China Moon

source: China Moon

There are elements of Body Heat and No Way Out in this tale of"l'amour fou".Florida cop ,played by the ever reliable Ed Harris,is skilled at his job and dismissive of criminals who he feels usually foul up somewhere along the line He crosses paths with femme fatale Rachel(Madelaine Stowe) ,married to the abusive and philandering Rupert Munro(Charles Dance)and a relationship develops He finds himself drawn into covering up when she kills her husband but he soon becomes the prime suspect in the case.There is a twist ending I openly acknowledge I did not see coming On the plus side are a clutch of strong performances,although Dance is quite dreadful,with an American accent that strays all over the place and goes missing altogether at times.I still shudder at the memory of his sheer woodenness as "Coriolanus "at Stratford some while back,and he should not be allowed within a country mile of a movie camera ever again.Harris subtly conveys the gradual coming apart of a cool,and proficient pro when in thrall to lust,and Stowe is never less than compelling even when as here the dialogue is a little cliche ridden.Del Toro shows why he has since gone on to better things The movie sat on the shelf a while and I guess was disinterred following Stowe's higher profile after The Last of the Mohicans and Blink I am glad they revived it since it is watchable and intriguing but Dance and a slight flatness in direction by John Bailey,whose work as cinematographer I admire plus the egregious Mr Dance see it marked down a tad in my estimation

This "Body Heat" rip-off is unimaginative and tiresome. Everybody but Benicio Del Toro seemed to be going through the motions. The best part of the film was the appearance of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets featuring Sam Myers. They are credited as the Blues Band. Opened for them once. Skip the cost of the DVD and buy an Anson CD and enjoy some tasty Texas Blues guitar licks and the soulful vocals of Sam Myers

This falls into the "erotic thriller" category, but doesn't over due it. It fits the basic neo-noir pattern depicting a sympathetic and ordinarily upstanding man drawn into covering up for an abused wife. It doesn't come up to the quality of older and of classic noirs, but the acting especially from Ed Harris and Madeline Stowe keeps it going. Benicio Del Toro isn't to be overlooked either, but he was not yet developed into the great performer he was in TRAFFIC. As others have indicated, this isn't a truly bad film and if one overlooks the flaws and just enjoys the performances, it's definitely worth watching Alert viewers won't be surprised by twists in the plot, but the ride is still good enough for a rental.

Several comments on John Bailey's 'China Moon ' ( Ed Harris, Madeleine Stowe, Charles Dance, Benicio del Toro ) make a reference to Lawrence Kasdan's 'Body Heat ' ( William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna ). ******SPOILERS AHEAD As a matter of fact, both movies depict a woman planning the murder of her husband, and managing to set up her lover as the scapegoat; but where William Hurt is a shady attorney willingly murdering the villainous but rich Richard Crenna, Ed Harris is the upright cop, agreeing against his better judgement to become an accomplice after the murder of the even more villainous but rich too Charles Dance. And the similarity ends there: the Kasdan film is a masterpiece, where " China Moon " has not the halting sultriness of the 'Body Heat ' atmosphere, nor its wonderful photography and haunting musical score, and has indeed for sole asset its very good ( but not better than 'Body Heat's ) cast. 'China Moon's main defect is its full-of-holes plot: with the photos of her philandering husband taken by del Toro, and the testimony of two cops against Dance for attacking his wife, Stowe could have got a very very juicy divorce.. O.K. she wants all the money. But setting-up Ed Harris as the fall guy is an unusually tricky business : among others, it demands first that del Toro steals from Harris his .38 police gun and replace it by an other .38; it requires later that del Toro has in hand the 9mm murder bullet before Ed Harris does, and exchange it UNNOTICED against a .38 one fired previously from the Harris gun and sand -ingrained ( ! ), which cannot but rouse Harris's suspicion ( and he is a very good cop ); Harris could also have agreed to come clean when so offered. The plot does not explain that anonymous phones calls attract attention on Harris as the 'guilty' person because the corpse must be found in order that Stowe gets her money. And at the very end,when Harris exposes del Toro, the police is called by a witness and arrives ten seconds later ( !! ), at the very time when Ed Harris goes out, a gun in hand, and is killed without warning shots.***** but if you do not look too closely at such errors and holes, you can enjoy the acting of the four above-mentioned players,... and Madeleine Stowe's extraordinary beauty.

