‘Weekend in Taipei’: The slow and the serious

Written by Huang and French action mainstay Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita), the French-Taiwanese production opens on an investigation into a Korean business magnate based in Taiwan, "King" Kwang, played by The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift alumnus Sung Kang. There's something off about Weekend in Taipei right from its opening moments, in which practically all information about the plot is delivered by a newscaster's voiceover from off-screen, as though its plot were cobbled together in post-production. Furthermore, Kang delivers a deathly serious performance as a troubled and corrupt middle-aged industrialist, a kind of role the Korean American star has seldom played. However, his performance clashes wildly with the character's cartoonish appearance, with his pronounced, skunk-like streak of white hair flowing straight back down his mane. It's also far from the first time dissonant approaches pose a problem for the movie.

From left, Gwei Lun-mei, Wyatt Yang, and Luke Evans in "Weekend in Taipei."

Courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment

Soon after, we meet Kwang's cheerless wife Joey (Gwei Lun-mei), who deals with her broken relationship by buying luxurious sports cars. Her introduction, in which she test drives a Ferrari at pulse-pounding speeds, feels right out of a Fast & Furious film as well, with its rapid cutting, and its focus on shifting gears and pressing pedals to the floor (though we're meant to feel bad for her, given the state of her marriage). In quick succession, Weekend in Taipei trades on the imagery of the Fast saga in two distinct ways that don't actually overlap. A third quickly appears when the film finally introduces its lead, and subplots start to stack up side by side. Luke Evans—yet another fixture of the Fast films—plays an undercover American cop, a role reminiscent of Paul Walker's part in the famous Hollywood franchise. Granted, Evans' character (DEA agent John Lawlor) is more grizzled than Walker's doe-eyed Brian O'Connor, but it's hard not to be directed towards these comparisons.

Lawlor, who engages in some slick, comedic hand-to-hand action, has been investigating Kwang, and decides to take a trip from Minneapolis to Taipei during his time off, just so he can look further into the case. Meanwhile, leaks to the press about Kwang's business dealings have thrust him into the spotlight, which strains his relationship with Joey and her precocious, activist-minded son (and Kwang's step-son) Raymond, played by Wyatt Yang. It's in connecting these disparate threads that the movie makes its first major misstep. It just so happens that Lawlor and Joey have a romantic history, which has little to do with Joey's marriage to the man Lawler is investigating, and vital information leaked by Raymond just happens to end up in Lawlor's hands—a second, unrelated coincidence—setting numerous chase scenes in motion.

Sung Kang as "King" Kwang.

Courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment

Even if one accepts these happenstances as a driving dramatic force, what follows is hardly interesting enough to justify them. There's car-centric action to be found, but much of it appears in painfully extended flashbacks reminiscent of the later Fast films, albeit without the tongue-in-cheek charm of building on nearly a dozen movies' worth of crisscrossing family lore. Instead, we're treated to the beginnings of Joey and Lawlor's automotive romance, back when they were lovers on opposing sides of the law (à la Brian O'Connor and Jordana Brewster's Mia—or Brian and Vin Diesel's Dom, if, we're being honest). However, these scenes are mere exposition devices meant to support a far less dramatically intriguing plot unfolding in the present, one so razor-thin that it keeps finding excuses to return to the past.

All the while, Weekend in Taipei can't decide on comedy or drama as its central mode of expression (a blend of the two is far too complex for it to handle). Scenes of romance and nostalgic longing are peppered with tongue-in-cheek jabs that make it hard to connect with the characters. Conversely, quip-laden action is presented with intense music and a sense of drawn-out, somber occasion. There's no real fun to be had, despite the images hinting at a more enjoyable and enthralling version of Weekend in Taipei being lost in the edit. Perhaps even stranger is that a climactic hand-to-hand tussle takes place in a movie theater while a far superior fight from Zhang Yimou's House of the Flying Daggers plays on screen, serving at best as a distraction, and at worst as a reminder of how tepid and lacking in drama Weekend in Taipei's action really is.

Wyatt Yang as Raymond and Gwei Lun-mei as Joey in "Weekend in Taipei."

Courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment

With its reliance on family as a central theme—you'll never guess who Raymond's dad turns out to be!—Weekend in Taipei can't help but resemble a Fast & Furious knock off at every turn. Unfortunately, it has neither the tightly-controlled action chops nor the die-hard sincerity that makes the Vin Diesel-fronted franchise such a guilty pleasure. Sadly, there's little pleasure to be found here. It's all empty pastiche.