As another sloppy Twins vehicle, Protégé de la Rose Noire will find its usual audience in the same fans and masochists. The plot lacks coherency, the characters do nothing but damage the reputation of the actors playing them, and the only tolerable scenes are the small bits of Donnie Yen’s sister, Chris Yen doing martial arts. As fascinating as evil bikini-clad antagonists, killer schoolgirls, and the lovable Shiu Hung Hui with a cleaning obsession sounds, the film somehow manages to fail. Really.
Charlene, a homeless alien and Gillian, a homeless student with a temper, both discover an ad for a job providing food and housing. Enlisting a friendly taxi driver to take them up to an enormous gothic house, they find themselves victim to the strange owner, Rose, who imprisons and subsequently trains them as superheroes.
In addition to serving as a small action reel to further Chris Yen’s career, the film is also built to exhibit the charm and cuteness of Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, whether it be through awkward and odd alien dances, to the two of them sporting 70’s Jackie Chan Drunken Master haircuts during training montages. Audiences who enjoy this sort of thing from them may continue to enjoy. The viewers sick of their antics will not be swayed by anything new in this film.
Ironic fans of the Friedberg-Seltzer empire (Epic Movie, etc) may undoubtedly enjoy the poor humor of Protégé as well. The laughs here do not come directly from the joke on-screen, but rather our mental image of the writer when he thought the joke was a good idea. In one action sequence, the film parodies The Matrix with the same old particularly unfunny bullet time joke. The fact that someone in the world thought it was funny and invested millions in that joke for a major motion picture is a whole different level of humor.
However, the film’s appeal is limited to this miniscule sub-section of society. Most viewers, especially those with a certain fondness for the classic Cantonese Black Rose character will want to put 50 miles between themselves and any DVD copies of this film. Start running now.
Reviewed by Tarun
