Reviews Film / Lucy

A story set in Taiwan has Taiwanese villains?! MY GOD...

That aside, the movie looked pretty terrible from the trailers.

The whole "words translating to Apple?" That ha

That happens all the time in movies. Like in old westerns, Chinese actors told to just "speak Chinese" for their lines would just start talking shit to the other actors.

Psycho kills person who happens to be not have the same race as her for trivial reason? OMG THAT'S SO RACIST AND DEFINITELY NOT AN EXAMPLE OF THE PSYCHO BEING A PSYCHO!!!!!

"A movie set in Taiwan has Taiwanese villains" might be a decent argument if the hero was Taiwanese as well, or at least a major supporting character. As is, the review makes it seems as though the only Taiwanese characters are either bystanders or villains.

As for the "example of a psycho being a psycho"...isn't she supposed to be the good guy? I mean, I'm all for morally ambiguous protagonists but generally they shouldn't be that petty.

I've seen posts about this film and how people see it as racist, and I can see where it's coming from. I'll try and break it down as best I can, whether you subscribe to the same school of thought is up to you.

Lucy is a film with a white antagonist in an Asian country. She's smart, strong and capable, and she's mowing through a small army of Asian men, who are all more or less falling at her abilities - or who are destined to fall. This concept might seem trivial - "so she's white and they aren't, it's just an action flick", etc.

But let's just pick this detail apart for a second. A protagonist who is white, located in a predominantly Asian country - so in effect, a minority of that country - who is depicted as going through and mowing down dozens of Asians. Evil Asians, yes, but it's a white hero in a mysterious overseas city mowing down Thaiwanese mobsters for... what reason? The mobsters screwed her over royally, I'm sure, but is there a reason why the masses of thugs killed by Lucy's hand have to be Asian?

Why not a white mob? Maybe set somewhere in America, or even Russia? Hell, even Australia.

So it's a white protagonist who is depicted as much better at combat than a legion of Asian mobsters, fighting them in their home country. One Caucasian, completely outmatching a small army of a different ethnicity, in their home country. The idea paints an image of white superiority - Mighty Whitey storming the castle and beating the snot out of the brutish and barbaric other race.

I'll skip over to the scene with the cab driver. Okay, she shoots a guy because he doesn't speak English. In Taiwan. Again, she is a minority of Taiwan - a Taiwanese cab driver doesn't need to learn English to be good at driving cabs in Taiwan, so it's not likely that the first cab driver she saw would speak English. The fact that she's able to shoot this Taiwanese guy for the sole crime of not speaking her language, and that this show of intolerance (at best) is actually played off as a "badass" moment is awful. Character establishing moment or not, it's a really unnecessary and rude scene.

So the protagonist mows down a small Asian army, shoots a defenceless cab driver for not speaking English, and she's seen as a Crazy Awesome hero. Even if you don't see eye to eye with me, can you at least see how the movie's premise, and at least one scene of the film, can be seen as racist by the viewing public? Seriously, the mob could have been of any race - they could have written in a white/mixed American gang, a Russian mob, or just invented some frigging syndicate in England or Australia. Instead, it's a solid hour and a bit of a white person beating up mountains of Asian people, when there isn't much of a reason to have her kicking ass all over Taiwan other than "Taiwan looks nice, and this mob is new and exotic".

That's the interpretation I've seen around, and in case the long-ass comment didn't alert you, it's a view I share.

I just realized I typoed "Taiwanese" as "Thaiwanese". That's a really shitty typo to make, and I apologize.

I haven't seen the movie. Do they ever explain why she didn't just know how to speak Taiwanese, since she can apparently do anything? Why kill the guy for not speaking english if you're just going to assimilate his language in the next half-hour? That part in the trailer really threw me off.

When I said "Taiwanese villains in Taiwan" I more or less just meant that having villains that are not white is not inherently racist. I have not watched the movie (I will never enjoy the kind of 'hero' Lucy is) but just saying that the villains are minorities will not convince someone who hasn't seen it that it's racist.

But The villains don't sound any different than your typical action movie gang members, aside from being Taiwanese. While I understand WHY people think it's racist, I myself simply don't.

The thing is, 1. They really didn't have to be a marginalized group. The writers specifically chose Taiwan, however, for its "exotic" atmosphere. This is racist, as it marginalizes Taiwanese history and culture into a pretty backdrop for a white hero to run around in, and often results in This Sort of Thing. And 2. When the writers have an omnipotent white hero performing basically genocide for no reason other than to "look cool", then we definitely have a problem.

