Plot summary (story synopsis): Chinese pilots from the elite Sky Hunter air base must rescue Chinese military and civilians who are taken hostage by terrorists in the (fictional) central European republic of Mahbu.
***
So is Sky Hunter more Top Gun or Iron Eagle? Well, it's both but that's not the problem. The problem is that there is no character development or character arc, and the military tactics are nonsensical.
It looks like the filmmakers wanted to have an action movie glorifying the Chinese air force but didn't want the complexity of filming a full scale war. So they chose a terrorist takeover of an air base. The problem is that jet fighters don't have much to do with rescuing hostages in such a situation, it's more about special forces infantry.
So the plot gets twisted to highlight the air force instead of the soldiers. For example, in order to have an "exciting" showdown between the terrorist leader and Wu Di, the terrorist leader is made to be an ace pilot. Come on guys, what the hell? The terrorists also take control of an ICBM silo (yes, little Mahbu has ICBMs) so that Wu Di can bomb the hell out of it.
Sure, Top Gun was a recruitment poster for the US Navy but Tony Scott still put the story before anything else. And Top Gun really was about the fighter pilot school. Sky Hunter has some training scenes but these are not core to the story and act more as filler.
Character arc? There are none. There's some half hearted attempt at a love triangle between fighter pilot Wu Di (Chen Li) and rescue helicopter pilot Zhao Yali (the gorgeous Fan Bing Bing), and either fighter pilots Gao Yuan (Leon Lee) or Ba Tu (Guo Mingyu). I was confused.
Now for a list of the movie's military sins (warning - I'm a military nut/armchair general):
American 4 engined propeller plane thinks it can outfly Chinese jet fighters?
Rescue helicopter pilot has to exit the helicopter to rescue people? There should be dedicated crew for that.
Why initially send 2 jet fighters without any special forces or rescue helicopter?
Then for the second attempt, okay, you have special forces and a rescue helicopter. But why send only 2 fighters and 1 helicopter?
Jet fighters need air-to-air refueling but helicopter doesn't? Jet fighters way outrange any helicopter.
Sky Hunter base happens to be within helicopter range of the air base under attack?
Wu Di uses his jet fighter to strafe a terrorist machine gunner. How does he know the machine gunner is not a friendly? Aircraft, especially fast moving jet fighters, are notoriously blind to what is going on on the ground and need to be directed by friendlies on the ground or a slow moving Forward Air Controller aircraft.
A jet fighter is hunting the rescue helicopter at night. Why not land the helicopter to hide?
It is ridiculous to have two jet fighters flying head on at each other and firing their cannon. Their closing speed is so high that they will be within cannon range for less than a second.
If you have a crippled aircraft coming in to land, you don't block the runway with fire engines.
P.S. Soundtrack is produced by Hans Zimmer whatever that means, but was written by someone else. The final result does not impress.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Master thief Zhang Dan (Andy Lau) is released from a French prison after serving a 5-year sentence. Pierre (Jean Reno), the French cop who put Zhang Dan away, keeps an eye on him, confident that he will be back to his thieving ways. Zhang Dan teams up with his loyal sidekick/young hunk Xiao Po (Tony Yang), together with new recruit Red Ye (Shu Qi), to go after some unfinished jewellery business. Pierre persuades Zhang Dan's former fiancee Amber (Zhang Jing Chu) to help him locate Zhang Dan.
***
The problem with The Adventurers is that it had no story reason to exist. It's as if some producer said, Let's make an action movie with Andy Lau and Shu Qi. And the writers just filled up the run time with Mission Impossible cliches and tropes.
There's no overall organizing principle behind the story, just random bits of action, unconvincing character backstory, fake camaraderie, and characters double-crossing each other for the sake of cheap plot twists. This has been a problem with Hong Kong and mainland China movies, for decades.
The romance between Zhang Dan and Amber is not convincing (no matter how prettily and pensively Zhang Jing Chu pouts). This is made worse by how Shu Qi, cast in the role of comedic sidekick (together with Tony Yang), totally steals the show away from Zhang Jing Chu. Red Ye's role was custom written to fit Shu Qi's perky personality, making her more the female lead than Zhang Jing Chu, which unbalances the characters' dynamic.
Poor Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation, Crazy/Beautiful, Act of Valor, Need for Speed), was even pulled down to director Stephen Fung's level - I'm guessing forced by Stephen Fung to move his camera for no reason. A jib move when the characters are just sitting around and talking? Maybe 8 different camera angles when Pierre is talking to Zhang Dan in the police interrogation room - for what? It's a really bad performance for someone of Hurlbut's caliber. I don't think he will be putting The Adventurers in his showreel.
At least Jean Reno emerges with his dignity intact, but barely.
What else is wrong? Let me count the ways:
Pierre desperately wants to catch Zhang Dan because, of all things, Zhang Dan saved Pierre's life.
Pierre unilaterally releases Zhang Dan from police custody, near the end, and suffers no penalty for doing so. Especially when Zhang Dan doesn't come back after tracking down the other bad guys.
Bomb complication at the end is copied from Magnum Force.
French cops speak English to each other. That might be ok if the whole movie was in English, but the Chinese speak Mandarin to each other.
Pierre is confident of not killing Zhang Dan, only wounding him, while shooting at a motorcycle-borne Zhang Dan from a speeding car. Nobody is that good.
Rich Chinese guy in the Czech Republic, has a force of paramilitary guards with submachine guns.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Hong Kong policeman Cheung (Andy Lau) worked undercover and put away some of the members of a bank robbery gang. Bank robber Hung (Jiang Wu) managed to escape but his brother ended up in jail. A few years later, Hung returns to Hong Kong with a band of mercenaries. He takes control of one of Hong Kong's undersea traffic tunnels, together with hundreds of trapped motorists as hostages, and threatens to blow up the tunnel unless his brother is released and ransom is paid.
