Director: Max Makowski
Starring: Francis Ng, Joseph Quek, Ti Lung, Vivian Hsu, Harvey Keitel
RunTime: 101 min
Genre: Thriller
Rating: NC-16 (Some violence and coarse language)
High expectations normally come with huge disappointments.
I was looking forward to this local production, boosting a strong cast of Francis Ng, Ti Lung, Vivian Hsu and Harvey Keitel, and directed by Max Makowski (Queer Eye for the Straight Eye), but ended up feeling frustrated.
Here's what went wrong: Francis Ng's soulful performance was marred by bad dubbing. In fact, everybody had bad dubbing. The second male lead, local actor Joseph Quek (The High Cost of Living) needed more experience to carry the role of a funny gangster Ko that Chapman To would have carried off better. The other three foreign talents (Ti Lung, Vivian Hsu and Harvey Keitel) were just reduced to token stereotypical role, playing a police, damsel and mafia boss.
Parts that were supposed to be funny were not (run on the mill jokes) and parts that were serious became funny. Blame it on a mass splatter of CGI blood, bad dubbing again (especially for Hossan Leong and Dennis Chew), and a very contrived script for metaphorical symbols.
This crime thriller is described as a jigsaw puzzle. After an agonizing first hour, with the pieces all over the place, the final jigsaw was placed together haphazardly.
The Last Dance was not without merits. It boosts beautiful cinematography of local mise-en-scene (a lovely Seng Poh Road) and stylish editing. But a tighter script and acting classes would have helped.
The Last Dance – Sometimes, you don't have to try too hard
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