Bond Girl Michelle Yeoh was Malaysia’s media darling who could do no wrong

By Helen Ang

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A commentator Gua Bay Song posits — among other strong comments including one by SV Singam on ‘shooting barking dogs’, in a People’s Parliament post — that “the shitty MSM material is usually found between page 1 to page 10.” http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/dear-advertiser-are-we-to-believe-what-the-lying-newspapers-say-about-you-and-your-products/ 

I’m suggesting that political and corporate considerations do colour other sections of a newspaper besides domestic news, though to what extent is difficult to measure unless you are in know about what goes on in the MSM backrooms.  

On example of is the dearth of bad press in The Star, and I daresay the rest of local mainstream media for The Touch, a movie was that star vehicle for Michelle Yeoh. It marked Michelle’s debut as co-producer through her own production company Mythical Films. 

The Touch (2002) is a Malaysia-released Hong Kong film with most of the dialogue in English. 

One reviewer had said of it: “Michelle Yeoh and [director] Peter Pau have clearly set out to make a Hollywood film. Unfortunately, they have succeeded.”  Another reviewer said: “It plays more like Lara Croft’s slightly befuddled Asian sister, gone astray in the Gobi desert and a bit confused about which way to go.”  

In the Internet Movie Database, it was said to be “utterly forgettable and disappointing”. Although some moviegoers did have good words for it, The Touch “seemed to be universally acclaimed a major disappointment”.  

Its major fault in the critics’ eye was the weak story. One critic wrote: “The landscapes of Tibet are impressive and make the movie more memorable than the thin plot deserves.” The Touch however did win awards in cinematography for Pau’s work, who was Director of Photography for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in which Michelle also starred.  

Other critics did not like The Touch’s “flaming arrows shooting all over the place”, and said it was “a limp showcase of terrible CGI. Bad call to go the special effects route, Michelle!” 

As far as I can ascertain, the movie was not reviewed in The Star then in 2002. Strange?  

There was publicity write-up in The Star though on The Touch, most naturally, as the Bond Girl is Malaysia’s media darling. She has been guest-of-honour at the newspaper’s media events and been pictured with the paper’s big bosses.  

As far as I’m aware, again, whatever write-up there was in The Star was not negative, bucking the trend of what’s been reported of the movie in the rest of the world, going by reports found on the Net.  

And here’s another funny thing. The site with the most comprehensive collection of movie reviews is Rotten Tomatoes. Although it’s mostly about Hollywood films, I did manage to access very favourable reviews of Crouching Tiger and Jet Li’s Hero. 

I did a search in Rotten Tomatoes on The Touch and found several movies with similar titles. The first one on the list was Touch of Evil, a 1958 effort starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. Michelle’s movie was listed as The Touch (2004).  

When I clicked on Touch of Evil, the page opened fine. But when I clicked on Michelle’s movie, I got the message ‘Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close’. This happened a few times. I tried several alternative ways to access the page, including via ‘cached’ and Google Search, and every time, I encountered a bug which shut down my Net.  

I use Streamyx broadband. Can you guys reading this please go to the Rotten Tomatoes site, check it out and tell me if you encounter the same perplexing problem. And can some techie conjecture as to why this technical glitch?