***
Shock Wave is an above-average Hong Kong action thriller. Too many Hong Kong movies have cliched and unbelievable plots, and unnatural forced character development.
Some thought has gone into each of Shock Wave's many action sequences, so it's not just bland by-the-numbers action tropes. There are interesting details. Pacing and editing are especially good, almost Roland Emmerich slick. The scenes don't feel too drawn out or full of filler.
The first third or so of the movie establishes the characters and their backgrounds, before the long tunnel siege starts. We see Cheung fall in love with Carmen (Song Jia), and defuse an old war bomb. Hung also toys with Cheung with a small bomb.
The whole tunnel setting (I'm guessing they used a real location) looks large and feels authentic, giving the movie a blockbuster feel (on a US$23 million budget). But the siege itself isn't 100 percent believable. If you're the mastermind, you don't need to place yourself in danger, in the middle of the siege. You can run the operation remotely. Anyway, it is believable enough.
The movie was made with the cooperation of Hong Kong's bomb squad, so the technicalities are detailed and convincing. For example, Cheung drills into the fuse of the old war bomb and neutralizes it with some liquid chemical (could be made up but it looks real). Cheung declines to wear a bomb suit for this operation as the bomb is so large that a bomb suit wouldn't offer any protection - nicely foreshadowing the power and danger of the bombs in the tunnel.
However some liberties were taken for dramatic purposes (splitting the explosives into two bombs reduces the blast damage to the tunnel, it doesn't increase the damage) but most viewers won't notice. Carmen and the grenade? You could wrap tape around the grenade's spoon (lever) without wrapping it round her hand, allowing her to safely drop the grenade.
Less convincing but still effective is Hung's relationship with Carmen. Their breakup in the kitchen seems to come out of nowhere. However the two characters are well established and believable, lending emotional weight when Cheung is in danger.
Overall, the movie works. Pacing is good, characters are sympathetic, plot is mainly believable. Too few Hong Kong movies pass this bar.
Side note: Cheung uses a Leatherman OHT multitool a few times, not the Leatherman EOD MUT which is designed for bomb squad use.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Young Wu Xie (pretty boy Lu Han) comes from a family of treasure hunters. However his Third Uncle is reluctant to let him join their dangerous missions. On their next mission to raid the tomb of the Snake Empress (Mallika Sherawai), Third Uncle finally allows him to follow. They are joined by the mysterious and super skilled Zhang Kylin (Boran Jing). Once in the treasure tomb, they are attacked by mercenaries led by the pretty but deadly Ning A (Ma Sichun), who are employed by the eccentric Hendrix (Vanni Corbellini) who is looking for the fountain of youth.
***
Time Raiders is a copy of The Mummy and of course Tomb Raider. Which were themselves inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark. Less auspiciously, Time Raiders also resembles Michelle Yeo's 2002 flop The Touch.
It might be entertaining to younger audiences but for the rest of us, we've seen it before. The story is derivative and has no new ideas. Its slow pacing doesn't help matters either. The first half hour of buildup is unnecessary and doesn't help much with character development.
Things seem to improve when they finally reach the Snake Empress's tomb. Unfortunately, after a fun shootout with the mercenaries, the pacing bogs down again. The evil puppet room scene is fun but too long. As is the Mummy-derivative flesh-eating spiders sequence.
Running a gauntlet of murder machines? Come on guys, can't you do anything original? They even copied the mapping drones and 3D video map from Prometheus.
The final showdown with the Snake Empress? Too long and drawn out. So yeah, the movie is a slow theme park ride of booby traps and killer bad guys, with not much story. The male-bonding between Wu Xie and Zhang Kylin feels forced and is unconvincing.
The Mummy had fun characters, and good pacing. It was also funny. Director Daniel Lee and writer Uncle Three have no clue as to what made The Mummy so much fun.
On the plus side, the visuals are good. The many mechanical gadgets are intriguing. The lighting is beautiful but also distracting. All the underground rooms in the tomb have pretty light shooting in from windows. So where is the light coming from?
In the end, Time Raiders is an excuse for special effects eye candy, with a flimsy plot and cardboard characters tacked on as an excuse to justify the action. What a disappointment.
Plot summary (story synopsis): A large sea monster suddenly attacks Tokyo. The Japanese government's bureaucracy swings into action to deal with the unprecedented threat.
***
I had high hopes for this movie. We've seen what the Americans do with Godzilla. Now let's see the Japanese, the guys who created Godzilla, do it right. Will they go all philosophical and meta? Or all cheesy fun? The answer is, neither.
Godzilla Resurgence is one helluva mess. Most of the movie is about bureaucratic wrangling inside the Japanese government. We are treated to endless meetings and dozens of government officials. Yup, it's all about the bureaucrats. Not the military, not some plucky civilian. No cute kids or dogs either. Bureaucrats. And the pacing and sensibility feels distinctly 1970s.
SPOILERS WARNING
I usually try to avoid going too much into plot details, preferring to look at movies from a higher level of abstraction. But there's nothing much to analyze here except for the plot.
Of course, there's a mad scientist subplot, but it doesn't really develop into anything much. Except origami molecular biology and a plan to coagulate Godzilla's blood with thousands of gallons of chemicals.
There's also another subplot with a half-Japanese American lady diplomat (who can barely speak English) which made no sense to me so I won't try to explain it.
It is only after about an hour that the action really starts, with the Japanese military blasting away with helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery. All to no effect, of course. I mean, a tank's armor-piercing round can penetrate over a meter of steel so of course it can't harm anything organic, right?