MrMallard, your whole post can really be answered with just one question; would an African woman killing lots of, say, Swedish gangsters be black supremacist and carry Black Panther overtones?

Like really, you can easily re-write your comment as "A protagonist who is black, located in a predominantly white country - so in effect, a minority of that country - who is depicted as going through and mowing down dozens of white people. Evil white people, yes, but it's a black hero in a mysterious overseas city mowing down Swedish mobsters for... what reason? The mobsters screwed her over royally, I'm sure, but is there a reason why the masses of thugs killed by ....'s hand have to be white?" Do you see how weak that sounds now?

Really, I have only one answer for all the viewing public that views this as racist - scum has no nationality. I'm Russian, though I haven't lived there for 5 years, and media over there is forbidden to refer to the criminals/criminal suspects ethnicity or religion for precisely this reason. To go with my analogy further, I didn't hate Golden Eye, The Peacemaker and A Good Day To Die Hard because they involved Western characters killing lots of Russians. I hated them because they were full of plotholes and had horrifyingly moronic depictions of Russia (fuelled, stocked, unlocked, all ready to go tanks parked right in the middle of the 2nd largest Russian city in Golden Eye; nuclear weapons hauled on a f&%*ing steam train in The Peacemaker, similar shit in Die Hard 5).

That is why the "Apple" thing is a fully valid criticism, as it shows that the creators failed to take their setting seriously. If you want to argue that it's a bad film because the Taiwan it shows has nothing to do with reality and insults the intelligence of anyone who actually was there, then go on ahead. Similarly, if you think that Lucy is an asshole protagonist, go on ahead with that angle: I haven't played a single Assassin's Creed game for precisely this reason (and the historical reason too). You don't need to invoke race at all, and doing so actually weakens your argument. If you want to talk about real Mighty Whitey films, where white protagonist triumphs just because they're white protagonist (unlike Lucy, who triumphs because she had drugs, and only because of them), I direct you to Avatar and John Carter.

^^ Each and every action film marginalises its setting to a pretty backdrop. That's just the way genre works. And again, protagonist being an asshole doesn't make the film racist.

I would point out that the choice of a white girl as their drug mule is full of Unfortunate Implications of modern tales of white slavery. And flip-flopping the races is a lame test, because the it tries to pretend that race construction happens in a vacuum, and not in the context of history.

^ Maybe the point is that now is the time to stop all race construction and move on? I never believed in the idea of race in the first place, which is why I find all of this rather puzzling. Essentially, you're arguing that the things that have happened in the past, often centuries ago, must now determine the kind of stories that are acceptable to tell in the modern age, more or less in perpetuity. That is a completely unhealthy restriction that deprives the audience of a wide range of potential stories.

This is especially blatant with reviewer and posters above, who argue that a film shouldn't try to be creative in its choice of setting, and argue for more stories set in the safe, tired confines of USA and Europe. To me, choosing a rarely-used setting is always a good thing, assuming that they can portray its accurately (see my comments about Golden Eye and Peacemaker above). So, I welcome Besson's decision to choose Taiwan, although it would've been a lot better if the film wasn't lacking in so many aspects.

Finally, which Unfortunate Implications exactly? You mean that real-life crime lords use white women to smuggle drugs because they're rarely checked by authorities, and so the fictional crime lord in the film decided to do the same, for equivalent reasons? That's just an evil character being a pragmatic scumbag, and it gives the film some grounding in reality (not that it needed it with the premise and all, but whatever...)

NTC 3, "now is the time to stop all race construction and move on?" Sure, I mean we can ignore history. That has been the best course of action to actually improve the world.

If you don't believe in "race," then replace the word with "culture." Does culture exist? If an american lead in an american film in english goes along and attacks foreigners, then the writing had to choose a reason for there to be another culture. The enemy and environment are alien to the protagonist for a reason.

The movie does not exist in a vacuum.

And as for the centuries in the past thing: The U.S. still issues twenty dollar bills with Andrew Jackson's (the man who overrruled the supreme court in order to perform government supported genocide) face on them. Apparently no one told the U.S. Mint.

NTC 3. What a lovely and naive world view you have. You think we're talking about issues that only exist centuries ago? I was told within the last ten years that women should not do the JET program (working as an English teaching assistant in Japan) because white women are at risk for being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery.

