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.
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
2017-04-27
2015-08-21
Wild City (2015)
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.
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.
2015-04-28
Skin Trade (2015)
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.
2015-03-12
Run All Night (2015)
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.
2015-03-03
Tracers (2015)
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!
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!
2015-01-08
Taken 3 (2015)
Plot summary (story synopsis): Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) finds his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) dead in his house. The police are after him for the murder and he goes on the run. He tries to evade the police who are led by Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker), find out who really killed Lenore, all the while keeping his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) safe from the killers.
***
Taken 3's problem is that it has no theme, or what William Goldman called the story's spine. The Fugitive was about hard-nosed policeman Tommy Lee Jones doing his job, versus nice guy Harrison Ford saving lives even as he was on the run. Tommy Lee Jones's determined "I don't care" reply to Harrison Ford's "I didn't kill my wife" was powerful because it was believable, consistent with his behavior.
The first Taken was a straight out rescue - Liam Neeson as the one-man Die Hard cavalry. Taken 2 was less compelling but at least there was an overall consistency with its focus on MacGyver gimmicks.
Taken 3 has bits of The Fugitive but there's no real connection, antagonistic or otherwise, between Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker. There's no "I don't care" moment. Oh there's something like that in their dialog, but there's no impact. There's another Fugitive moment when Forest Whitaker finds out that Liam Neeson took a policeman's gun, but didn't use it. But absent The Fugitive's consistent effort to portray Harrison Ford as the selfless good samaritan, it's a wasted effort because there is no follow up.
There's also an attempt to give Liam Neeson an overriding priority to his actions - keeping his daughter safe, versus Forest Whitaker's "doing my job" but it doesn't really work. His daughter's reciprocal absolute trust in him is a nice touch, but somehow also fails to achieve liftoff.
The pacing of the movie is off. It doesn't have The Fugitive's or Taken's sense of urgency. Taken impressed with Liam Neeson's cold-blooded determination to do whatever it took to rescue his daughter - torture, kill, shoot his old friend's innocent wife. In Taken 3 the stakes are not as high. His daughter is sometimes in danger but most of the time he is "only" trying to figure out who killed his wife. His violent means to this relatively not urgent end, seem excessive and he loses our sympathy.
Action movies require a certain level of forgiveness in terms of taking liberties with reality. But there are limits. Liam Neeson goes around killing people when no lives are in immediate danger (like when he storms the bad guy's penthouse - he's not rescuing anyone). His friends pull guns on policemen. And in the end, the only thing Forest Whitaker complains about is him accessing the police computer database without authorization.
Liam Neeson doesn't have any memorable lines and his character just seems to be coasting instead of convincing us of what a bad ass he is. There's a cool twist where he says "good luck" to Forest Whitaker, a line the bad guy said to him in the first movie. But this little gem is already revealed in the movie's trailer, so there's less impact when we see it.
Forest Whitaker never really had any tough guy or edgy persona. But he at least used to have some crazy, quirky energy about him. In Taken 3 he's just totally bland. He's playing the same role as he did in Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand, and doing it with less energy and attitude.
Writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen did a good job with the first Taken, making a permanent addition to popular culture and internet memes. Their attempts at sequels have fallen flat. With such a weak and confused script, there's little that director Olivier Megaton can do. Not that he's any kind of genius - Taken 3's action sequences are confusing, confusing enough to throw you out of the movie.
The frustrating thing is that you can see Luc Besson trying to put a fresh spin on things and failing. Just as he tried and failed with Colombiana and Lucy. You can see the effort he puts in, trying to come up with original ideas and avoiding cliches. He hasn't sold out or anything. He's just out of gas.
***
Taken 3's problem is that it has no theme, or what William Goldman called the story's spine. The Fugitive was about hard-nosed policeman Tommy Lee Jones doing his job, versus nice guy Harrison Ford saving lives even as he was on the run. Tommy Lee Jones's determined "I don't care" reply to Harrison Ford's "I didn't kill my wife" was powerful because it was believable, consistent with his behavior.
The first Taken was a straight out rescue - Liam Neeson as the one-man Die Hard cavalry. Taken 2 was less compelling but at least there was an overall consistency with its focus on MacGyver gimmicks.
Taken 3 has bits of The Fugitive but there's no real connection, antagonistic or otherwise, between Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker. There's no "I don't care" moment. Oh there's something like that in their dialog, but there's no impact. There's another Fugitive moment when Forest Whitaker finds out that Liam Neeson took a policeman's gun, but didn't use it. But absent The Fugitive's consistent effort to portray Harrison Ford as the selfless good samaritan, it's a wasted effort because there is no follow up.