After the brief battle, it's back to the bureaucrats. The American military also gets into the act and bombs Godzilla using B2 stealth bombers. But surprise! Godzilla has built-in phased-array radar that can detect stealth aircraft and shoots down a B2 with its laser. Oh, and he shoots down the Prime Minister's helicopter too, killing him.
Godzilla then goes into hibernation right in the middle of Tokyo, for a couple of days. He's a sitting duck. Hit him again. But nope, everyone is so freaked out that all they can think of now is nukes.
The UN Security Council passes a resolution to nuke Godzilla with a US-led coalition of countries. But the gutsy Japanese manage to outsmart the stupid, evil Americans. They use cement pump trucks to pump the blood coagulant into Godzilla's mouth, causing him to turn into stone.
Don't judge me but my favorite Godzilla is still the Roland Emmerich version.
Plot summary (story synopsis): China, 1914. The Chinese army has withdrawn from Pucheng village to chase after troublesome warlord Cao Ying, leaving the town's sheriff Yang Kenan (Lau Ching Wan) and his men to defend the village. The warlord's murderous sociopathic son Cao Shaolun (Louis Koo) rides alone into town and kills a few people for fun. Sheriff Yang arrests him and after a quick trial, Shaulun is scheduled for execution the next day. However the warlord's colonel, Zhang Yi (Wu Jing), appears and warns that the entire town will be slaughtered if they harm Shaolun. Observing all this and trying to stay neutral, is wandering martial arts expert Ma Feng (Eddie Peng).
***
Call of Heroes is a Chinese cowboy movie. It's a mix of High Noon (principled sheriff betrayed by the cowardly town folk that he protects) and Shane (gun slinging reluctant-hero drifter rides into town).
There is some melodrama, but also some surprisingly effective drama and character development. Performances by the leads are good, with Eddie Peng coming across effectively like a laconic Hugh Jackman. Louis Koo is fun to watch as the manipulative batshit crazy Shaolun. Lau Ching Wan is believable as the brave and honorable sheriff. Most impressive of all is Wu Jing as the confident colonel Zhang Yi. That guy has presence.
Fight choreography by Sammo Hung is good. Stylish but realistic. The only wire work seems to be when people are kicked and go flying. The fight on a small hill of wine casks is spectacular and a good example of acrobatic kung fu.
The village set is lavish and looks real. The $32 million budget is small by Hollywood standards but this is no small movie. It's no blockbuster but it's no budget indie either.
There are some false notes. The subplot about the mercenaries seems superfluous, and some plot points aren't believable. Why don't the villagers just run away?
Ultimately, it's an entertaining but forgettable movie. We've seen it before. It doesn't break any new ground or have any original ideas. It should do good box office but I doubt anyone will remember it in twenty years. It's no Chinese Ghost Story (1987) or Swordsman (1990).
Plot summary (story synopsis): Egyptian god Osiris (Bryan Brown - F/X, Cocktail) hands over the throne to his son Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones). However Osiris's brother Set (Gerard Butler - 300) kills Osiris and seizes the throne, blinding Horus in the process and sending Horus off into exile. Petty thief Bek (Brenton Thwaites - Maleficent) steals back one of Horus's eyes from Set, restoring some of Horus's powers. Horus promises to bring Zaya (Courtney Eaton - Mad Max Fury Road) back from the dead in exchange. God and mortal team up to defeat Set.
***
Gods of Egypt is an entertaining movie. With Alex Proyas (Dark City, I Robot, The Crow, Knowing) directing, it does not disappoint. It's definitely a commercial movie, more I Robot than Dark City. In any case, Alex Proyas's storytelling still works. Yes, I'm an Alex Proyas fan.
(Script is by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, both of whom worked on Dracula Untold and The Last Witch Hunter. The mythology in both of those movies was decent, but the characters didn't really work. So I'm seeing Alex Proyas's fingerprints all over God of Egypt.)
Gods of Egypt is a strange mix of Thor (young prince's character is tested), Whatever Dreams May Come (trying to save a dead loved one from the underworld) and Clash/Wrath of the Titans. It ends up with the good-natured, family-friendly, action-adventure/comedy vibe of The Scorpion King.
It's definitely better than Percy Jones, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Clash/Wrath of the Titan's, the Conan remake, John Carter, etc. There's a certain spark, a sense of fun, a love of fake mythology, in Gods of Egypt that is missing in too many by-the-numbers Hollywood Fantasy movies.
The movie is a fast-paced visual treat with engaging characters. The $140 million budget is all up on the screen. The coronation scene at the start brings back memories of Hollywood's "cast of thousands" spectaculars from decades ago. Undoubtedly with the crowd size enhanced with computer trickey, but impressive to look at nonetheless.
The flying gods are a bit jerky, looking like a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion tribute. The giant battle snakes (seen in a trailer) and other creatures are much better. And the rest of the special effects and sets, work very well.
Lighting by Peter Menzies Jr. (Hard Rain, The 13th Warrior, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) is suitably epic and pretty.
The cast and the characters work too. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau comes across as a refined Snake Plissken. While Brenton Thwaites is effective as the brash comic sidekick, like Matthew Broderick in Ladyhawke. Gerard Butler is a bit out of place, with his Set having a Scottish accent (the rest of the cast have English accents, hmmm, wait a minute, this might be on purpose). But my main complaint is that the doe-eyed Courtney Eaton doesn't get enough screen time.
Plot summary (story synopsis): It is China during the Tang Dynasty. Young assassin Yinniang (Shu Qi) doesn't have the heart to kill a target in front of his son. To teach her a lesson, she is sent back to her home province of Weibo to assassinate her cousin Tian Ji'an (Chen Chang) who is now the Lord of Weibo. Tian Ji-an's court is already in turmoil. There is disagreement over how to handle their relationship with the distant Tang Dynasty. There is also some political intrigue within the court.
