Movie Review: Isabella/伊莎貝拉

Isabella/伊莎貝拉 is a 2006 movie directed by Pang Ho Cheung, who also wrote the original story.

I recently re-watched it since I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I forgot what a good movie it is, but it quickly reminded me.

Isabella is a beautiful film. 

Even with Chapman To in it.

He plays a policeman in Macau starting to buckle under the pressure of an internal affairs investigation.

Isabella Leong plays a young woman whose mother has died, leaving her alone in the world.

These two people meet and negotiate a relationship while they work through their own problems and situations.

I’m being very vague, but that’s because I enjoy watching movies without knowing the story, and so that’s how I talk about them.

I’m sure some people would say that I’m talking about movies without knowing anything about them too.

But they can go eat f@#$.

It’s likely that by now, you know I’m not a fan of art films,  or overly pretentious, arty films.

Isabella/伊莎貝拉 certainly has some of those pretensions, but to me it achieves them.

It’s certainly artsy and kind of slow, but not excessively.

For me anyway.

And I have the attention span of a chipmunk on crack.

Good Lord, where was I?

Isabella/伊莎貝拉 moves slowly, but it moves.

I only get cranky when it feels like a movie is dead in the water.

Isabella/伊莎貝拉 is much more a pensive, patient character study,  that impressed me on a lot of different levels.

The acting is great, and remember I’m saying that about Chapman To and Isabella Leong.

Her last movie before she made this one was Bug Me Not.

Well, it did.

But her acting here is subtle, powerful, and very memorable.

Her acting is this movie is so good it really makes me feel bad that she gave up show business.

She looks absolutely beautiful in this movie, even when she’s crying.

I don’t mean that in any kind of haam sup way.

I mean that she’s very photogenic, and it somehow helps us understand and appreciate her character that much more.

Chapman To doesn’t come across as handsome, but at least he sheds his usual goofy skin to play a man with real shape and dimension.

He’s convincing, but more importantly he’s interesting.

He’s still funny at times, but he’s also serious, and believably so.

It’s not that often that local movies spend a lot of time developing characters, but Isabella does.

By showing us very mundane and everyday situations, and the characters’ very human (and flawed) reactions,  Isabella/伊莎貝拉  brings us into the story’s world. 

It helps that this world is populated by interesting and entertaining people, like Anthony Wong’s eccentric police officer.

He mentors Chapman To on situations that fall on both sides of the law.

It’s not often that I will watch, much less recommend, a movie that I know has no violence, car chases, or nudity.

But Isabella is a really good movie and the kind of ‘art’ movie that even I can watch.

It’s nice to look at, nice to watch, and is one of the few movies that, for me, really holds up to multiple viewings.