Plot summary (story synopsis):
T-Man (Louis Koo) is an ex-cop turned bartender, forced to resign from the force for protecting his step-brother Chung (Shawn Yue). Chung is now a taxi driver. They cross paths with Yan (Tong Liya), a pretty young woman with a briefcase full of dirty money.
Yan is on the run from her ex-boyfriend George (Michael Tse), a crooked lawyer who unleashes a 5-man gang of ruthless Taiwanese killers on her. Yan, T-Man and Chung have to run for their lives, as they argue over what to do with the money.
***
Wild City is a rather low-key actioneer that manages to work. While there are the normal fights and chases, in the end it's the characters that stay in your mind.
Its rather meandering plot moves the three leads from place to place and succeeds in getting us to know them better. Through their arguments and interactions, the characters come alive. So despite what it looks like, Wild City is actually a character movie. At least it's the closest that a Hong Kong action movie can get.
Even the bad guys are more developed than in your standard Hong Kong cops and robbers flick. When one of the Taiwanese killers gets killed by a boat's propellers, there's an uncommon gravity to his death. Part of the reason is that writer/director Ringo Lam eases up on the melodrama, so the audience doesn't feel manipulated (though it's still a Hong Kong movie, so some melodrama is unavoidable).
Some scenes don't ring true. T-Man's ex boss camps out at the gun range with 10 other cops, waiting for T-Man to collect his gun (he arrived on the scene within a minute of T-Man being apprehended)? And sliding a gun to a bad guy is probably a criminal action.
There's also a confusingly unnecessary flashback to a scene that just happened, where the five killers attack the three heroes in a car park. Another gripe - the police seem to position themselves on opposite sides instead of at 90 degrees, so they are shooting past the bad guys at each other (but of course they never hit each other).
But Ringo Lam has done his work and had already made us voluntarily suspend our disbelief. So these imperfections aren't fatal flaws but do chip away at our enjoyment.
Missing is the thematic richness of Heat or Miami Vice, not to mention Michael Mann's attention to detail. But for a Hong Kong crime movie, this is good stuff.
2015-08-21
2015-08-20
Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)
Plot summary (story synopsis):
Katia (Hannah Ware) is looking for her long lost father (Ciaran Hinds). Genetically-engineered hitman Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is on her trail, under orders from Diana (Angelababy). John Smith (Zachary Quinto - Spock in the new Star Trek) saves her from Agent 47, but he isn't what he seems to be.
The cat-and-mouse game between Agent 47 and John Smith moves from Germany to Singapore, where Katia tracks down her father.
***
Hitman is a strangely cold-blooded action adventure. There's lots of gunplay, stunts, car crashes, and explosions. But you're left unmoved by all the sound and fury. John Wick this is not.
The plot has a few interesting twists but overall feels generic and contrived. Rupert Friend and Hannah Ware lack charisma. Zachary Quinto, looking like a young Peter Gallagher, definitely outshines them both. Unfortunately, he's in a supporting role. Rookie director Aleksander Bach (Hitman is his first credit) even manages to make Ciaran Hinds look unremarkable.
Based on a video game, Hitman doesn't come close to the slickness of Resident Evil. I'm not even sure that it's better than Battleship. There's a pervasive B-movie feel to everything - plot, acting, action. Unfortunately I can't put my finger on why.
I wish I could analyze it further but there's just not much there to analyze.
For Singaporeans, the novelty will be about watching a relatively major Hollywood action movie, being shot in Singapore. As you might expect, there are some incongruities that would bother locals but not anyone else. Why on Earth is Diana driving a car inside the Marina Barrage?
More disappointingly, Hitman uses cliched tourist spots such as Marina Bay and Gardens by the Bay, and only as exotic backdrop. Like the rest of the movie, Singapore comes across as generic. No local flavor or quirkiness comes across. Heck, there is barely any interaction with the local people. (I don't think Diana is supposed to be local. Angelababy is a mainland China/Hong Kong actress, who is obviously there only to draw in the mainland audience. Besides, she has a small role and just talks to Agent 47 over the phone.)
Katia (Hannah Ware) is looking for her long lost father (Ciaran Hinds). Genetically-engineered hitman Agent 47 (Rupert Friend) is on her trail, under orders from Diana (Angelababy). John Smith (Zachary Quinto - Spock in the new Star Trek) saves her from Agent 47, but he isn't what he seems to be.
The cat-and-mouse game between Agent 47 and John Smith moves from Germany to Singapore, where Katia tracks down her father.
***
Hitman is a strangely cold-blooded action adventure. There's lots of gunplay, stunts, car crashes, and explosions. But you're left unmoved by all the sound and fury. John Wick this is not.
The plot has a few interesting twists but overall feels generic and contrived. Rupert Friend and Hannah Ware lack charisma. Zachary Quinto, looking like a young Peter Gallagher, definitely outshines them both. Unfortunately, he's in a supporting role. Rookie director Aleksander Bach (Hitman is his first credit) even manages to make Ciaran Hinds look unremarkable.
Based on a video game, Hitman doesn't come close to the slickness of Resident Evil. I'm not even sure that it's better than Battleship. There's a pervasive B-movie feel to everything - plot, acting, action. Unfortunately I can't put my finger on why.
I wish I could analyze it further but there's just not much there to analyze.