***
The Assassin is an arthouse movie. Don't expect anything like Hero or House of Flying Daggers. It won the Best Director prize at Cannes for director Hsiao-hsien Hou.
There's lots of show-don't-tell, so the pace will be slow for some audiences. Fights are few, fast, short, and realistic. Shu Qi isn't made into some kind of superhero, just a skilled fighter.
There are long takes and few close-ups. Many scenes are shot with a single wide-angle take. This is Kurosawa style.
Standard editing advice is to enter the scene late and get out early. Keep scenes short, don't bore the audience. The Assassin does the opposite. Combined with the wide-angle long takes, this gives an effective voyeuristic feel to the movie. You feel like an observer watching from a distance, not some omniscient god floating everywhere like in conventional movies with their close-ups, quick cuts and dolly moves.
The director's voyeuristic intention is confirmed in some indoor scenes. The camera is positioned behind thin veil-like curtains, so the audience feels like they are hiding from the people in the scene.
So this movie is not for everyone. There are reports of some audience members walking out during the screenings at Cannes and at the Toronto International Film Festival.
While the unconventional camerawork is effective to a certain extent, it's also distracting. We are used to today's camerawork and done well, it is invisible to the audience. The Assassin's minimalist camerawork calls attention to itself, throwing the audience out of the movie.
There is high contrast in some scenes - bits of sunlight in a dim interior. This would be considered a mistake in an amateur movie.
Another quirk: the movie is shot in 4:3 aspect ratio, the old PAL and NTSC analog TV format. The decision to not use 16:9, 2.4:1 or some other widescreen format is especially perverse considering the gorgeous scenery in some of the shots.
Perennially youthful Shu Qi plays the twenty-something Yinniang well. But we don't see much of Shu Qi. She's on screen maybe 25% to 50% of the time, and usually not in close-up.
The plot is interesting enough but there are too many characters and the various subplots are difficult to follow (who is the lady who tried to hide her pregnancy? I had to look her up after I watched the movie). The thing with the lady in the gold mask? Very Pink Pantherish - Clouseau versus Cato.
The Assassin gets an A for effort but overall it could have been better.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) and his pals have been rescued from the glade/maze by men in helicopters, led by Janson (Aidan Gillen - Little Finger in Game of Thrones). They are taken to Janson's headquarters with promises of a better life. But Thomas discovers a sinister secret about Janson. He and his friends break out into a hostile world where they face scorching heat and zombies, with Janson hot on their trail.
***
Scorch Trials is the second movie in the Maze Runner series. It's a repetitive mix of people running and getting into gunfights. There are maybe 5 separate incidents such as this.
We've seen it before. Zombies (three percent of the movies released in the past decade), ruthless scientists experimenting on an immune hero to find a cure for an epidemic (Resident Evil), a collapsed skyscraper leaning over (Transformers, Cloverfield), teenagers being drugged to stop them from their quest (Labyrinth), people crawling in air ducts (twelve percent of all thrillers), teens sleeping together in barracks (Divergent, Kingsman), a captive population being fooled that they will be chosen to go to a better place (The Island).
But the fundamental problem with the Maze Runner series is that we don't care about the characters. There are too many secondary characters. So much so that we don't care if any of them get killed.
There is no sense of danger or urgency. But it's not just the supporting cast. We don't even care about Thomas. We know that he's the hero and therefore in no physical danger. The Hunger Games gets around this problem by putting Katniss in psychological danger. There is no equivalent for Thomas.
Its basic scenario also sucks. Like Resident Evil, the movie naively assumes that the ruined and depopulated world can maintain its fancy equipment - helicopters, computers, medical equipment, long distance video links.
The time and resources poured into building the massive movable maze. All for what? How does that help them find a cure for the virus?
This lack of realism extends to the details of the plot. Instead of creatively extrapolating a believable plot from its basic premise (no matter how dumb it might be), action cliches are dreamed up and a plot is made to accommodate the cliches.
The pacing is fast though. There's never a dull moment. If only we had something worth cheering for.
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.
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.)
Plot summary (story synopsis): It is early 20th century China. A time when primitive motorcars and guns coexist with kung fu. Apprentice monk He Anxia's (Baoqiang Wang) mountain monastery falls upon hard times and is unable to support so many monks. He is asked to leave and fend for himself in the big city. Luckily for him, the sheltered and innocent Anxia ends up as assistant to kindly doctor Cui Daoning (Fan Wei). However his happy new life doesn't last long. The doctor's wife Yuzhen (Lin Chiling) is having an affair with his brother Daorong (Vanness Wu). Daorong poisons the doctor and Anxia kills the two illicit lovers to avenge his master. He then apprentices himself to kung fu master Zhou Xiyu (Aaron Kwok) who is an enemy of the evil father-son team of Peng Qianwu (Yuen Wah) and Qizi (Jaycee Chan, Jackie's son). Qizi shoots and kills Zhou. Anxia now finds himself paired with Zhou's old friend Boss Zha (Chang Chen) against Peng, Qizi and a mobster (Lam Suet).
***
I'll have to admit that I haven't seen many Chen Kaige movies, but Monk seems rather crude story-wise for a director of his reputation.
Monk is an odd kung fu movie that against all odds, ends up working. It seems haphazard at first, Anxia getting a new master every 30 minutes. But the characters and individual stories work, probably thanks to Xu Haofeng’s source novel. At the end of the movie it's all nicely summed up - Anxia needed to experience human follies in order to become a better monk. So it's not about the plot, but the richness and bitterness of human experience.
The beautiful period sets (especially the doctor's house) and generally good acting help to support the movie.
