The Touch (or, The Legend of the Heavenly Pulse) is a 2002 adventure movie directed by Peter Pau (action choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) produced by and starring Michelle Yeoh, also starring Richard Roxburgh and Ben Chaplin.
Yeoh is Pak Yin-fay, a Malaysian acrobat and martial artist from a family of adventurers who have sworn to protect sacred treasures from falling into wrong hands for generations. When the mission of escorting a sacred jewel from its original vault in a museum to its rightful resting place, an ancient cave in Tibet, falls into Yin-fay's hands, Yin-fay has to team up with her ex-boyfriend Eric (Chaplin) to complete the task while being pursued by ruthless rival archaeologist and treasure hunter Karl (Roxburgh).
The film contains example of:
- Action Girl: Pak Yin-fay, played by Michelle Yeoh.
- Affably Evil: Karl, who is charming, polite, suave, invites Yin-fay to dine with him, but would kidnap and threaten Yin-fay's brother and his girlfriend for the treasure and execute a failed henchman with a throwing knife.
- Booby Trap: The final battle is set in a cavern filled with traps, from collapsing platforms to arrow launchers and rising lava. Yin-fay and Eric ends up battling Karl and his minions while in the middle of multiple flaming arrow shooters.
- Cloth Fu: One of Yin-fay's early fight scenes has her beating up two of Karl's mooks with her long scarf and winning.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Downplayed, Yin-fay, Ben and several characters can swing and fight each other on platforms over a cavern rising with lava. While the entire cavern is undoubtly burning hot due to the lava, they are maybe ten meters above and perhaps aren't close enough to be affected by the heat.
- Dance Battler: Yin-fay, whose childhood introduction early in the film depicts her as a ballet dancer at a young age, and as an adult incorporates plenty of dance moves during her fights.
- Groin Attack: Eric's first fight with Karl have him kicking Karl in the nuts.
- Human Pincushion: In the final battle, several mooks ends up getting accidentally nailed by multiple flaming arrows in the cavern battle before falling into the lava-filled cavern. Including Karl the Big Bad.
- Instant Knots: The method used by Eric and Yin-fay to exit the cavern in the end after the final battle, by using their ropes to grab existing ropes hanging from the cavern roof which somehow creates instant, tightly-secured knots allowing them to climb upwards to their escape.
- Scarf of Asskicking: Yin-fay wears one of these which helps her tie up and subdue enemy mooks, which she dons in many of her fights. Although by the time the climax happens she already discarded it.
- Scenery Porn: Much of the second act is filmed in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang
near Tibet, with plenty of lingering shots of the murals, surrounding scenery, the hills and plains . - Shout-Out: To the Indiana Jones movies, from Yin-fay sporting a near-identical long-sleeved outfit, to using whips as her preferred weapon, her being from an entire family of Adventurer Archaeologist badasses and having a montage of a map depicting her journeys.