There's also an attempt to give Liam Neeson an overriding priority to his actions - keeping his daughter safe, versus Forest Whitaker's "doing my job" but it doesn't really work. His daughter's reciprocal absolute trust in him is a nice touch, but somehow also fails to achieve liftoff.
The pacing of the movie is off. It doesn't have The Fugitive's or Taken's sense of urgency. Taken impressed with Liam Neeson's cold-blooded determination to do whatever it took to rescue his daughter - torture, kill, shoot his old friend's innocent wife. In Taken 3 the stakes are not as high. His daughter is sometimes in danger but most of the time he is "only" trying to figure out who killed his wife. His violent means to this relatively not urgent end, seem excessive and he loses our sympathy.
Action movies require a certain level of forgiveness in terms of taking liberties with reality. But there are limits. Liam Neeson goes around killing people when no lives are in immediate danger (like when he storms the bad guy's penthouse - he's not rescuing anyone). His friends pull guns on policemen. And in the end, the only thing Forest Whitaker complains about is him accessing the police computer database without authorization.
Liam Neeson doesn't have any memorable lines and his character just seems to be coasting instead of convincing us of what a bad ass he is. There's a cool twist where he says "good luck" to Forest Whitaker, a line the bad guy said to him in the first movie. But this little gem is already revealed in the movie's trailer, so there's less impact when we see it.
Forest Whitaker never really had any tough guy or edgy persona. But he at least used to have some crazy, quirky energy about him. In Taken 3 he's just totally bland. He's playing the same role as he did in Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand, and doing it with less energy and attitude.
Writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen did a good job with the first Taken, making a permanent addition to popular culture and internet memes. Their attempts at sequels have fallen flat. With such a weak and confused script, there's little that director Olivier Megaton can do. Not that he's any kind of genius - Taken 3's action sequences are confusing, confusing enough to throw you out of the movie.
The frustrating thing is that you can see Luc Besson trying to put a fresh spin on things and failing. Just as he tried and failed with Colombiana and Lucy. You can see the effort he puts in, trying to come up with original ideas and avoiding cliches. He hasn't sold out or anything. He's just out of gas.
2014-11-11
Kung Fu Jungle (2014)
Plot summary (story synopsis): Hahou Mo (Donnie Yen) is in jail for manslaughter, with 2 years of a 5 year sentence left to serve. He had accidentally killed another kung fu expert in a duel, while trying to find out who was the better fighter.
Fung Yu-Sau (Baoqiang Wang) now seems to be following in his footsteps, fighting kung fu masters, but deliberately killing them. Hahou Mo knows that he can stop Fung Yu-Sau and makes a deal with lead detective Luk Yuen-Sum (Charlie Yeung, who is a woman despite her name). Luk Yuen-Sum reluctantly agrees to release Hahou Mo from prison into her custody.
Hahou Mo has figured out Fung Yu-Sau's plan. He is following a kung fu poem and targeting kung fu masters in boxing, kicking, grappling (Chin Na), weapons, and internal styles - in that order.
Hahou Mo leads detective Luk Yuen-Sum to Fung Yu-Sau's next target, but then runs away to Foshan to protect his sweetheart Sinn Ying (Bing Bai) from Fung Yu-Sau.
***
Kung Fu Jungle is an above-average kung fu movie. The fights are decent and not too long. The story and characters are engaging. Locations are interesting - old-world Foshan, a river village.
The idea of Fung Yu-Sau as a master of different styles of kung fu, fighting different masters in their own style, is a good one. It allows the movie to showcase different styles without resorting to the old cliche of a martial arts tournament.
Unfortunately for kung fu fans (who are obviously the movie's target audience) not enough is made of the opportunity. The first few fights come off nicely enough. They aren't generic fights. They actually follow the declared styles - boxing, kicking, grappling, weapons.
But instead of building towards a climax with the showdown between Fung Yu-Sau and Hahou Mo, the fight between the two, degenerates into the generic punch, kick, block fighting seen in too many Hong Kong movies.
According to the poem sequence Fung Yu-Sau was following, Hahou Mo should have been a master of an internal style (Hsing Yi, Ba Gua or Tai Chi). However all the clues point to him being a Wing Chun guy. Foshan was an early center of Wing Chun, and is where Hahou Mo learned his kung fu.
