Starring: Ho Sung Pak, Kevin Ula Cristie, Richard Divisio, Taimak, Ho Young Pak, Danny Pesina, Leisl Lombardo
Director: Peter Allen
Action Director: Ho Sung Pak
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 90+% of American (i.e. Caucasian) martial arts choreographers are incompetent. Now that may sound racist and ethnocentric, but I have yet to find an American choreographer whose work has surpassed that of an Asian colleague. If you look at many of the best martial arts films (i.e. taking only the fights themselves into consideration) made in the States, you'll notice that most of the best and most memorable fights were directed by an Asian guy. The best fights in Enter the Dragon? Bruce Lee. The best fights in Mortal Kombat? Robin Shou. Most of the best fights in the post-Matrix era? Jackie Chan, the Yuen Clan, Corey Yuen, and company. Drive? Koichi Sakamoto.
Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't white guys capable of directing good fights. Taken as completely separate entities, there are some very good fights choreographed by Americans. But the moment you compare the two groups, you begin to wonder how it's possible for two different continents to take basically the same styles of martial arts and produce two radically-different final products. Considering my recent review of Elektra and this here review, I find some more ammo for my argument.
Enter Korean tae kwon do stylist Ho Sung Pak. Pak (or Park I assume) will always be remembered by history (or movie/video game geeks) as the original Liu Kang from the Mortal Kombat franchise. Yup, even before Robin Shou came on the scene in the live-action Mortal Kombat movie, Ho Sung Pak was busting out the bootage, the fireballs, and that nifty cartwheel kick of his to finish off his enemies in the original Mortal Kombat video game. That was back in 1993.
I guess that in itself was enough to get Jackie Chan's attention who cast him as the lead villain in 1994's Drunken Master II. Surely that was a move that would've secured international cult status for the rest of his life. I mean, taking on Jackie in one of the greatest Jackie Chan AND martial arts films ever made. There are few other honors in the kung fu film world more prestigious than that. But go back to the words "would have." Unfortunately, he didn't have the stamina and rhythm to keep up with Jackie Chan's intense choreography and ended up relegated to a mere lackey status, beating up some factory workers and in turn getting beat up by Jackie twice during the film.
His career never really blew up after that. He appeared on some sort of martial arts version of professional wrestling and probably a bunch of other things that are relatively unimportant. However, in 2002, he wrote, choreographed, and starred in this micro-budget martial arts actioner that shows that he'd learned a few things since his missed opportunity in 1994. He actually learned quite a bit (in the action department mind you) and I'm proud to say that he gave us a martial arts movie that delivers where it counts the most for a mere fraction of the budget of one of those overblown Hollywood films.
We begin a narrated prologue telling of an evil warrior from Ancient China who terrorized the land, leaving a trail of death and bloodshed in his wake. Well, he was eventually defeated by a warrior monk, a Chosen One born in the Year of the Dragon. However, like most evil entities, the warlord's soul stuck around, waiting for the right time to resurrect and recommence his reign of terror. How does this go about? It always seems to be the evil one who has the capacity to come back and reborn, kind of like Vigo from Ghostbusters II. Aren't there good spirits to keep these things under control? Or are they so busy in heaven that they don't pay attention to these things? Whatever. In any case, the legend states that a descendant of the original warrior monk will rise in opposition against the warlord. Kind of reminds me of how the Liu Kang from the Mortal Kombat movie was descendant of Kung Lao, the legendary winner of the tournament?
Oh, this won't be the first connection between this movie and the Mortal Kombat franchise.
This is followed by an opening fight scene (more on that later) designed to show us how good Ho Sung Pak is. I always like these fight scenes, especially after that crappy beginning to Elektra. Well, the fight scene is actually a dream and we soon cut to Ho having dinner with his girlfriend, his brothers, and Lucky (Taimak of The Last Dragon fame). Ho plays Lang, a Chicago cop who's on the trail of a muderous crime lord named Taz (Richard Divizio).
Shortly after dinner, Lang, Lucky, and Lang's brother Charles are preparing to bust Taz and his gang. Well, it doesn't work out and in the ensuing gunfight, Lucky and Lang are gunned down. Lang is overcome with grief and disappears for three years. During that time, he leaves his girlfriend Beth (Liesl Lombardo) behind and his older brother, Kyu (Ho Young Pak) goes off to Mongolia to study martial arts.
In the meantime, Taz and his gang get involved with the occult, searching for the mysterious Book of Swords. Lang reappears and begins a relentless search for Taz while trying to get back with his girlfriend, who is (understandably) reluctant to let him back in her life. Lang begins to go after various gangsters and get into random fights in his search for the elusive Taz. As he gets closer to Taz, he finds himself coming into contact with the legendary Book of Swords, which tells the legend of the aforementioned evil warrior and the Chosen One-type who would one day save the Earth from evil. Is Lang the One? Of course, he is! He always is!
The story is pretty good; it aspires to be a little bit more than your typical urban martial arts tale. The movie doesn't content itself with being simply a revenge flick, but throws in some of that "It's your destiny" stuff, too. I mean, for a movie who's budget is visibly low, it aspires to be a lot. At times you feel that it aspires to be something of a low budget entry in the Mortal Kombat franchise. There are certainly enough in-jokes and references to make you believe that.