Personally, I'd like creators to think about these issues, because I'd like a bigger variety of stories, instead of them falling into the same old traps over and over. Who says Lucy had to be set in the US? that assumes that Lucy has to be white. Why not cast an Asian woman as Lucy if you're going to set it in Taiwan?

To clarify my position on this a bit further: would I have liked the film to have an Asian lead? Yes, because I don't see enough of those in mainstream cinema. However, you also have to be realistic and admit that Luc Besson would probably never have gotten the funds to make this film if he went for someone less recognizable than her, as he’s been a busted flush for a few years now. When his recent output has been crap films like The Family or 3 Days to Kill, which people only went to see because of their leads, casting someone relatively unknown now would’ve been box office suicide from the studios’ perspective.

Someone like Nolan or Cameron could go and cast an actress from India or Syria or Mali in the lead role and people would’ve gone to see their films anyway, which makes it even more disappointing that they consistently stick with white male leads, even when they’re as crap as Sam Worthington. OK, this has gone off topic for a bit, but if you’re going to judge everything from the outside perspective, I believe that the circumstances behind production should be considered alongside cultural context, much like how we judge older works under different rules.

^ I believe in culture. I don't believe in race. However, let me go along and break it down a bit. If what I heard of the film's plot so far is right, then most of the killing occurs as she's attacked by Taiwanese mob, in a situation that could've happened anywhere in the world, with any group of people at all, and it is not something connected to their race, while Lucy killing the driver is her being flawed/anti-heroic. Thus, we have established that the film is not explicitly racist. Now, the question posited here is whether it is implicitly racist, and you bring the historical context to affirm that it is. However, have you considered going even deeper?

What if (and this is just speculation from me, as I’m yet to see the film), the way Scarlett Johansson’s character behaves in the film is a metaphor for the American foreign policy in the wake of 9/11? What if the nootropic malarkey is a metaphor for the American military-industrial complex, which had been constrained by the constitutional safeguards (the stomach casing), up until a damaging event (getting kicked in the stomach; 9/11) had resulted in it breaking loose in the wake of public sympathy (the Patriot Act, etc.) and poisoning the body, as the “War on Terror” had permeated every aspect of the public life. Thus, Lucy feels justified in her quest to eradicate dozens of gang members just American military felt justified to rampage through first Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Pakistan and other droned countries. What if Lucy being completely overpowered is a metaphor for American military standing in relation to the countries it engages with, and the three couriers she’s after are a metaphor for the Axis of Evil countries? What if the taxi driver getting killed is a metaphor for Abu Ghraib, “Collateral Murder” and many other atrocities in the wake of occupations? Finally, what if Lucy becoming more inhuman as the film goes on is a metaphor for the fate of America if it continued totally unopposed in its quest to reshape the world?

Once again, I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know how well this holds up. However, I think it’s more interestinhg to also view films from this perspective instead of just stopping at the race/culture level, to go and really turn your brain on, so to speak. Many fall films short and loose their veneer as a result. The ones that don’t, however, become so much sweeter.

Lastly, the only real way to deal with Andrew Jackson remembered as a "20 dollar bill guy" and not as a genocide enabler that he was is to take this exact issue up with the US government and its representatives. Claiming that Lucy is racist might make you feel good, but it will get you nowhere in achieving this task. Same applies for the sexual slavery kidnappings in Japan and anywhere else. I say this as a person who has signed around a 100 online petitions, out of which at least 30 have succeeded: some of those are present on my troper page.

Thank you, Terrie and Fenris. You two are on the right track, keep moving forward. NTC 3, your colorblind philosophy is bullshit and your backpedaling is bullshit. There are many actresses that are just as recognizable as Scarlet Johansson who are not white, such as Lucy Liu or Lupita Nyong'o. It didn't just have to be Scar Jo. And if indeed your crackpot theory about how Lucy symbolises the U.S. military is correct, than the movie is even mre delorable because she is portrayed as a really cool badass who is good and kills bad guys, thus supporting U.S. imperialism. Of course, you're wrong, so whatever.

And oh good, you've signed petitions. Your fingers must be so sore. You honestly made me laugh with that though, but some serious advice: Donate money. Do some physical labor. Donate time. Really contribute. March in a protest. Encourage others to do the same. That's the way to get things done around here. Of those 30 petitions that actually succeeded, none will actually have any impact on the law or reality. Because that's not how shit *works*.

The simple fact that NTC 3 basically assumed known = white encapsulates all my issues with that viewpoint.

I haven't seen the film so maybe my opinion won't count for much, but I have read about it a good bit. Here's my two cents, for what they are worth.

