After the sickly-sweet mush of Richard Curtis's Love Actually comes the slightly punchier fun of Richard Loncraine's Wimbledon, another home-grown romantic comedy that could easily be dubbed Love Thirty, or perhaps even Netting Hill. It is easy (not to say obligatory) to sneer at this fancifully featherlite concoction in which a fading tennis pro on his last hurrah gets an un-expected boost to his backhand from the affections of a beautiful rising star. Certainly, there's nothing in the writing to compete with the pizzazz of Curtis at his best (despite the comic use of the word "bugger"), nor indeed with the work of Ron Shelton, whose terrific Tin Cup proved that even golf can be sexy and funny. Moreover, in aiming itself squarely at the international export market, Loncraine's film often takes its eye off the ball for the locals who know that Big Ben and Brighton Pier aren't actually separated by a very short stretch of green, hilly road. Yet, for all its double faults (it is completely illogical while being utterly predictable), there are plenty of reasons to cheer Wimbledon along, not least being another sparkling turn from the blue-eyed boy of British cinema, Paul Bettany.
Regular readers of this column will know that I consider Bettany to be one of this country's greatest screen assets, from his breathtakingly villainous role in the underrated Gangster No 1 to his excellently anguished performance in Lars von Trier's tortuous Dogville. Here, Bettany flaunts his lighter side to match- winning effect, his magnetically mischievous looks and playfully despairing voice lending just the right blend of light and shade to what is essentially a dopey loveable hero role. American co-star Kirsten Dunst has a tough time matching Bettany's scene-stealing presence, and to her credit she does the best with a flirty, flimsy role that offers her little scope to shine. But Loncraine, whose previous credits include the surprisingly gritty British pop-pic Slade in Flame, keeps things batting back and forth at such a breezy pace that it's game, set and match before the audience has the chance to get rest- less. Meanwhile, supporting turns from Eleanor Bron and Bernard Hill lend dramatic ballast, and a sporting cameo from John McEnroe proves that marrying an actress had no impact whatsoever on his own thespian talents.
While Wimbledon may offer a picture-postcard view of the Union Jack, there are similar (if rather more serious) national icons on display in the red, white and blue of Zhang Yimou's Hero, which finally reaches our screens after being nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2003. A Rashomon-style retelling of the Qin king's encounter with a nameless assassin (action legend Jet Li) in third-century BC China, this carefully colour-coded puzzle winds a gnomic tale of love, honour and revenge around a series of astonishing visual set pieces that ravish the eye while occasionally baffling the brain. Boasting the traditional brand of balletic martial artistry that allows combatants to leap across treetops and skim like stones over water, Hero may well be the best-looking film you'll see this year. While cinematographer Christopher Doyle wallows in the natural beauty of the remote location shots, costume designer Emi Wada dresses each character in precise primary hues to match the bold emotional strokes of the drama. Yet even amid such grand spectacle, it is the ethereal face of Maggie Cheung, the Hong Kong icon, that dominates the screen. As the lethal lover Flying Snow, Cheung presents a vision of sword-flailing, heartbreaking heroism whose tortured bond with Tony Leung's Broken Sword forms the emotional core of the story. Those enraptured by Leung and Cheung's magical pairing in Wong Kar-wai's marvellous In the Mood for Love should prepare to be dumbstruck once again.
For a rather more grisly vision of the femme fatale, horror fans need look no further than Switchblade Romance, a terrifically nasty genre throwback that steals riffs from an assortment of disreputably bloody classics (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Maniac, I Spit on Your Grave) to create a knuckle- chewing, head-kicking roller-coaster ride. Stylishly designed for maximum shock effect, this full-on Gallic gore-fest about two young women going head-to-head with a monstrous killer wisely eschews the nods and winks of postmodern slasher cinema as it sets out to terrorise its target audience. Be warned: the ending makes no sense whatsoever. But by the time the ludicrous plot-twist pay-off rolls around, you'll be too busy trying to catch your breath to worry about anything as mundane as narrative logic.