Hahou Mo also fights with a pole, one of the classic Wing Chun weapons (six and a half point pole). Yet, his kung fu style is not Wing Chun (and not an internal style either). Not just his unarmed technique. His pole technique is all wrong. He swings it like a club instead of thrusting it like a spear.
So it's a head-scratcher. Why imply that Hahou Mo is a Wing Chun guy, then not have him use Wing Chun?
Another wasted opportunity is Fung Yu-Sau's belief that "kung fu is for killing". It could have been developed as a comparison between "fighting" kung fu and "tournament" kung fu. Instead, good guy Hahou Mo repudiates the idea entirely. Which doesn't ring true, considering kung fu's main function.
The acting is passable. You don't watch kung fu movies for their acting. Donnie Yen's acting range is limited to one "concerned face" and that's about it. The police-investigation plot is believable and is enough to drive the story from one fight to another, which is all that matters.
Kung Fu Jungle is a good kung fu movie. It could have been great.
Fung Yu-Sau (Baoqiang Wang) now seems to be following in his footsteps, fighting kung fu masters, but deliberately killing them. Hahou Mo knows that he can stop Fung Yu-Sau and makes a deal with lead detective Luk Yuen-Sum (Charlie Yeung, who is a woman despite her name). Luk Yuen-Sum reluctantly agrees to release Hahou Mo from prison into her custody.
Hahou Mo has figured out Fung Yu-Sau's plan. He is following a kung fu poem and targeting kung fu masters in boxing, kicking, grappling (Chin Na), weapons, and internal styles - in that order.
Hahou Mo leads detective Luk Yuen-Sum to Fung Yu-Sau's next target, but then runs away to Foshan to protect his sweetheart Sinn Ying (Bing Bai) from Fung Yu-Sau.
***
Kung Fu Jungle is an above-average kung fu movie. The fights are decent and not too long. The story and characters are engaging. Locations are interesting - old-world Foshan, a river village.
The idea of Fung Yu-Sau as a master of different styles of kung fu, fighting different masters in their own style, is a good one. It allows the movie to showcase different styles without resorting to the old cliche of a martial arts tournament.
Unfortunately for kung fu fans (who are obviously the movie's target audience) not enough is made of the opportunity. The first few fights come off nicely enough. They aren't generic fights. They actually follow the declared styles - boxing, kicking, grappling, weapons.
But instead of building towards a climax with the showdown between Fung Yu-Sau and Hahou Mo, the fight between the two, degenerates into the generic punch, kick, block fighting seen in too many Hong Kong movies.
According to the poem sequence Fung Yu-Sau was following, Hahou Mo should have been a master of an internal style (Hsing Yi, Ba Gua or Tai Chi). However all the clues point to him being a Wing Chun guy. Foshan was an early center of Wing Chun, and is where Hahou Mo learned his kung fu.
Hahou Mo also fights with a pole, one of the classic Wing Chun weapons (six and a half point pole). Yet, his kung fu style is not Wing Chun (and not an internal style either). Not just his unarmed technique. His pole technique is all wrong. He swings it like a club instead of thrusting it like a spear.
So it's a head-scratcher. Why imply that Hahou Mo is a Wing Chun guy, then not have him use Wing Chun?
Another wasted opportunity is Fung Yu-Sau's belief that "kung fu is for killing". It could have been developed as a comparison between "fighting" kung fu and "tournament" kung fu. Instead, good guy Hahou Mo repudiates the idea entirely. Which doesn't ring true, considering kung fu's main function.
The acting is passable. You don't watch kung fu movies for their acting. Donnie Yen's acting range is limited to one "concerned face" and that's about it. The police-investigation plot is believable and is enough to drive the story from one fight to another, which is all that matters.
Kung Fu Jungle is a good kung fu movie. It could have been great.
2014-10-23
John Wick (2014)
Plot summary (story synopsis): Retired hit-man John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is grieving the loss of his wife when he meets Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen - Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones) at a gas station.
Iosef is the spoiled good-for-nothing son of Russian mobster Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). He wants to buy Wick's Mustang sports car but Wick turns him down. Iosef and his men break into Wick's house, beat him up, kill his dog (a present from his wife), and steal the car.
Iosef doesn't know who Wick is, but his father Viggo does. Wick used to work for Viggo and was his deadliest killer. Viggo knows a shit storm is going to descend on him and his son when Wick comes looking for vengeance. He puts out an open contract on Wick and personally invites Marcus (Willem Dafoe), one of Wicks' friends, to join in the hunt.
***
If Luc Besson, Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarantino made a movie together, what would it look like? It would look like John Wick. This is the movie that Luc Besson tried, and failed, to make with Colombiana.
