Cannes. Triangle.

It wasn't even a full week ago that Variety's Alison James was reporting that Chinese censors had given a last-minute go-ahead for an Out of Competition screening of Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To's Triangle (Tit Samgok). Now the first reviews are coming in.

"Idea of a story being handed on to the next director to develop and film separately sprang from Tsui, who'd known Lam and To since their times together at Hong Kong web TVB 30 years ago," explains Variety's Derek Elley. The result sees a "passage from an antsy setup, via more character-driven drama, to an elaborately choreographed finale [which] plays to the strengths of each director as well as being a mini-primer of their different styles. Lam and To come off most successfully, while Tsui's material seems unnecessarily complex and fussy."

"It reminded me of Steven Soderbergh's The Good German," blogs Anne Thompson. "The directors were having a fine time with this experiment. But they weren't thinking about the audience. They've been friends for 30 years and nobody had to take responsibility for this fine mess."

"The movie runs you over and tires you out without doing anything truly clever or interesting," sighs Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter. "The thing barely passes muster as a pastiche of Hong Kong cinema as Triangle is too nonsensical and incoherent to engage a viewer on any but the visual level."

"[S]ome friends were taken with its 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre with cell phones' tone in parts," notes Premiere's Glenn Kenny. "But the overall effect was that of too much and not enough simultaneously."

Updates: "While the directors' personalities shine through in their respective segments the film is far more cohesive than this sort of project has any right to be, a potent brew of action, suspense, and even a bit of slapstick comedy," writes Todd Brown at Twitch. "It's a fascinating little experiment, one who's weaknesses are easily overshadowed by not only the novelty of the piece but also by the technical virtuosity of the directors and crew and by the film's unending series of strong performances. Flawless? No. Fascinating? You bet. Entertaining? Hell, yes."

"If you're thinking the inevitable result [of 'the "exquisite corpse" approach'] would be a movie featuring no real emotional investment from anyone involved, all I can say is ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!" exclaims Mike D'Angelo at ScreenGrab. "Triangle begins in a hyperactive Tsui frenzy, passes through an overwrought Lam interlude, then goes completely haywire in the manner of To's occasional collaborations with Wai Ka Fai."

Update, 5/19: "Triangle is an intriguing exercise because of what it reveals about its three directors' creative DNA," writes Lee Marshall for Screen Daily. "What we really want to see by the end, though, are the three films these guys would have made if they'd been able to pick up the ball and run with it for ninety minutes."

Update, 5/26: "It's no surprise that Tsui Hark successfully makes a mess of the story right off the bat," writes Michael Lerman at indieWIRE. "Lam bears most of the weight, with a passable second act that I would argue is a great return for a director who hasn't produced anything of quality in awhile, but simply hidden under the haze of another's mistakes. By the time we reach To's section, the film is in good enough shape for him to have fun with it and he does it in spades, leaving us with a finale that greatly rewards the patient viewer."

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Cannes @ 60. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at May 18, 2007 3:25 AM