Baoqiang's Anxia is an unrelatable simpleton with an annoying laugh. But Aaron Kwok and Chang Chen are convincing and sympathetic as serious, mature kung fu masters. Aaron Kwok is detached and enlightened, Chang Chen is passionate and vengeful. As a bonus, Lin Chiling looks absolutely stunning as the doctor's wife. Yuen Wah and Jaycee Chan are deliciously hateful.
Cinematography by Geoffrey Simpson is unremarkable. The fights are many, as is the wirework for the flying kung fu. I'm not a fan of wire fu but in certain cases such as in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon it works as a Fantasy element. It kind of works here. The problem with flying kung fu is that it is so removed from real fighting, that it's closer to dancing than martial arts. So it's all fluff, with no meaning or reality behind each move, nothing you can sink your teeth into.
Speaking of Crouching Tiger, Monk seems to be consciously trying to create a similar epic mythology. It fails because come on, Crouching Tiger is a unique one-off masterpiece. Monk succeeds as decent entertainment, and that's not too shabby.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Undercover Hong Kong cop Kit (Jacky Wu Jing) has his cover blown and is illegally held at a Thai prison in retribution. The prison is run by crooked warden Ko (Max Zhang Jin) who is beholden to bad guy Hung (Louis Koo). Coincidentally, honest prison guard Chai (Tony Jaa) has a sick daughter Sa (Unda Kunteera Thordchanng) whose only hope is a bone marrow transplant from Kit. Chai tries and fails to contact Kit, not realizing that Kit is right under his nose. Hung has a weak heart and his only possible donor is his own brother Bill (Jun Hung). Hung kidnaps Bill to forcibly get a heart transplant. Meanwhile, Kit briefly manages to telephone his uncle and fellow cop Wah (Simon Yam). Wah goes alone to Thailand to rescue Kit.
***
SPL 2 is your stereotypical melodramatic Hong Kong kung fu movie. Its plot is more complicated than normal but its melodrama is standard Hong Kong industrial strength.
Thankfully, the fight choreography by Li Chung-Chi is excellent and saves the movie. The fights are in classic Hong Kong style - way drawn out. But this is one of the rare movies where the long action sequences don't become boring. The fights are also never repetitive. There's speed and skill to the moves, not just simple punches and blocks. Tony Jaa fans will be pleased to see him fight more in SPL 2 than he did in Dolph Lundgren's Skin Trade.
And it's not just hand-to-hand. There's also a thrilling shootout at Hong Kong's cruise terminal. It takes some imagination to work out an exciting shootout scene and Li Chung-Chi manages to do it. Movie gunfights are as common as car chases so you can't just have some perfunctory bang bang action and expect to impress the audience. Another standout action scene is a large-scale prison riot, where it's not just the stars but also the dozens of extras that are fighting their hearts out.
However my favorite is a smaller scale duel between Kit and a nameless assassin (Zhang Chi) who is a knife expert. (An earlier scene where nameless assassin takes out a staircase full of cops is also excellent). Kit uses a tonfa (one of my favorite weapons, and one that is too rarely seen on screen) against the nameless assassin, but unfortunately only in reverse grip and like a club. Okay, maybe reverse grip makes sense against a knife because you want to increase your reach, but at least use the handle fork for some blocks or hooks.
Less forgivably, after dispatching the nameless assassin, he leaves his tonfa on the floor and goes on to fight the other bad guys. Not only are we deprived of more tonfa action, why would he leave such an effective weapon behind and proceed bare-handed? This is a symptom of the pervasive lack of smoothness in the storytelling.
The coincidence of Kit landing in a jail where the guard's daughter just happens to need his bone marrow transplant, is laughable. And not just the coincidence. Why would Kit even have himself tested to be a donor, especially when he is a drug-addict undercover cop?
And of course, the biggest kung fu movie trope of all - why so many skilled kung fu fighters? Especially Chai. He's just a prison guard. The movie doesn't even try to justify this.
So it's another wasted opportunity. With a more believable plot, SPL 2 could have been a great action movie. Instead, what we have is a bunch of cool fight scenes that are emotionally empty, because we don't really care for the characters, because we know that we are being manipulated by the movie and therefore refuse to suspend our disbelief. You want to do melodrama? Do it like John Wick. Keep it simple.
PS Another plus is the Thailand locations, which look beautifully gritty and authentic, especially the prison.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney - A Good Day to Die Hard) is sent back to 1984 by resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) to save John's mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke - Daenerys in Game of Thrones) from a T-800 Terminator. Kyle arrives in 1984 and finds that it is not the 1984 that John told him to expect. Sarah knows that he is coming, and has an aging T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that she calls Pops, protecting her. The three of them have to fight off a T-1000 liquid metal Terminator (Byung-hun Lee) but that's just the start of their problems.
***
It's instructive to compare Genisys (T5) with Jurassic World (JP4). Both are blockbuster sequels, with a good number of years since the last movie in the franchise. TLDR version - Genisys is the better sequel.
Jurassic World succeeded by evoking the nostalgia of the first movie. There were references to the first movie (the cartoon DNA character, the motorized binocular helmets, the field of flocking dinosaurs) as well as franchise-specific tropes (such as a dinosaur trying to eat people in a car, the T-Rex saving the day). Adding to the nostalgia was the fact that 14 years had passed since the last Jurassic Park movie (JP3).
Unfortunately there was little continuity with the characters. The main or only repeat was a minor character - chief scientist Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong). Even worse, the plot was a repeat. Perhaps there's only so much that you can do with a franchise about a dinosaur theme park. Jurassic Park's storytelling DNA is an evolutionary dead end. Jurassic World is a fun movie, a heckuva ride, but not much more. I'm guessing that it was the nostalgia factor that pushed Jurassic World's box office gross to over $1 billion.
In contrast, Genisys ticks off all the items on the sequel checklist, and then some.