In spite of a decent story, the storytelling is quite fractured and hampered by the low budget. There are three story threads that function somewhat independent of each other until the end and when they come together, it feels rushed and handled poorly. Throughout most of the movie, Taz and his cronies are looking for the Book of Swords. Lang is looking for Taz to avenge the deaths of his friend and brother. And every once in a while, we see Lang's brother Kyu studying in Mongolia (which looks a lot greener than I thought it was in real life) with his sifu. The last part figures into the climax but we spend so little time with this plot thread that it seems to come out of left field. There's not a lot of time spent exploring Lang and his position as the Chosen One. He's a bit skeptical at first, then he reads the book in its entirety, and then seems to accept it pretty well after that.
I do have to commend the film for not falling into a horrible cliché in the finale. *SPOILER ALERT* Lang has to fight a loved one who's been possessed by the spirit of the warlord for the film's climax. Instead of spending most of the climax saying, "It's me! Don't you remember?" to the guy who's trying to give him a good bashing, he simply fights back. When that happened in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, it cost the film some karma points. *END OF SPOILER*
The most obvious budget restraints can be seen in the aforementioned Mongolia scene. Moreover, there are a lot of scenes where we see the villains just sitting in some room and chatting. It reminded me a lot of a Godzilla fan film that a pen-pal made and sent me. There were a lot of scenes of characters lounging around in a darkened living room and talking. That's what these scenes reminded me of. Also, there were never any sparks and stuff whenever people started firing guns.
The acting isn't all that great. Comparisons between Ho Sung Pak and Robin Shou, the two Liu Kang's, are inevitable. Robin Shou ultimately comes out victor in the charisma and screen presence category, although the two are well-matched with regards to physical skill. A lot of the acting ranges from passable to pretty bad. Kevin Ula Christie, who plays one of Taz's flunkies, overacts a storm. It's rather funny to watch him ham it up after landing in a cheap shot on Ho, only to easily be beaten back into the Stone Age shortly thereafter.
Book of Swords is sort of a Mortal Kombat video game reunion. Like I said, Ho is the original Liu Kang. His enemy, Taz, is played by Richard Divizio. Divizio played both Kano and Baraka in the MK video games. He's not as good as an actor as the guy who played Kano in the MK movie (not by a longshot), but he is a better fighter. Danny Pesina, who played Johnny Cage and the various ninja characters in the first two MK games, has a cameo appearance as a hitman. He gets to go at it against Ho in the night club scene and we get the privilege of seeing Liu Kang and Johnny Cage going at it in real time. Not bad. Also, in the climatic fight, a female ninja armed with sai swords goes up against Lang. She's played Katalin Zamiar, who played the three ninja girls (Kitana, Mileena, and Jade) in MK2, in an obvious tribute to Mileena's character. There are some other subtle differences, the most noticeable ones being when Lang ties a red strip of cloth around his head and comes out looking like Liu Kang from MK2 and a dialogue reference to Kano's fatality.
Naturally, the film's calling card is its fight scenes, choreographed by Ho himself. The movie prides itself so much on the fact that wires and special FX weren't used that it informs us of this after movie ends. Well, all the more power to the filmmakers for that. He does quite a good job at matching the relentless pace of a Hong Kong film. Most of the fights aren't quite as intricate, but they're never anemic. Unfortunately, a lot of the fights in the middle film lose a lot of their impact due to bad lighting and photography. It's not that you can't see what's going on, but if you're watching the film in pan-and-scan, the camera positioning makes things a bit more difficult to see. Also, some of the fights are really just not that interesting. The highlight of the middle portion of the film is Ho's fight with fellow Mortal Kombat actor Danny Pesina.
It's the two fights that bookend the film that make the film stand out. The first one has Ho walking through a forest and being set upon by scores of ninjas. Using his superior tae kwon do skills, he bests all of them with the same fury and style of his Hong Kong counterparts. The finale is something to remember. Heck, I'm willing to say that it is certainly one of the top 10 (if not top 5) American fight sequences ever filmed. Ho first fights Richard Divizio in a live-action Liu Kang vs. Kano fight that isn't bad. Ho does throw in what might appear to be a Bruce Lee imitation/tribute to some. After defeating him, Ho is transported into the astral plane and is attacked by dozens upon dozens of sword-wielding ninjas. Ho picks up a couple of swords and cuts'em down like field mice under a lawnmower. The scene is very reminiscent of the first part of the climax of Fong Sai Yuk 2, where Jet Li does the same thing with samurai swords. I'd say this scene is more impressive because it's coming from an American movie (there's also a cameo from "Mileena" in the sequence).
Following that, Ho finds himself up against the new incarnation of that evil warlord. What follows is over five minutes of non-stop, wire-free, double-free, and over-the-top tae kwon do action. It is simply amazing. Ho and his opponent pull out all the stops and show us how insanely cool tae kwon do is on film. Kicks, jump kicks, spin kicks, chain kicks, etc. It's simply the best film depiction of this particular style since Hwang Jang Lee's films in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Kudos go to Ho Sung Pak for choreographing such an impressive scene. His booting skills are definitely up there with the likes of Ken Low, Donnie Yen*, John Liu, Hwang Jang Lee, Yuen Biao, and Kim Wong-Jin.
So, we have a typical urban martial arts film with supernatural overtones bookended with two truly great fight sequences. That in itself is reason enough to check the film out. I mean, in spite of a very low budget, we get more high-octane bootage than most of overblown Hollywood fare. Heck, the final sequence by itself is everything that Elektra should've been and wasn't. You'll have tread carefully through the acting and poorly-developed story, but if you're patient, you'll be truly rewarded. American moviemakers would do well to learn from Ho Sung Pak and his Mortal Kombat posse.
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