The Blacksheep Affair (1998)

The Black Sheep Affair (1998)
AKA: Another Meltdown
Chinese Title: 碧血藍天
Translation: Blue Sky

Starring: Zhao Wen-Zhuo, Andrew Lin, Shu Qi, Ken Wong, Kenneth Tsang, Xiong Xin Xin
Director: Allan Lam 
Action Directors: Ching Siu-Tung, Xiong Xin Xin 

If there's someone I feel sorry for, it's Zhao Wen-Zhuo (Chiu Man-Cheuk in Cantonese). This guy has never fully gotten the break he deserves. For those of you who never heard of him, he's a martial artist from the Beijing Wushu Academy (the same one that gave us Jet Li) who tried to get into Hong Kong films during the 1990s wire-fu craze. Unfortunately, his level of popularity among the mainstream of moviegoers has never matched his physical talents. In addition to that, to this day, he hasn't made "classic" of his career. Now I'm not talking about a critically-acclaimed movie or one that fans of the genre like. 

I'm referring to that one special movie that's the ultimate showcase for the main actor, all his co-stars, the choreographer, etc. It's the type of the film that has a lot of great fighting, great choreography, and makes you feel that you just got done watching the best in the business by the end. For example, Jackie Chan has Drunken Master 2 (among others) that showcases his awesome skills, Ken Low's great kicking, some great stuntwork, and great choreographer by Lau Kar-Leung and Jackie Chan. Jet Li has Fist of Legend, which is a great showcase for Li, kickboxer Billy Chow, Chin Siu-Ho, old school great Yusuaki Kurata, and is one of Yuen Woo-Ping's best films in years. Donnie Yen has a lot of these types of films (in my opinion), with In the Line of Duty IV being my favorite (it's a tour-de-force for the Yuen Clan, Donnie Yen, Michael Woods, Cynthia Khan, and a bunch of others). There are many others: most of Sammo Hung's films from the late 70s and 80s fit the bill, Shaolin Challenges Ninja does as well. The point is that a lot of the greats have those certain fight-filled 'fests that enter in the "classic" status almost without question. Unfortunately, Zhao Wen-Zhuo has yet to be cast in such a film. 

This isn't to say that our man Zhao hasn't been in any good movies. One of his first roles was opposite Jet Li in Fong Sai Yuk, where he played the villainous Or Yee-Tor. In spite of Corey Yuen's creative fight direction, the movie wasn't necessarily a tour-de-force for these two wushu stylists (which it should've been, seeing that it was essentially Wong Fei Hung vs. Wong Fei Hung). He then took over Jet Li's role as Wong Fei Hung in the fourth and fifth installments of the Once Upon a Time in China series. The fourth one was derivative, but had some nice wire-fu fighting. The fifth one sucked as far as I'm concerned, as it utterly wasted our man Zhao. Zhao then went on to star in the Tsui Hark's bleak masterpiece, The Blade which has won a strong following by fans of the genre. 

Zhao went on to work with Corey Yuen again in Mahjong Dragon which featured, if nothing else, a nice finale between Zhao and the super-kicking Ken Low. He also was in Fist Power, Body Weapon, and The Sino-Dutch War 1661. While each of these movies have (or probably have) their own redeeming qualities, Zhao hasn't been cast in that one great martial arts flick yet. Nonetheless, Blacksheep Affair is Zhao's best film yet, as far as this website is concerned. 

The movie begins with a group of terrorists being led by a renegade military officer (Xiong Xin Xin in a cameo) taking over airliner. The military sends in an anti-terrorist squad who, not showing much tact, decide to storm the plane screaming "Freeze!" to the terrorists. Unfortunately, the terrorists (who, displaying more intelligence than the good guys, are sitting in the seats and blending in like regular passengers) shoot down the good guys. The hijackers demand that the plane be refueled so it can take off and the military sends in Yim Dong (Zhao Wen-Zhuo) and Ho pose as the drivers of the fuel truck in order to get into the plane. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned and Ho is killed and Dong is ordered to abort. Dong disobeys orders and manages to sneak aboard the plane, disable it, and beat the head terrorist to death in the cargo hold. All in the first 10 minutes of the film! 