China Moon was unexpectedly good. Whodunits usually aren't my favorites, but this one held my interest. The story has enough going for it to make for a solid mystery. Even though you know who killed whom, you're left second-guessing yourself as to motives and alliances until the very end. There are enough twists and turns to keep you off-balance, but without the story confusion that often accompanies that kind of plot complexity. A surprise final scene provides a satisfying closure. The murder and resulting forensics are on the bloody side, but it's not out of place in the story line. Harris and Stowe turn in believable performances, making for an overall rating of 7 out of 10 stars.

All the others have already mentioned "Body Heat" as one of the key influences on the makers of this film, so I'd like to point out that the story line also bears a strong resemblance to "No Way Out": the man who is supposed to be investigating a case also has to hide the fact that he is the mystery figure everybody is looking for! The story is smartly written and well-planned, and when you watch this for the first time, you'll be genuinely surprised by some of the plot developments. The film is, unfortunately, too derivative and familiar to be outstanding, but it IS boosted by some great performances; watch for a young Benicio Del Toro, already showing a unique screen presence. (**)

A nice little thriller with a twist. Charles Dance wasted again, this time with the most ridiculous Southern accent. I like Ed Harris in just about anything, so he got me through this one. Stowe is good; I have also liked her in other movies where you have to pay attention to the dialog. I have lately discovered that del Toro has been around much longer than I realized - it is nice to see his early work as an indication of the presence he has on-screen. The comparisons to "Body Heat" are understandable - but I think this one stands on its own as one way to spend an evening with a movie that you actually watch to see what happens.

Although I'm a film buff I had never heard of this film, but found it surprisingly good. The plot isn't particularly startling but there are some neat twists. Above all, there is a terrific performance from Ed Harris as Kyle. You can see from the way the other cops react to him just how good he is at his job, and how much they respect him, and his fall from grace is heart-rending. By the end of the film, he looks about ten years older than he did at the beginning. His romance with Rachel is totally convincing - just the way he looks at her says it all. All in all, an interesting film which didn't deserve to sink without trace.

Anyone seeing this will recognize it as a variation on "Body Heat." In some ways it's better, but in most it's not as good. "Body Heat" had several things going for it that "China Moon" does not. Its sultry score was distinctive. This score is generically blue. So's the photography. In "Body Heat," the images actually looked hot. In the café scenes you could almost smell the humidity and the fat molecules hanging in the air, although in fact they were probably shot through a Vaseline-coated lens. Here, instead of heat, we get a harsh icy blue tint to many of the scenes. When we are out of doors, in the rain and mud, under the blue lights, it seems positively chilly. (And the director was a photographer himself!) The acting in both films is mixed. Kathleen Turner sounds breathless but doesn't exude a particularly high level of heat energy, whereas Bill Hurt is excellent as a dumb lawyer. Ed Harris here is less inventive that Hurt but does a solid job. As for Madeleine Stowe. It isn't easy to measure physical beauty accurately. Lately psychologists have been fiddling around with various mathematical ratios based on the idea that facial symmetry per se is attractive, but the results so far have been mostly good for laughs. A more reliable, if rougher, way to get at it is to filter one person's appearance through someone else's perception of it. Build an ordinal scale of ranks. You can get a pretty good idea of how attractive a face looks if you ask 100 members of the opposite sex to rank it from one to ten, ten being highest. Stowe, I should think, would come out pretty high on such a scale, although symmetry would have absolutely nothing to do with it, anymore than it would with Nastassja Kinsky or Gwyneth Paltrow. Not a bit of it. Stowe's anthracite irises are slightly crossed under their long black lashes, and her lips are appealingly askew. She may not be symmetrical, but man she could play a Franklin stove and get away with it. The plot, such as it is, isn't as filled with the kind of intrigue and uncertainties of the original model. It has a certain familiar mechanical quality to it. Much more stuff about switched and hidden guns. And it ends in a kind of tragic shootout, instead of a full-throated blast of irony. It's also a bit hard to follow, in a way the original was not. Until the shooting of Stowe's husband, I could understand all of it. Stowe genuinely loved Harris. After that, when the frame begins to take shape, I became confused about when the sinister plot was planned and hatched. And why and when did Stowe's emotion toggle from love to exploitation? The story no longer made sense, having lost its continuity with the first half. And, surprisingly, it lacks evocative touches and local color. No tinkling wind chimes. No humor to speak of. And Florida? It could as easily have been Nebraska.