On the nostalgia front, the last Terminator movie (T4 - the awful Terminator Salvation) was 6 years ago but Arnold wasn't really in it. For a real Arnold Terminator movie, you have to go back 12 years to T3 (Rise of the Machines), close to the 14 years between JP3 and Jurassic World. If you want to look at the first movie in the franchise, JP1 was 22 years ago, T1 was 31 years ago. So going in, Genisys has a slight edge in nostalgia.
But wait, there's more. Like Back to the Future II, in Genisys we get to see some events of the first movie, but from an alternate viewpoint. (In Back to the Future II, the events are the same. In Genisys, the events are slightly altered.) So that ups Genisys's nostalgia factor.
Add to that Schwarzenegger providing a sense of continuity that Jurassic World lacked (as mentioned earlier, only BD Wong), and it's easily hello $1 billion dollars too.
Schwarzenegger plays the aging Terminator with slightly more expressiveness and humanity, than in the previous movies. For example when an exasperated Sarah tells him to "bite me," he doesn't take it literally. He understands that it is a figure of speech and chides her for being immature.
It makes sense because in the Genisys timeline, the Terminator has been protecting Sarah since she was 9 years-old, giving her years to humanize him (compared to John having days in T2 and T3). Adding to the emotional punch is our realization that Schwarzenegger now really is that old. It's like watching Stallone grow old in the Rocky series, Bruce Willis in the Die Hard series.
Thematically, the Terminator movies are richer than the Jurassic Parks. T1, the first movie asked, Can the future be changed? T2, the second movie said, Yes it can. The third movie said, You can change some things but other things - such as Judgment Day - are inevitable. T5, Genisys says, You can change things, and it's even possible for one person to remember two different timelines.
T4, the fourth movie? It didn't say anything except that John doesn't grow up to be a great military leader. He becomes a selfish, arrogant glory-hound. It's a horrible aberration that Genisys has thankfully ignored. Genisys treats T3 with more reverence. The ICBM launches of Judgment Day, the scene of the future John making a speech to his soldiers, look the same in Genisys as they did in T3. The scars on John's face? That's from T3.
There's even something for fans of the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV
series. The scene where a naked Kyle and Sarah appear at night in the
middle of a busy highway, is an obvious nod to it.
But it is with T2 that Genisys's heart really lies. The details of the liquid metal T-1000 are lovingly recreated (the bullet hole through the eye, the blob dropping off and then being reabsorbed, the transformation of arms into metal spikes, walking out unscathed from a fire, hiding as part of a room).
In Genisys, Sarah's relationship with the Terminator is a mirror image of John's relationship with the Terminator in T2. Genisys has an interesting development of Sarah and Kyle's relationship. They are realistically awkward about their predestined fate as the parents of John (and like in T3 with John and Kate, the Terminator makes funny boneheaded remarks about it), even though they have just met. But Sarah's father-daughter relationship with the Terminator is the emotional core of Genisys.
In terms of character development, T1 was about Sarah coming to terms with the unbelievable idea that her unborn son was going to be the savior of the human race. T2 had the most interesting extrapolation - the pressure turns Sarah into a psycho bitch, and John realizes that his mother wasn't totally crazy after all. T3 was about John refusing his destiny because the path to his heroic destiny was paved with billions of dead bodies. T5 doesn't have as strong a take on Sarah or Kyle's character but does show Sarah as accepting her fate, and convincing Kyle to accept his.
Plot-wise, there's enough going on in Genisys to keep you interested. You can't always guess what is going to happen next. After T1, copycat time travel movies explored all kinds of scenarios and paradoxes, until time travel became a cliche. Genisys still manages to keep it fresh (even if it means stealing from 12 Monkeys).
So in this box-office battle of the blockbuster sequels, of dinosaurs versus Terminators, I see it as special effects versus storytelling. Sure, there are special effects in Genisys too, but they are there to support the story. In Jurassic World, the special effects - the dinosaurs - are the main attraction.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Mad Max (Tom Hardy) is kidnapped by Immortan Joe's (Hugh Keays-Byrne) band of crazy war boys. He is taken back to their rock fortress in the middle of the desert and used as a living blood bag to provide nourishment to their warriors.
Immortan Joe's trusted lieutenant Furiosa (Charlize Theron) leads a routine raid to steal petrol but has other plans. Hidden in her empty tanker are Immortan Joe's slave wives. Furiosa plans to save them, and their unborn children from becoming Immortan Joe's future war boys.
Immortan Joe goes all out to catch Furiosa, leading the chase vehicles himself. Nux (Nicholas Hoult), one of the war boys, aims to catch Furiosa and claim glory and immortal life from Immortan Joe.
Nux takes Max as his blood bag and chains him to the front of his car. The ridiculous convoy of scrap-yard Frankenstein vehicles chases Furiosa down Fury Road.
***
Fury Road looks like a shallow action movie but it's much more than that. The schoolboy-glee with which writer/director George Miller lovingly plays with the crazy souped-up vehicles, their medieval contraptions, and the crazy action stunts, hides a more serious intent.
Fury road is a millieu movie, not a plot or character movie. The star is its post-apocalyptic world, the various quirky bands of people (and their quirkier vehicles) living out in the desert in a fallen world. Especially Immortan Joe's militarized dictatorship and the religion he created around the old Norse legend of Valhalla, to keep his war boys loyal to him.
After the second Mad Max movie (the first wasn't a big hit, the one with Tina Turner is the third movie), the term Mad Max (or Road Warrior) was used to describe a specific type of post-apocalyptic scenario, so much did the movies define our vision of violent gangs taking over after civilizational collapse.
And what a millieu it is. The wacky warriors and their vehicles are fleshed out in loving detail. And they don't just look good, they work well too. The movie is maybe 60 percent running battles between the war boys and Furiosa and Max. We see how their medieval punk weaponry works in glorious state-of-the-art stunt live-action.
