It’s become somewhat of a Hong Kong tradition to do remakes of foreign films (sans consent, naturally), and an Asian action remake of La Femme Nikita seems like a natural thing.  After all, the Americans did it in the mediocre Point of No Return, and in the hands of someone like Ringo Lam or Tsui Hark, an Asian Nikita would have been a classic.

However, Black Cat is directed by Stephen Shin, so the film is just a greatly entertaining piece of fluff instead of the balls-to-the-wall elegantly-choreographed masterpiece it could have been.  This isn’t a criticism, though, as Black Cat is still a lot of fun to watch, moves swiftly and features enough action scenes to keep you watching.

    Jade Leung plays an American truck stop waitress whose fight with a rude customer (whom she stabs with a fork, and later, a shard of glass) leads to her shooting a cop.  Jailed, she fights back against an abusive guard and escapes just before her trial.  She’s shot and taken in by a government agency that convinces the world that she’s dead.

    She’s them implanted with the “Black Cat” chip, which are to keep her going at her peak physical performance.  Loads of training later (including a great sequence where she’s supposed to assassinate an old woman on a plane during a staged mission) and she becomes a real government agent.  After her first assignment, the killing of a bride on her wedding day, she’s sent to live in Hong Kong, where she falls for a photographer.  Natch, she can’t tell him about herself, so complications ensue.

    What matters here is the action and the charisma of the leads, and thankfully, what’s there can overcome the pitiful acting by a good percentage of the supporting cast.  (If this was filmed in New York and Vancouver, why couldn’t they get Americans who at least spoke English non-phonetically?   Only parts of the film are dubbed.)  Leung is as much Run Lola Run’s title character as Nikita’s Anne Parillaud, gleefully bitchy and a blaze of energy.

    Shin, apparently realizing his limitations as an action direction, has gone out of his way to make every action sequence a showpiece, so while it may not be the best-realized thing in the world, each does have its effective moments.  The first half-hour is a pretty much constant hail of bullets with Leung at the center, and the movie never stops for more than a few minutes without something blowing up.  My personal favorite bit is a sequence where our heroine’s prey fails to get on an elevator that she’s planted a bomb on, so she strategically uses the bomb to blow up part of construction site, causing a large girder to plow into his car.

    Okay, so it’s not perfect, and the print quality is a bit off (several scenes look too light), but it’s an entertaining ride.  Great looking box art, too.  Another fine import from Tai Seng, who’ve also released Tsui Hark’s The Blade and Chow Yun-Fat’s Hong Kong farewell Peace Hotel this month.