John Wick is a fantastic, violent, revenge movie that combines the convincing world-building of Luc Besson, the quirky characters (who behave in unexpected but believable ways, especially the bad guys) of Joss Whedon, and the ultra-violence of Tarantino (body-count is 50 to 100):
John Wick gets a stupendous 9.1/10 viewer rating on IMDB and a 92% critics average on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's written by Derek Kolstad. Derek who? Derek who has written two previous movies: The Package (a Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren B movie), and One in the Chamber (another Dolph Lundgren B movie with can-you-believe-an-oscar-winner-could-sink-so-low Cuba Gooding Jr.). You know what? I'm feeling like watching B movies right now.
Most revenge movies are just about the action. John Wick manages to create a believable underworld subculture and interesting characters, with short, deft scenes that don't slow down the pacing. And it still manages to out-action most other revenge movies.You want an example of a bad revenge movie? Try The Punisher.
Aside from that, you want a real bad-ass hero. A Rambo that makes you go, Holy cow, who is this guy? John Wick manages to do this by showing Keanu Reeves comprehensively kicking ass.
First-time directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski are experienced stuntmen, with over 70 movie credits each on IMDB. This explains the exceptional fight choreography (IMDB doesn't list a fight choreographer, so the directors must have done it).
John Wick kills 50 to 100 bad guys in the course of the movie and each kill is unique, with some interesting stylistic twist. Unlike Hong Kong movies, the fights don't seem too long because they are beautifully thought out and don't become repetitive.
The Thais (e.g. Ong Bak), Indonesians (e.g. The Raid: Redemption), Koreans (Old Dog? Overrated) and Chinese (including John Woo) do not have this level of moviemaking skill.
With all this, you don't need Keanu Reeves. But guess what? You do have him. And what a Keanu Reeves he is. This is a grittier Constantine, even angrier and more humorless. I'm a huge Keanu Reeves fan and this is one of his best performances. (I do not know why people like to criticize his acting.)
You want more reasons to watch?
Iosef is the spoiled good-for-nothing son of Russian mobster Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). He wants to buy Wick's Mustang sports car but Wick turns him down. Iosef and his men break into Wick's house, beat him up, kill his dog (a present from his wife), and steal the car.
Iosef doesn't know who Wick is, but his father Viggo does. Wick used to work for Viggo and was his deadliest killer. Viggo knows a shit storm is going to descend on him and his son when Wick comes looking for vengeance. He puts out an open contract on Wick and personally invites Marcus (Willem Dafoe), one of Wicks' friends, to join in the hunt.
***
If Luc Besson, Joss Whedon and Quentin Tarantino made a movie together, what would it look like? It would look like John Wick. This is the movie that Luc Besson tried, and failed, to make with Colombiana.
John Wick is a fantastic, violent, revenge movie that combines the convincing world-building of Luc Besson, the quirky characters (who behave in unexpected but believable ways, especially the bad guys) of Joss Whedon, and the ultra-violence of Tarantino (body-count is 50 to 100):
- There's a posh hotel that caters to criminals. Where no killing is allowed - a demilitarized zone for killers, enforced by the hotel's own assassins.
- Viggo Tarasov telephones a car chop-shop owner and asks him why he hit his son. Because he stole John Wick's car and killed his dog, is the reply. Viggo says Oh, and puts down the phone. This is the kind of creative writing and bad-guy character development that Joss Whedon would be proud of.
- There's an extended series of individual fight in a nightclub/hotel where John Wick single-handedly takes out tens of bad guys. It's like the monster fight scene in Kill Bill Part 1.
John Wick gets a stupendous 9.1/10 viewer rating on IMDB and a 92% critics average on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's written by Derek Kolstad. Derek who? Derek who has written two previous movies: The Package (a Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren B movie), and One in the Chamber (another Dolph Lundgren B movie with can-you-believe-an-oscar-winner-could-sink-so-low Cuba Gooding Jr.). You know what? I'm feeling like watching B movies right now.
Most revenge movies are just about the action. John Wick manages to create a believable underworld subculture and interesting characters, with short, deft scenes that don't slow down the pacing. And it still manages to out-action most other revenge movies.You want an example of a bad revenge movie? Try The Punisher.
Aside from that, you want a real bad-ass hero. A Rambo that makes you go, Holy cow, who is this guy? John Wick manages to do this by showing Keanu Reeves comprehensively kicking ass.
