Jade Leung stars in Black Cat (1991), an unabashed imitation of Luc Besson’s international hit La Femme Nikita (1990). The film follows Jade Leung as she completes her “Black Cat” training after being arrested and shot by police as the suspect of a homicide. Leung’s Black Cat is a woman full of rage whose autonomy is compromised by the computer chip implanted in her brain by the CIA to make her the world’s most fearsome assassin. Simon Yam co-stars as Leung’s handler while Thomas Lam plays Leung’s innocent love interest.
Director Stephen Shin proves highly capable of staging stunt oriented action spectacles that range from chases to high wire acts atop a crane. Shin’s camera balances the objectivity of the body in emotion with the subjectivity of the internal perception of danger adeptly painting an expressionistic portrait of violence. This strategy consistently reiterates the human cost of violence both emotionally and physically.
This dichotomy also suggests the central subtext of Black Cat. The plot, with its themes of compromised autonomy and loss of will, reflects the anxieties and fears of the impending handover of 1997. Hong Kong’s fears are Jade Leung’s as she struggles to find herself in a world where she exists as little more than a commodity for the CIA. The cost of violence is the loss of liberty.
The political aspect of Black Cat sets it apart from its progenitor La Femme Nikita. Stephen Shin may never match the stylization of Besson’s film but he does manage a more succinct and compelling political commentary that elevates an otherwise run of the mill thriller. So Black Cat isn’t so much a failed remake as popular opinion would have one believe, but rather a more nationalistic remake whose violence becomes a kind of political catharsis.