I don't think Lucy is trying to be intentionally racist. I think it definitely has unfortunate implications, but I think those are more the result of it being a "Luc Besson" film (although he's only writer/producer) rather than trying to demonize anyone. The reason I say this is because everything I've read about Lucy makes it seem as though it's trying to be the "new" Taken. An invincible protagonist who has been wronged in some major way and goes to town demolishing a crime syndicate and anyone who gets in their way? Yeah — that's Taken and Lucy to a T. Just replace Liam Neeson with Scarlett Johansson and corrupt French/Albanian gangsters/rich Middle-Eastern dudes with the Taiwanese mafia.

It's the same thing with a different coat of paint. I think Scarlett Johansson was chosen because as an actress, she's hot right now as an action star due to Black Widow and Besson wanted a female lead because that would make the blatant Taken ripoff less noticeable. Both Lucy Liu and Lupita Nyong'o seem to be more geared towards dramatic roles at the moment (although, in fairness, Lucy has done a ton of action work in Kill Bill and Charlie's Angels). Taiwan was chosen likely because it's distinct enough from France as a setting.

So it's definitely got racism. But I think it's more a result of going after what's proven profitable (Taken's formula and Scarlett Johansson's popularity as Widow) and laziness.

Red Hudsonicus, I don't think anyone is saying they set out to make a racist film, just that Lucy is a blatant example of complacency with regards to the status quo.

Well, Red Hudsonicus, not just laziness and profit, but also it it's a symptom of direct racism in of that Taiwan was chosen for its "exotic" atmosphere and the common "evil asian man" stereotype sort of thing. Racism affects stuff, dude.

See, I kind of got the feeling that the reason they picked Taiwan because it's exotic necessarily and more because it was different enough from France that it wouldn't read as being a blatant rip off of Taken. I mean there's definitely examples of where they just didn't care (like throwing up random characters on the walls instead of writing things that make sense). Same with the evil Asian trope — I just got the feeling that they didn't want to re-use anything too similar to Taken which already had Albanian gangsters, corrupt French cops, and rich Middle-Eastern men. So they chosen Taiwan because it was different enough to suit their purposes.

It's still racist, obviously, but I just think that the logic behind the choices was more along the lines of "We need something like Taken, but not TOO much or people will notice" rather than "wouldn't it be awesome to watch a white lady kill Asians!"

I imagine the illogical choice of Taiwan was because it's small and not an important market to them. Main point being that the almighty dollar was the source of racism here, not hatred of Asians. Doesn't mean the film isn't racist. But I think it'd be a mistake to ascribe malicious intent to something that was most likely the result of stupidity and laziness.

Red Hudsonicus, again, the only ones talking about the filmmakers being racists and having malicious intent are those defending the film. We've been saying the film is racist. Despite the knee-jerk reaction of the average person, you can, in fact say an action is racist without claiming that the person who did it is A racist.

I get that. But it seemed to me that a lot of the other commentators were ignoring what seemed to be a major contributor to the poor decisions the film producers made (at least in my opinion) — the fact that they were copying Taken and capitalizing on Scarlett Johansson's popularity as an action star. For example, people made suggestions for other actresses of different races to be the protagonist and while I agree that would definitely help to mitigate some of the racism present in the film, I think it ignores the reasons why they weren't considered in the first place. (Answer: Money) There's been a lot of clamor for a Black Widow movie and I think this was just an opportunistic cash grab.

Well, Terrie, I don't know about that. When someone knowingly does something that contributes to racial oppression, they're still in the wrong, and there is a label for that, and that label is racist. Now, there is are differences between someone who subscribes to Aryan News, a white girl using the word "nigga" and a white guy who blames his not getting into college on Affirmative Action. But, when they do such things, they're all contributing to racial oppression, and can be labelled as racists.

@Vienn8

Right — but consider that you can be racist without being malicious. And I think that's the case for the filmmakers. To use a (rather extreme) example, my great-grandparents held some rather anti-Semitic views. The usual BS about how Jews control the financial world/banking system, that they're greedy, etc. At the same time though, they risked their lives to hide a young Jewish girl from the Nazis and helped to smuggle her into Spain where they had a contact that could help her.

And while that's certainly a VERY different case from a movie, I'm using it as an example to illustrate why I'd hesitate to say the filmmakers necessarily hate Asians or are trying to oppress them and/or glorify white people. Did they make a racist film? Yes. But having racist elements in your film isn't the same thing as hating the people you're stereotyping. And I do think a distinction needs to made there. Saying that the filmmakers did this because they're racist isn't going to help remove such elements from future films, in my opinion.

