INSEPARABLE

Li (Daniel Wu) has fallen on hard times. He’s in debt, his wife Pang (Beibi Gong) has gone off the rails due to a recent tragedy, his parents have just died and his boss at his office job is pressuring him to lie at a forthcoming tribunal.

He decides to end it all and attempts to hang himself in his apartment. But he can’t even get that right, eventually giving up and answering the door to his new neighbour Chuck (Kevin Spacey) instead.

Chuck is an American living in China who for some reason seems very keen not only to befriend Li, but to teach him how to realise his true potential. You can add your own cross-cultural subtext here.

With the pretty Pang offering further encouragement, Li is coaxed into rebelling against those who make his life Hell. He starts simply be letting his boss’ car tyres down. Shortly afterwards, he progresses to sticking up for a kid who’s had his bicycle trashed by a city gent as punishment for a scratch on his car.

Chuck is delighted with Li’s newfound attitude, and suggests they take things several steps further by donning superhero costumes and becoming a vigilante duo. With homemade costumes made, the pair proceeds to right the little wrongs they see in day-to-day life before upping the ante and going after the people who really irk Li. This latter point allows for a cameo appearance from Peter Stormare as the boss of a company who tragically let Pang and Li down in the recent past.

But who is Chuck? Could he be a stock broker, or a CIA hitman, both of which he at various points claims to be? Where did he come from and is his motivation really as simple as wanting to get Li back on his feet, and reconciled with Pang?

A trip to the doctors for Li explains at least one interpretation of the film’s title and reveals a twist which makes it difficult to elaborate much further. But you can expect surreal hallucinations, a totally leftfield ending and lots of subtle observations along the way on modern China and how its people struggle with these changes.

There was a time when Spacey could do no wrong. Remember his run in the 1990s, when he was the best thing in the likes of SE7EN, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, THE USUAL SUSPECTS and AMERICAN BEAUTY? But then he began to slide off the radar with lesser film roles, a focus on stage performances and that bizarre incident in which he was reported as being mugged in one of London's gay hotspots.

Of late, the one-time Academy Award winner has loosened up and started having fun in films. This was evidenced by his scene-stealing role as Lex Luthor in the otherwise drab SUPERMAN RETURNS. And now, here he is in a really offbeat addition to his CV. Interestingly, this sees him become the first A-list Hollywood actor to take on a starring role in a Chinese film.

But, for all Spacey whoops and hollers, and for all he runs around in a superhero costume which is closer in style to Derek Trotter's 'Batman' fancy dress garb than Christian Bale's bullet-proof apparel, he seems awkward to the point that you get the distinct impression he'd be enjoying himself more if his role didn't call for him to have fun of any kind.

And his curiously reserved approach to the wannabe comedy material is felt throughout this entire production. There’s something most definitely flat about INSEPERABLE, its performances feeling somewhat sedate and director Dayyan Eng’s script playing things far too politely to raise a titter.

When Li wins the lottery, for example, he and Chuck dance around his living room in excitement. But the whole thing feels as though Eng is behind the camera whispering "not too much, boys, a bit less … a bit less". This is true of all set-piece scenes, characters virtually sleepwalking through their motions and any action passing by almost unnoticed.

Though aesthetically attractive (take a bow, cinematographer Thierry Arbogast) and not unlikeable, INSEPERABLE does suffer due to the above. Its biggest flaw though is that, for an "action comedy", it’s not exciting and it certainly isn’t funny. Unless seeing Stormare ham it up by crawling on all fours in nothing but a nappy is the type of thing that gets you giggling. From the 7-minute pre-credits sequence alone, it’s evident why Eng’s film didn’t play theatrically despite a couple of big names being attached to it: its delivery is stiflingly staid from the get go.

A sense of alienation is admittedly achieved, helping Eng get the point across that a sick society breeds sickness in people. But, even though the mid-plot twist gives Li’s character a different spin, INSEPERABLE will be compared to KICK ASS, FIGHT CLUB and SUPER – and is infinitely inferior to all three.

Matchbox Films present INSEPARABLE uncut on this UK DVD, in a 16x9 transfer which honours the film's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Colours are vivid, blacks are deep and there are no signs of ugly compression blocking during darker scenes. In fairness, the bulk of the film is bright and set in daylight. Some edge enhancement is evident but it's never harsh enough to become overly problematic.

Audio is available in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Both sound solid enough - there are no quibbles here. The majority of dialogue is spoken in English, but there is enough Mandarin spoken to justify its mention here, along with the fact that it's complemented with burned-in English subtitles.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. A static scene-selection menu provides access to INSEPARABLE via 16 chapters.

We get a sole bonus feature in the form of the film's original 2-minute trailer.

A lot of time and consideration appears to have gone into the making of INSEPARABLE. But while it looks great and is populated by talented performers, there's a bizarre flatness to it that may have you scratching your head in a bid to remember what it was all about just a short while after viewing it.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis