Despite her evident, indie-approach to filmmaking, Ann Hui always managed to have big names in her movies, something that continues to this day. In that regard, it is no surprise that “Goddess of Mercy”, a movie that includes the extensive flashback approach she later implemented in “The Postmodern Life of My Aunt”, features two such names, in Vicky Zhao and Nicholas Tse.
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The story is based on a novel by Hai Yan, who co-wrote the script with Ivy Ho. The movie starts with the focus on Yang Rui, a Beijing executive and a genuine playboy, who retains a relationship with his boss while sleeping with a number of other women. One day, he meets a woman named He Yanhong who works at a local tae kwon do gym and, impressed by her beauty, proceeds to court her. Just like in his sessions in the gym, however, where he gets repeatedly beaten, so he does in his courting, until one day, an actual kick in the head brings the two closer. Alas, his ex is not about to let him be, and soon Yang Rui finds himself in extreme trouble. In the meantime, the focus changes permanently towards He Yanhong and her truly tragic past as a policewoman in China, whose relationship with two men led to her demise and her current status as a poor single mother.
Ann Hui had a very intriguing and quite multileveled story in her hands, which includes elements of romance, social drama, thriller and a lot of action actually, in a rather impressive mixture. And while these elements do carry the movie throughout its duration, her insistence on adding her own, observational, social drama style in a material that was obviously meant for genre filmmaking, and her indecision to pick a specific direction, harms the narrative in the end, as the whole thing looks directionless on occasion.
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On the other hand, there are enough elements here that make “Goddess of Mercy” move above its faults, even beyond the excellent story. For starters, the casting and acting is definitely top notch. Vicky Zhao gives an impressive performance in a rather difficult role that has her appearing as a popular woman who has everything figured out, a woman in love willing to throw away everything, and a woman in trouble who tries to escape from her past while avoiding men overall. Liu Yunlong as Yang Rui is also quite good in his change from a self-centered womanizer to a person in love willing to sacrifice himself, in a performance that is wonderfully measured. Lastly, Nicholas Tse as Mao Jie, the man who changes the protagonist’s life, highlights his charisma as a cocky young man and a vigilante in a path for revenge with the same prowess.
At the same time, the difference between the past and the present, as much as Beijing and the country, are quite well implemented, with Ann Hui’s documentary-like style of presenting settings, as materialized by Kwan Pun-Leung’s cinematography, working quite well in that regard. The transitions between all the aforementioned are not exactly great, and I feel that the flashback could have been split in smaller parts. On the other hand, individually, all parts seem to work, with each providing a break/relief from each other in a way that adds to the entertainment the movie offers.
The action scenes in particular, both the gunfights and the one-on-ones are excellently choreographed and captured, with the sense of realism they emit adding to the agony the movie emits on occasion. The editing also works well in that regard, particularly in the way the pace picks up.
In the end, “Goddess of Mercy” is a worthy movie, but Hui’s unwillingness to choose between genre and arthouse social drama faults the film significantly, since neither works as well as it should, in a title which I feel would work better as a series than a movie (which actually happened the same year)
