It would take more than a trip to the celluloid ER to fix what’s wrong with Healing Hearts. Ostensibly inspired by ER and Chicago Hope style hospital dramas, this is the first Hong Kong theatrical release shot simultaneously with, and as a pilot to, a soon-to-be-aired television series. Directed and written by television veteran Gary Tang, no stranger to small-screen hospital series, Healing Hearts is a feature-length TV show and a middling one at that.

The medical and personal crises facing Dr. Lawrence (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) are predictable, maudlin, and emotionally sham. Tony Leung proves that he is an alchemist, for he delivers a first rate performance that, although failing to transform the dreck into gelt, provides Healing Hearts with its most watchable moments.

The script gives Lawrence an entire TV season worth of melodrama. He not only must cure his patients, but also come to terms with the senseless hit-and-run death of his beloved wife. A few rays of sunshine are provided by the miraculous awakening of Jackie (Michelle Reis), a comatose beauty who is the girlfriend of Lawrence’s colleague Dr. Paul (Kenny Bee). Jackie and Paul have an amiable parting, and the unemployed young lady moves in with Lawrence—on a strictly platonic basis that predictably blossoms into True Love. She is one of those free spirits whose perkiness makes the world a better place, or so the script would have us believe. Reis, who we know is capable of delivering an excellent performance when in good directorial hands, is decorative and energetic but forced and artificial.

How could she be anything but when confronted with virtually every cliche in the annals of hospital movies? The viewer easily foresees she will eventually be afflicted with a debilitating illness that nonetheless will leave her beauty intact. Bette Davis could get away with it in Dark Victory, but even Bette would be stumped by the staleness and triteness of Healing Hearts. The overly manipulative music that overemphasizes every pluck of the heartstrings only reinforces the ersatz emotions.

As if one mediocre plot line wasn’t enough, there are a couple of subplots, poorly realized, in which Lawrence searches for the hit-and-run driver, along with a resentful cop who blames the good doctor for his brother’s death. Another subplot features a pretty lawyer (Valerie Chow) who is wooed by a hunky triad member (Jackie Lui) while taking on a medical malpractice suit. In between, there’s still time for Lawrence to talk a suicidal patient out of jumping from the roof while Paul saves customers and staff during a botched bank robbery in which the building is torched.

Though that’s a lot to pack into 112 minutes, Healing Hearts is more tedious than an emergency room waiting line. Patrons might be tempted to shout, "Director, heal thyself."

2 stars

This review is copyright (c) 2000 by Paul Fonoroff. All rights reserved. No part of the review may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.