We do get numb to all the flat-out action after a while. The action sequences should have been edited down more ruthlessly. But overall they are a raging success.
Hidden amongst all the action is a subtle show-don't-tell exploration of Immortan Joe's Valhalla religion through the exploits of Nux. The movie is more about him than about Max or Furiosa. Though he looks like a comedic sidekick, he actually has the best character arc in the whole movie.
Furiosa and Max are the heroes but they don't change much. They are only there to drive the action. Max's flashbacks about not saving the kids, are an obviously contrived device to give his character some depth.
Max disappears at the end of the movie. In victory, he leaves Furiosa and goes on alone to his next adventure in the next episode of the Mad Max franchise. He is the enigmatic reluctant hero, the faceless man. The Mad Max movies are not about Mad Max. As explained earlier, the term Mad Max in popular culture refers to Max's post-apocalyptic world, not Max. This is world-building at its finest.
Plot summary (story synopsis): American cop Nick Cassidy (Dolph Lundgren) kills the son of Serbian human-trafficker Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman), in a shoot-out. Viktor kills Nick's wife and daughter in revenge. A badly-injured Nick goes on a rampage, killing Viktor's colleagues.
With the police on his trail, Nick follows Viktor to Thailand but is framed for killing a Thai policeman by crooked American cop Reed (Michael Jai White). Thai policeman Tony Vitayakul (Tony Jaa) is now after Viktor, even as Viktor tracks down Viktor and singe-handedly dismantles his human-smuggling business.
***
Skin Trade is a decent but unremarkable revenge B-movie. It's better than your average B-movie but with Dolph Lundgren starring in it, I was hoping for more. Fans of Tony Jaa who expect to see a lot of their hero will be disappointed. He has more of a supporting role here.
I'm a fan of Dolph Lundgren, who deserves more success than he has achieved. Like Jason Patric, he chooses good scripts that unfortunately don't become successful movies. I thought Joshua Tree/Army of One was good. I totally loved Silent Trigger (directed by Russell Mulcahy), a criminally-underrated action thriller.
Unfortunately, like Jason Patric, he also has his duds. Jason Patric has The Prince, Lundgren has The Minion.
Skin Trade isn't a dud, but I won't be buying the DVD. There is an interesting angle which makes it different from your normal buddy-buddy cop movie - Nick and Tony are on opposite sides for most of the movie. But there's nothing new here, nothing surprising (the motorcycle chase seems tired, cliched, obligatory), and quite a few leaps in logic.
The framing of Nick by Reed seems unnecessary. And how did Nick even know that the Thai police thought that he had killed the Thai cop? The police couldn't count the number of dead bodies in the fire? If the ship's captain knew that the container on his ship carried sex slaves, why didn't he do anything to make sure that they were kept alive? You keep people locked up in containers when the captain doesn't know what is going on. And you can't hear a conversation through a door, when your side of the door happens to be a noisy night club.
All of this chips at your voluntary suspension of disbelief, and soon you just want to see Tony Jaa and Lundgren fight each other. They do, and guess what? Tony Jaa doesn't whip Lundgren's ass. It's more of an equal fight. That's right. In this movie, Tony Jaa is not some martial arts superhero, just a cop with above-average fighting skills.
He does have some spectacular moves but most of the time he keeps things simple and believable. It's a good choice. I'm not a fan of too-fancy martial arts but I'm thinking that his fans will be disappointed.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) is a drunk has-been mob killer who is estranged from his son Mike (Joel Kinnaman). Mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) is Jimmy's boss and childhood friend. Shawn's no-good son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) gets into trouble and Mike witnesses him killing a man. Danny tries to kill Mike, and Jimmy kills Danny to protect his son. Shawn swears revenge on Jimmy and Mike. He sets his whole gang on them, including ace hired gun Price (rapper Common), and frames them for multiple murders. The entire New York police force is now after them, including Jimmy's old nemesis, detective Harding (Vincent D'Onofrio, looking more and more like Brian Dennehy).
***
Run All Night is a mix of Road to Perdition, John Wick, and 16 Blocks (underrated Bruce Willis movie). However it's an old-fashioned, macho crime thriller that lacks the stylishness of John Wick or the quotable quotes of Taken.
Story-telling is conventional and effective. You get the character build-ups and arcs (Jimmy begs Danny for money at the start of the movie), with interlocking plot points (for example - the crooked cops are nicely foreshadowed at the start) all neatly tied-up in the end (Jimmy's confession list of his past kills, Mike keeping out of his father's world).
This makes for an engrossing but not enthralling experience. It's no blockbuster but it's certainly worth your time. It doesn't break any new ground (the characters are cliches) but its basics are good. It's as much a character movie as it is an action movie. Jimmy's relationships with Shawn and with his son are believable and don't degenerate into melodrama.
Ed Harris is, as expected, solid as the kind friend and honorable mob boss but vengeful father. Liam Neeson is just as good as the washed-up-and-underestimated-but-still-tough killer with a conscience. Liam Neeson is probably one of today's premier movie tough guys, surpassing even Bruce Willis. Run All Night will add to, but not greatly enhance, his studly superstar image.
On a technical note I found the image quality to be poor. The shadow detail was murky, which is annoying considering that most of the movie takes place at night. Guys, it's 2015. You have no excuse for this.
Ridley Scott fans will want to look out for Bruce McGill as Pat Mullen, Shawn's right-hand man.
Plot summary (story synopsis): New York bicycle messenger Cam (Taylor Lautner - Jacob in the Twilight Saga) can't pay back his loan from Chinese gangsters. He bumps into pretty young parkour exponent Nikki (Marie Avgeropoulos) and is attracted to her, and to parkour. He pursues her and is eventually accepted into her parkour gang which includes her brother Dylan (Rafi Gavron) and their adult leader Miller (Adam Rayner). Desperate for money, he joins the gang in various criminal activities, who make use of their parkour skills to enter buildings and escape. The gang's crimes escalate to armed robbery, and Cam finds himself in over his head.