I try to look at WHY they did this in the first place because I think understanding the reasoning behind it is the key to fighting it effectively.

So basically this film is Resident Evil 5 all over again?

I don't agree that a white person killing people of a certain nationality in their nation is necessarily racist. I would find it much more racist if Lucy only killed white people in Taiwan. I think I'll just subscribe to what Yahtzee said. I don't think they were being racist, just idiots (which, I mean, of course they were. They were definitely only using ten percent of their brains)

I've actually seen the film so to possibly clear things up or prevent Complaining About Shows You Don't Like I have unmarked spoilers bellow:

The film does begins in Taiwan. There's a plot point where Lucy becomes fluent in Chinese due to her new abilities, but could have been accomplished by the whole movie taking place in France or Europe where it later takes place, so it's still very possible that Taiwan was chosen for its "exotic" atmosphere, and thus racist.

I find the shooting of the cab driver to be a little too What the Hell, Hero? for the context of the movie myself. The movie tries to sell that Lucy had to rush to the hospital to get the McGuffin out of her chest, but why she didn't bother to learn something as important as "Hospital!" or "Doctor!" in Chinese despite living there as a student is questionable. In all it's a unnecessary move to make Lucy seem like a darker character. Finally as mentioned before it is insensitive to a marginalized group, racist if you will. The "Ow my leg" was a flimsy save to, the man was still critically injured.

Both white and Asian people sustain a similar body count in the movie, mostly because it later takes place in France. The mobsters from Taiwan were ineffective against Lucy but curiously had no trouble at all take out France's curiously modest law enforcement. In fact the sacrifice of French policemen and other white people in the film largely served to make the bad guys seem dangerous. Still there is an unfortunate implication where the Taiwanese are largely depicted as antagonists in the movie and there is not enough screen time of any well meaning ones, you only really see the mob depicted in the movie.

Like the Taiwanese cab driver Lucy also shows little disregard for the safety of the white French while driving through the streets of Paris, and through sidewalks, traffic signals etc.

The movie shows incompetent white people, in fact by and large most of the side characters in the film were shown to be less competent then the scientists and Lucy herself. Lucy starts out hysterical and in panic when she is first forced into her mule service with the mob. The incompetent Jerkass boyfriend that set her up to it is unceremoniously assassinated early in the movie by the mob to again show how dangerous they are. The French police in the later part of the movie are as earlier stated largely ineffective against the mobsters. The other mules end up being cannon fodder against the mob as well. Lucy only survives due to her new found powers in the movie, if it wasn't for them she would have likely been dead as the rest.

As for the rest of the movie, I found it kind of sloppy myself. And the racist bits only add to that sloppiness, I've been long dismayed at Hollywood's outdated attitudes towards this stuff. The fact that there couldn't be a Black Widdow movie instead is a testament to this, on the subject of woman leads that is. I'm tired of executives telling me what I do and do not like in my movies.

More spoilers:

I will also add that the mobsters in the movie appear to be working under a White European drug lord for some reason, who gets a total Karma Houdini because he is only one early scene in the movie, make of that what you will.

Ugh I meant Black Widow and there's other typos of course.

And I meant Complaining about Shows You Don't Watch

The scene was meant to show the beginning of Lucy's departure from our sense of morality, not as a "Really Cool Demonstration of the Strong Female Character." It's supposed to be unsettling and while you can take issue with it being racist or whatever that's not what it's about.

So, having thought it over since my original comments, I kinda do see what a lot of the racism complaints are about. I would probably write it off as simply poorly thought out of it wasn't for "shooting an Asian man for not speaking English" which is just so disgusting on multiple levels.

I think I was laying on my point really thick in my initial comment, which kind of bugs me. I repeated myself a lot, and I basically kept going "This is bad. This is bad. This is bad" over and over again, which is as close to someone I don't want to be as I can imagine. Lots of wasted space, condescending structure and stuff like that.

But I still think that this movie shouldn't have been set in Taiwan. And among the other stupid plot elements ("10% of your brain" and all that bullshit), shooting a Taiwanese cab driver, in Taiwan, for not knowing English - that is just the worst idea ever. It's time to retire "White/American hero conquers the barbaric and ruthlessly evil Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese crime syndicate single-handedly", because at the end of the day it's just going to be some American asshole punching stereotypes in the face and painting Asian people in a bad light.