High on adventure

A SPIRITUAL relic from Tibet. A family of Chinese acrobats. An evil villain from the West. Mix these factors together in a movie and you get The Touch, an exhilarating adventure that traverses the Chinese provinces from east to west.

The Touch is the only big Hong Kong blockbuster in cinemas this summer and stars action queen Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng, Birthday Girl leading man Ben Chaplin, Moulin Rouge actor Richard Roxburgh and newcomer Brandon Chang. The film is directed by Peter Pau Tak-hei who won an Oscar for his stunning cinematography in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Yeoh and Chang play the last in a line of acrobats who are entrusted with the skills to enable them to retrieve a holy relic when the time comes. And the time comes when the villainous Karl keeps popping up in pursuit of the treasure.

For the actors concerned, making the film was every bit as exciting as the script itself.

Director Pau was constantly concerned about the safety of his crew during the two weeks they spent filming in Tibet. At more than 3,000 metres above sea level, there was a very real danger of altitude sickness.

'It was a huge weight on my shoulders. My biggest worry was that when the sun came up, I would have lost a few men in my crew; that they would have just gone to sleep and not been able to get up again,' he said.