***
Tracers is an entertaining action-adventure/romance that will please Team Jacob fans. The plot is serviceable and the acting is good, with believable chemistry between Lautner and Avgeropoulos. Rayner is almost as fun to watch as the ruthless gang leader.
However the main reason to watch would be the parkour. Tracers gets it right. The parkour (sometimes computer enhanced) looks believable and thrilling. The gang runs across rooftops, leap cars and jump between buildings. Good use is made of the seedier side of New York City - abandoned ships and buildings, alleyways.
The action is beautifully covered by cinematographer Nelson Cragg's (he worked on the Claire Danes TV series Homeland) moving camera. The color grading is less impressive, looking like cheap video. Probably a deliberate artistic choice, but one that I did not enjoy.
Tracers is a solid movie from director Daniel Benmayor and writers Leslie Bohem, Matt Johnson, Kevin Lund and T.J. Scott. It's like a better version of the first Fast and Furious movie, and with parkour!
Plot summary (story synopsis): Huo An (Jackie Chan) is the leader of the Silk Road Protection Squad, keeping the peace along the fabled Silk Road trade route in ancient China.
He and his men are framed for gold smuggling and are banished to hard labor, repairing the remote Wild Geese Gate walled city in the middle of the desert. Wild Geese Gate is attacked by a large detachment of renegade Roman legionnaires, led by Lucius (John Cusack). The Romans are low on food and water and need medicine for their sickly young prince Publius (Jozef Waite).
Lucius attempts to take Wild Geese Gate by force but a huge sandstorm interrupts his duel with Huo An. Huo An offers Lucius and his men a truce and shelter inside Wild Geese Gate. The next day brings new orders - Wild Geese Gate is to be finished within 15 days or else everyone will be executed.
Lucius helps them meet the deadline with his knowledge of Roman engineering, while Huo An binds the prison hard-labor gang from 36 nations, into a single motivated team.
Their victory is short-lived because Publius's evil brother Tiberius (Adrien Brody) catches up with Lucius, bringing 100 thousand Roman soldiers with him.
***
Dragon Blade is darker than the normal Jackie Chan movie (closer to Police Story than Who Am I?) but has his normal multiracial muhibbah shtick (I'd swear he was brought up in Malaysia).
Jackie Chan's trademark comedic kung fu and acrobatics are minimal, mostly seen in the fight at the start of the movie with Cold Moon (Peng Lin) where he accidentally grabs her bewbs.
What you do get lots of is goodie-two-shoes Huo An rallying the troops, turning foes into friends, and sacrificing himself for the sake of others. Which doesn't have to be too bad, only Jackie Chan pours on his normal treacly moralizing on top of it.
So yeah, standard Hong Kong melodrama, Jackie version.
The two Hollywood stars are pulled down to Jackie Chan's level. John Cusack gets the corniest lines and almost manages to sell them. Adrien Brody gets better lines but turns in an awful performance. It's not something you would expect from an Academy Award winner.
On the positive side of the ledger, Jackie Chan swordfights John Cusack and Adrien Brody, but not at the same time. Okay, you've seen Adrien Brody fight Predators but have you seen Cusack do any hand-to-hand?
Come on, just for the curiosity factor, you know you want to watch this one. Decades from now, you will be able to tell your grandchildren - I was there when Adrien Brody and John Cusack destroyed their career.
Plot summary (story synopsis): Chamber maid Jupiter Jone's (Mila Kunis) ordinary life is thrown into chaos when space aliens come to kill her. Hired gun Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) saves her and continues to protect her as she journeys to claim her inheritance as owner of Earth, fighting off her evil relatives Balem (Eddie Redmayne) and Titus (Douglas Booth) along the way.
***
Jupiter Ascending is an odd mix of gorgeous visuals (production design, lighting and special effects are pretty), conventional space opera (decadent, incestuous galactic empire royalty) and kiddie cartoon. With Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum in the lead roles, I was expecting the filmmakers to target the same audience as Hunger Games and Divergent. I gave the Hollywood MBAs too much credit.
Yes, the movie's main failing is that its story is written for 12-year-olds. It's a mismatch. Older teens will not be impressed while kids will not be interested in the Jupiter-Caine romance. Hardcore Star Wars fans (Star Wars is space opera) will look down on its consistently kiddie feel.
Think I'm exaggerating? Sean Bean doesn't die in this movie (he plays Stinger, Caine's friend). This conclusively proves that this is a kiddie movie.
It's possible for a kiddie movie to interest adults too. Just look at Frozen. But Jupiter Ascending has the cliched plot of a Saturday morning cartoon episode. No original ideas, no satire or jokes for the adults.
There are bits of Terminator (you almost expect Caine to tell Jupiter, Come with me if you want to live), Men in Black (aliens secretly on Earth), V (aliens harvesting humans), Brazil (bureaucracy) and maybe Stargate. But these don't come off as fun tributes, just lazy copycatting.
And ugh, there's the politics too. Jupiter Jones is an illegal immigrant. Way to bang the amnesty drum, guys.
Written and directed by the Wachowski siblings (who used to be brothers but are now brother and sister), this is in no way close to the quality of their The Matrix. The action sequences here are muddled and too long. The first gun fight involving Caine is confused - it's hard to know who is doing what to whom.
Some of the other fights are better (there's a beautiful aerial dogfight over Chicago) but still lack impact.
Like Michael Mann's Blackhat, Jupiter Ascending is a reminder that all directors are fallible. I wish I didn't care so much about movies.
Kit Mun is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
