This
Vietnamese fairy is a lot like Cinderella, but the slipper is golden rather
than glass. There is also more death and reincarnation. As if that were not
promising enough, Veronica Ngo (soon to be even more famous as the star of Star Wars: The Last Jedi) adds demons
and Braveheart-style battles in her
adaptation. The Cinderella step-sister has it particularly hard, but karma will
do as it does in Ngo’s Tam Cam: The
Untold Story (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in select cities.
Poor
Tam is bullied rotten by her nasty step-mother Di Ghe and vain step-sister Cam,
but she gets encouragement from a Joel Grey-like Fairy Godfather. There will
indeed be a royal ball, open to all, where the disinterested Prince (and acting
Regent) will chose a bride. Di Ghe conspires to keep Tam away, but her Fairy
Godfather gets her there in time to try on the fateful slipper.
Sadly,
even after she marries the Prince, Tam is not allowed to live happily ever
after. Prodded by the evil Magistrate, Di Ghe murders Tam and convinces the
Prince to allow Cam to care for him, as Tam supposedly would have wanted.
However, Tam constantly reincarnates as birds or trees to save the shockingly
unintuitive Prince from the Magistrate’s assassination attempts. Unfortunately,
all appears lost when the Prince’s trusted lieutenant betrays him in battle, but
Tam and the Fairy folk are still looking out for him.
The
original tale of Tam and Cam takes a turn that is grislier than just about
anything you will find in Perrault, Basile, or the Brothers Grimm. Ngo is
probably wise to file down that sharp edge, but she adds plenty of
hack-and-slash action and demonic brimstone. Frankly, it is pretty impressive
how many narrative balls she manages to juggle, thereby securing a number of
featured roles for members of 365, the Vietnamese boy band she produces.
Actually,
the boys aren’t bad hacking away at each other. Ha Vi certainly comes across as
a sweet innocent as Tam, whereas Ninh Duong Lan Ngoc convincingly plays against
type (she was the endearing lottery ticket seller in Jackpot) as the catty Cam, but nobody out vamps Ngo as the wicked
stepmother. Forget about Jolie in Maleficent
or Blanchett in the recent live-action Cinderella,
because they pale in comparison to Ngo’s flamboyant villainy.
She
can also direct. Ngo and Diep The Vinh capitalize on Vietnam’s stunning natural
vistas (at least as seen from a drone’s eye-view) to give the film a real epic
feel. Her war scenes have grit and the CGI is a little wacky, but still better
than you would expect.