Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61840 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-11-19
• Formats: Import, NTSC

Album Description
Asia exclusive release directed by Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - cinematographer) and starring Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies), Ben Chaplin (The Thin Red Line) & Richard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge). In a great time of danger, the Monks of Dun Huang hid the Sharira - a relic purported to contain the pure essence of a Holy Man in the Buddhist religion. However, it is destined to happen that someday the Sharira will be recovered. To ensure that it could be retrieved, when such time came, the Monks turned to a family of acrobats, for hundreds of years this family has trained, passing on the skills required to perform the ultimate leap when the time is at hand. DTS/Digital Dolby 5.1. All Code / NTSC. Anamorphic Widescreen. Original English/Chinese dialogue. MegaStar. 2002.

Customer Reviews

And the Glitzy Martial Arts Mimics Just Go On and On
'Tian mai chuan qi' (AKA 'Touch') follows in the well paid path of the really gorgeous films that came out of Hong Kong and China (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, etc) but it raises the question 'Just how many of these small story visual epics are palatable in repetition? Michelle Yeoh recognizes successful financial formulas when she sees one and is at the crux of this flimsy little caper film, cashing in on the popularity of the genre.

The story is slight: a relic (ny the monks of Dan Huang. The monks call upon a family of acrobats (of course with a history of hundreds of years of secret training on how to accomplish this mission) to retrieve it. Pak Yin Fay (the very beautiful Michelle Yeoh) and her brother Tong (Brandon Chang) take on the mission - with a few glitches: Pak Yin Fay's old boyfriend Erik (Ben Chaplin) is a ne're-do-well thief who possesses the necessary Heart medallion required to open the location of the Sharira. But wouldn't you know, there appears an unscrupulous nasty guy Karl (Richard Roxburgh, a fine Australian actor out of Moulin Rouge, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Oscar and Lucinda, etc) who causes no end of problems at the site and initiates the reason for making this film: an extended martial arts dance on pillars above a CGI fire in the tomb - a place where nearly everyone in the cast is cremated after gallant swinging and flying! Yet of course it all ends well with the Sharira being returned to the happy monks in Tibet.

Corny, yes, but if martial arts films with lots of color and vistas of deserts and the holy city in Tibet stimulate you, then this film is worth your time. Michelle Yeoh is beautiful to watch, and both Ben Chaplin and Richard Roxburgh are fine enough actors to almost make you forget the pointless shallow lines they are force to deliver with as much comedic tone as they can milk from the script. Grady Harp, October 06

Michelle Yeoh Goes Indiana Jones: Disappointing with Overuse of Cheesy CGI
After the great international success of `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,' Michelle Yeoh went on to make two action adventure films starring herself - `The Touch' and `Silver Hawk.' They should be called her starring vehicles (both executive-produced by Michelle Yeoh herself), clearly made with the international market in mind. But, for all the good actions played by Yeoh, neither of them lived up to our expectation. And if you ask me, `The Touch' is inferior of the two.

`The Touch' (2002) stars Michelle Yeoh as Pan Yin Fay, beautiful acrobat performer of a traveling circus. One day, her old childhood friend Eric (Ben Chaplin, `The Thin Red Line' `Lost Souls') shows up before her, with an old religious artifact in hand, which he claims is a key to the secrets of immortality. You may call the story a Chinese version of Indiana Jones, only this time Michelle Yeoh's heroine plays the principal role while Chaplin the sidekick.

The role of charismatic villain is given to Australian actor Richard Roxburgh (`Van Helsing') while Dane Cook gets a few laughs as bumbling henchman. Two newcomers Brandon Chang and Margaret Wang join as Pak Yin Fay's younger brother and his girlfriend, but quite frankly, without their roles the film could be as good as it is.

[ACTIONS] Like in `Silver Hawk,' Michelle Yeoh delivers goods with well-choreographed stunts, but these scenes come few and far between. Once the actions start, Yeoh cuts a great action heroine figure as always, but you have to waif for that to happen pretty long. All the stunts are variations of basic martial arts action, so if you want to see Yeoh's stunts using motorbike, like the ones you have seen Jackie Chan's `Supercop,' you have to see `Silver Hawk.'

The director of `The Touch' is Peter Pau, Oscar-winning cinematographer of `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.' For the making of the film, the companies reportedly spent as much as $ 20 million, which is quite impressive in the Hong Kong film industry, and you can easily see where all the money went. The film is proud of beautiful landscape of mainland China that reminds us of `Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and the production designs of the climax scene of the secret cave looks very costly, to be sure.

But the film fails to utilize all these good ingredients. The complex story takes too much time before it gives us what we want. The film overuses the special effects which are not only needless but detracting. Actually the film's CGI is the biggest letdown, which is too cheesy and unconvincing. Only for the avid fans of Michelle Yeoh.