For Singaporeans, the novelty will be about watching a relatively major Hollywood action movie, being shot in Singapore. As you might expect, there are some incongruities that would bother locals but not anyone else. Why on Earth is Diana driving a car inside the Marina Barrage?
More disappointingly, Hitman uses cliched tourist spots such as Marina Bay and Gardens by the Bay, and only as exotic backdrop. Like the rest of the movie, Singapore comes across as generic. No local flavor or quirkiness comes across. Heck, there is barely any interaction with the local people. (I don't think Diana is supposed to be local. Angelababy is a mainland China/Hong Kong actress, who is obviously there only to draw in the mainland audience. Besides, she has a small role and just talks to Agent 47 over the phone.)
2015-08-07
To the Fore (2015)
Plot summary (story synopsis):
Ming (Eddie Peng) and Tian (Shawn Dou) are rookie professional race cyclists. They join the Radiant team where Ji-won (Si Won Choi) is the lead racer. Ming and Tian fall for the same girl - fellow cyclist Shiyao (Wang Luodan). Shiyao chooses Ming but Ming is unfaithful to her and Tian steps in to pick up the slack. But Tian has problems of his own.
After various successes and defeats, Ming and Tian end up as rivals on different teams and suffer career setbacks. Finally, Ming and Tian team up again and race against Ji-won.
***
To the Fore is a crowd-pleaser. Following the Simpson-Bruckheimer blockbuster formula of action (racing) for the guys and romance for the girls, To the Fore delivers as a date movie. It is 70 percent hardcore cycling pseudo-documentary and 30 percent drama/love triangle.
Writer/director Dante Lam (with co-writers Silver Hau and Fung Lam) shows good judgment by starting off the movie with a quick series of exciting bicycle races, slowly easing in the relationship drama later on. The beautifully-filmed races grab our attention within the first few minutes and helps to establish the authenticity of the movie's world and its characters.
The races aren't just fancy camerawork either. The tactics, training and equipment are shown in detail, lending interest and believability to the proceedings. The race settings are stunning - mountain roads, desert, city streets, indoor and outdoor velodromes. This is the kind of movie you can rewatch in the background on your second PC monitor with the sound turned down low, while you work on your main monitor.
Even when the drama gets started, the scenes are kept short and are inserted in between even more bicycle races, so the movie never bogs down. An example of good storytelling judgment - there's a cute scene where Ming and Tian compete by balancing on bicycles without moving. They bet dinner over who falls first, then the movie cuts away to the next scene and doesn't bother to show who won. Quick and to the point - the point is their friendly but still real rivalry, not who won.
There's also some good-natured (not mean) slapstick humor, which works. The crowd in my theater was happily chuckling along.
I almost gave this movie a miss but was persuaded by the cycling scenes in the movie trailer. The trailer doesn't lie. The movie really does look this good. Given today's improved camera mounts, it actually looks better than director Peter Yates's (Bullitt) classic Breaking Away from 1979. To the Fore's script is more formulaic than Steve Tesich's quirky coming-of-age script for Breaking Away, but it still entertains.
Ming (Eddie Peng) and Tian (Shawn Dou) are rookie professional race cyclists. They join the Radiant team where Ji-won (Si Won Choi) is the lead racer. Ming and Tian fall for the same girl - fellow cyclist Shiyao (Wang Luodan). Shiyao chooses Ming but Ming is unfaithful to her and Tian steps in to pick up the slack. But Tian has problems of his own.
After various successes and defeats, Ming and Tian end up as rivals on different teams and suffer career setbacks. Finally, Ming and Tian team up again and race against Ji-won.
***
To the Fore is a crowd-pleaser. Following the Simpson-Bruckheimer blockbuster formula of action (racing) for the guys and romance for the girls, To the Fore delivers as a date movie. It is 70 percent hardcore cycling pseudo-documentary and 30 percent drama/love triangle.
Writer/director Dante Lam (with co-writers Silver Hau and Fung Lam) shows good judgment by starting off the movie with a quick series of exciting bicycle races, slowly easing in the relationship drama later on. The beautifully-filmed races grab our attention within the first few minutes and helps to establish the authenticity of the movie's world and its characters.
The races aren't just fancy camerawork either. The tactics, training and equipment are shown in detail, lending interest and believability to the proceedings. The race settings are stunning - mountain roads, desert, city streets, indoor and outdoor velodromes. This is the kind of movie you can rewatch in the background on your second PC monitor with the sound turned down low, while you work on your main monitor.
Even when the drama gets started, the scenes are kept short and are inserted in between even more bicycle races, so the movie never bogs down. An example of good storytelling judgment - there's a cute scene where Ming and Tian compete by balancing on bicycles without moving. They bet dinner over who falls first, then the movie cuts away to the next scene and doesn't bother to show who won. Quick and to the point - the point is their friendly but still real rivalry, not who won.
There's also some good-natured (not mean) slapstick humor, which works. The crowd in my theater was happily chuckling along.
I almost gave this movie a miss but was persuaded by the cycling scenes in the movie trailer. The trailer doesn't lie. The movie really does look this good. Given today's improved camera mounts, it actually looks better than director Peter Yates's (Bullitt) classic Breaking Away from 1979. To the Fore's script is more formulaic than Steve Tesich's quirky coming-of-age script for Breaking Away, but it still entertains.
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