entertained by seeing all those familiar locations being presented as an exotic setting.
Two, me and my wife were both laughing at the incredible drama unfolding. Just when you think things couldn’t get more tragic up pops the next cliché.
Within Holland, Amsterdam is known for being host to a specific kind of Dutch music which, like the Portuguese Fado, specializes in tearjerkers. A song belonging to this music would be called a “smartlap” (Dutch for: ‘the cloth on which a sad song is written’). The thing about these songs is, it’s impossible to overdo them. Clichés are commonplace and excessive coincidence is allowed as long as it makes the story more tragic. Like opera, it works under its own rules and reality has nothing to do with it.
With the Director’s cut of Daisy, to our astonishment Andrew Lau has crafted a perfect smartlap! Traditional smartlap instruments like the accordeon can even be heard in the soundtrack, and the story, the slow pace and Amsterdam as the location, it all fits!

Interestingly, there is remarkably little cheating in the use of the Netherlands as a setting. There are quite a number of Koreans living here, and I was very impressed in what was shown of Amsterdam in the movie. No windmills, no cheese, no clogs, no prostitutes, no drug references. It was really refreshing to see someone capturing the spirit of the city without using any of those things. The only tulips you see are black and act as a signal in the movie. Plenty of rain, some graffiti, lots of canals, boats, churches and town squares (which are all really there). Dutch people are played by Dutch people, and a sequence in a cinema shows an actual Dutch movie playing on the screen (a soccer movie called In Oranje).
Nothing like what Jackie Chan did in Who Am I, when he located half of Rotterdam in South Africa and vice versa. The only cheats I saw were the loft where Jun Ji Hyun paints (it exists as a location but would probably cost you millions to own it) and the hills seen in the opening credits are nowhere near Amsterdam. But that’s all nothing too serious. The use of location actually really impressed me.

So the story is corny, takes too long and it’s told dead serious. That said, all actors show good acting, almost lifting the movie up to the level of ‘pretty good’. Together with some wonderful cinematography it kept me interested until the end, and seeing Jun Ji Hyun on a bike is a definite bonus.

Finishing up: I’m not too sure about the international appeal of a smartlap, but apparently the remake rights for this have already been sold. I really wonder what they are going to remake. The location? The character names? For sure it can’t be the story, which is so basic it would be impossible to put a copyright on.
So would I recommend this movie to others? Maybe, depending on taste. But I, being Dutch, will treasure this in my collection as an interesting bit of curiosa. I’ll end as the movie does:

FLOWERS!