First-time directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski are experienced stuntmen, with over 70 movie credits each on IMDB. This explains the exceptional fight choreography (IMDB doesn't list a fight choreographer, so the directors must have done it).
John Wick kills 50 to 100 bad guys in the course of the movie and each kill is unique, with some interesting stylistic twist. Unlike Hong Kong movies, the fights don't seem too long because they are beautifully thought out and don't become repetitive.
The Thais (e.g. Ong Bak), Indonesians (e.g. The Raid: Redemption), Koreans (Old Dog? Overrated) and Chinese (including John Woo) do not have this level of moviemaking skill.
With all this, you don't need Keanu Reeves. But guess what? You do have him. And what a Keanu Reeves he is. This is a grittier Constantine, even angrier and more humorless. I'm a huge Keanu Reeves fan and this is one of his best performances. (I do not know why people like to criticize his acting.)
You want more reasons to watch?
- Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria is one of the producers.
- Mila Kunis lookalike Adrianne Palicki has a small role, as a feisty assassin that Joss Whedon would have been proud to have created.
- Keanu Reeves shoots a really bad-ass Kel-Tec KSG 12-gauge shotgun.
- Cinematography by Jonathan Sela (Max Payne, A Good Day to Die Hard). Lighting is good but not exceptional, but that's only because today's standards are so high.
- Theon Greyjoy gets slapped around and killed.
2014-09-25
The Prince (2014)
Coincidentally, Paul used to be a major gangster in New Orleans. He accidentally killed crime lord Omar's (Bruce Willis) wife and daughter in a car bombing. Hearing that Paul is back in town, Omar pulls out all the stops to get Paul, despite warnings from his lieutenant Mark (Korean star Rain - Ninja Assassin) to leave Paul alone.
Paul drops Angela off at his old friend Sam's (John Cusack) place for safekeeping, and begins a one-man rampage to retrieve his daughter.
***
The Prince is a redneck version of Taken. Instead of former spy Liam Neeson, you have former gangster Jason Patric. With Bruce Willis and John Cusack as supporting cast, I had high hopes for this movie. Unfortunately, it's a B-movie dud.
I'm a Jason Patric fan. I loved Incognito, The Beast of War and The Lost Boys. Heck, I even liked Speed 2. Unfortunately, like Mark Dacascos and many other good actors, his career never really seemed to take off.
He's doing himself no favors by acting in movies like The Prince. I would also like to know who called in favors to get Bruce Willis and John Cusack to act in this clunker.
The movie starts off slowly. There are no quotable quips here, no ready-made tough-guy Internet memes. Taken quickly establishes Liam Neeson's bad ass credentials at the start of the movie, but The Prince keeps Paul's gangster past under wraps for a while.
This makes for a slow start to the movie, but it almost works when at about 30-minute mark, Paul gets recognized by an old foe. Paul had killed seven men in a shootout, and then had spared this man's life. He repays Paul by convincing his thug nephew (Beth's boyfriend) to tell Paul where Beth is. Along the way, he recounts Paul's bad-assery to his nephew (and of course the audience), making Paul sound like a Grammaton Cleric.
Aside from the tough-guy lines, Taken worked because Liam Neeson's tradecraft in tracking down and fighting the kidnappers, was interesting and believable. There is no equivalent detail in The Prince. The scene described above, is about as good as it gets.
Paul is not believably established as the one-man-army the movie says he is. Omar and Sam are also not well developed as characters. Worse is Angela. Angela doesn't seem to care much about Beth at the start, but then suddenly risks her safety to help Paul.
There's also an overall lack of style and polish to the whole movie. The visuals are far from cinematic (the best-looking scenes are at the start - Paul working in his garage) and often look drab. Not purposefully grungy, just student-film uninspired. Just like the gun fights and car chase (singular) - plain boring, bordering on ridiculous.
IMDB estimates the budget at $18 million. That sounds about right. Director Brian A Miller, and writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore, deserve their obscurity.
As a joke, I texted a movie-buff friend, asking him if I should watch Denzel (his movie The Equalizer opened on the same day) or Jason Patric. He knew about The Equalizer, but had no idea that there was a Jason Patric movie showing in the cineplexes. I don't blame him.
P.S. There's a scene where Paul checks out an unloaded submachine gun, working the mechanism, all the while pointing the gun at Angela. That's a safety no-no, even with an unloaded gun. Paul is supposed to be a crude gangster, but he is also supposed to be ex-military. This is the kind of thing that the army drills into you to not do. Paul also shoots from the hip (at least some of the time), another thing that the army trains you to not do.
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