Gorgeous (1999)

Released in 1999 and co-produced between Hong Kong and Taiwan under Orange Sky Golden Harvest, Gorgeous sits in a slightly awkward corner of late-nineties Hong Kong cinema. It arrived at a curious moment for the industry, just a couple of years after the handover and during a period when Hong Kong productions were increasingly reaching across to Taiwan for both talent and financing. The film was directed by Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu, a writer and director closely associated with the comedic end of the Cantonese film market, and that sensibility is stamped all over the production: broad strokes, high energy, and an appetite for slapstick that does not always serve the material well. The premise is light as a feather. A young woman from a Taiwanese fishing village, charmed by a romantic note she finds in a glass bottle, travels to Hong Kong in search of the man who wrote it, only to discover things are rather more complicated than she imagined. What follows is a mixture of rom-com misadventure and, eventually, the kind of spectacular physical comedy that only one person in the world could really deliver. If you enjoy Hong Kong cinema from this era, it is worth reading our piece on A Better Tomorrow (1986) for a sense of how different the Hong Kong film landscape could look even within the same industry, or our coverage of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), another film from the region that found itself balancing genre expectations with something more ambitious.

The casting is, on paper, something of a treat. Shu Qi leads the film as Ah Bu, and she brings a genuine warmth and physical elasticity to a role that asks her to be funny, romantic, and occasionally heartbroken, sometimes within the same scene. She had already built a profile across Hong Kong and Taiwanese productions by this point, and her natural screen presence does a fair amount of heavy lifting when the script lets her down. Tony Leung Chiu-wai appears in a supporting role that subverts expectations in a quietly pleasing way, while Emil Chau and Richie Jen represent a pop-crossover appeal that was very much part of how these co-productions were packaged for pan-Asian audiences. And then there is Jackie Chan. By 1999, Chan was already a global name, the Rush Hour franchise having introduced him to mainstream Western audiences the previous year, but Gorgeous is very much a Hong Kong production in its bones, and it gives him room to do what he does better than anyone alive: use his body as both instrument and punchline. The action sequences were choreographed in the tradition Chan had spent decades refining, combining genuine physical danger with precise comic timing in a way that recalls some of his best work from the eighties and nineties. For a broader look at how action cinema of this kind operates, our reviews of A Bittersweet Life (2005) and Hand of Death (1976) offer some useful points of comparison across the genre's history.

The film runs to a fairly generous 121 minutes, which is part of the problem and part of the charm. Polished but unremarkable in its first half, it becomes something else entirely once it commits to what Chan actually does best. Here is what we made of it.

Legit one of the best fight scenes ever. Gorgeous (1999) is one of Jackie Chan’s more unusual entries, a romantic comedy with a Hong Kong soap-opera vibe that drags through the first half with cheesy misunderstandings, over-the-top acting, and cringey humour about mistaken identities and spoiled heiresses. Honestly, it’s pretty average as rom-coms go, and if you’re not in the mood for melodrama with zero subtlety, you might not make it past the opening act. But then like a roundhouse kick to the temple, the second half kicks in, and suddenly it’s Jackie Chan mode. The film shifts gears into full action-comedy brilliance, and what follows are some of the most inventive, high-energy fight sequences he’s ever done. The choreography is nothing short of masterful. It’s classic Chan: dangerous, precise, and hilarious all at once. The story remains silly, the romance forced, and the tone uneven, but if you can push through the fluff, the payoff is worth it. This isn’t just another stunt showcase; it’s a reminder of why he’s the undisputed king of physical cinema. A flawed film elevated by sheer martial arts genius. Not essential, but a hidden gem for fans willing to endure the bad to get to the brilliant.

I'll be honest, there were moments in that first hour where I nearly switched off, and I suspect a fair few viewers have done exactly that without ever reaching the sequences that make the film worth the bother. That would be a genuine shame. The fight choreography in the second half is the kind of thing you find yourself rewinding and watching again, not because you missed something, but because you cannot quite believe a human being actually did that. The tonal whiplash is real, and the romance never convinces, but as a delivery mechanism for getting Jackie Chan into a series of increasingly extraordinary physical confrontations, the film does its job. Sometimes that is enough. Come for the bottle in the sea, stay for the fists.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1999  | Watched: 2025-10-05

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Gorgeous (1999) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Brew
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Watch in the US
Stream: Brew · Darkroom
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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Hong Kong: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Hand of Death (1976) · Come Drink with Me (1966) · Street Fighter (1994)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)