Dong is demoted for his heroism, since he had disobeyed orders to do it. As punishment, he's sent to the Eastern European country of Lavernia to work at the embassy there. Lavernia is a small English-speaking country that used to be part of the U.S.S.R. (presumably on the coast of the Black Sea) but now is suffering from a bunch of problems including terrorist attacks, a corrupt government, angry mobs, and Chinese refugees filling the harbor. Now admittedly, I can't see why the Chinese would flee to such a place, since the route to get to the Black Sea would take them through the Mediterranean Sea and thus past dozens of countries far more appealing than that. 

Anyways, soon after arriving in the train station, Dong witnesses the murder of several Interpol agents at the hands of some shady characters. Dong and his friend, Kwok, beat the guys up and Dong chases the ringleader through the streets into the subway. There they get into a really nice fight and start throwing and kicking each other through walls and benches before Dong finally bests him. 

The guy turns out to be Keizo Mishima, the leader of a fanatical Japanese cult called the Red Sun. Unfortunately, the corrupt leaders of Lavernia give the credit to their own policeman, prompting Dong and Kwok to go into a Chinese-owned bar and sing a song of Chinese nationalism (and no, I'm not making this up). 

That night, Dong meets up with Chan Pun (Shu Qi), his ex-girlfriend who fled from China after the Tianamen Square incident. It seems that Dong hasn't forgiven for leaving, and feels that she betrayed both him and his country. 

We learn from a conversation between Mishima and the Lavernian minister of defense that the latter is "crookeder than a barrel of snakes" (Samuel L. Jackson, my hat goes off to you) and has been doing some no-no's . Mishima threatens to squeal if he himself is brought to trial. The minister tries to remedy the problem by sending some burly (hehehe..."burly") men to [do mean things] to Mishima in the prison shower in order to shut him, but Mishima kills them all. Meanwhile, Mishima's supporters ambush and kill the Japanese officers sent to extradite him. 

At Mishima's request, Dong visits him at the prison where Mishima asks him to join his cause. Dong turns it down quite nicely, even thanking him for the offer as if it were a kindly gesture or something. Well, Mishima's supporters afterward starting bombing the city and the Chinese embassy. This causes a lot of rioting, the which Pun gets caught in the middle. At one point she is attacked by a bunch of disgruntled citizens, who think she's Japanese. They say the first victim of war is truth. 

Now this actually doesn't surprise as I once lived in a third-world country for two years and the POV of many of the people there was that all Asian people were Japanese. Whenever I used to try to explain that Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese were not the same thing, the response generally was that they all looked the same. Figures. Now I was away from the U.S. during the time of the 9/11 strikes, but I'm curious to know as to whether any individual lashed out against any people who looked remotely of Middle Eastern descent. 

That night, Dong finds Pun, exhausted and tired because of the events of that day. I guess he finally manages to forgive her in his heart and put the past behind them as it's implied that they bury the hatchet in her room that night. 

The next day, Dong, Kwok, and the Chinese embassador go to see the minister about him taking care of the Chinese refugees in Lavernia's harbor. After making some cruel and racist remarks, the minister makes them a deal to send supplies to the refugees if the Chinese will transport Mishima to the airport. They accept, not realizing that it's a part of a trap set for them. From there on, we get a lot of gunfights, explosions, and car chases, all leading up to Dong's final showdown with Mishima at the Chinese Embassy. 

So that's our terrorist movie for the evening. The American release title for this film is Another Meltdown. The name implies that this is a sequel in to Jet Li's High Risk, which was released by American distributors as Meltdown. This is pure and unadulterated idiocy, as the two films are not related in the slightest. Well, actually, they both deal with terrorists and the main actors in the two films both studied at the Beijing Wushu Academy. But the similarities stop there. Heck, the two films don't even have the same action director (Corey Yuen choreographed the martial arts in High Risk). 

Now a lot of people criticize this film for it's blatant nationalism and Chinese propaganda attitude. My response is that it isn't the first time that a movie has done something like that. Sure there are a lot of comments about how superior Chinese are and even the aforementioned song-and-dance number, but are there not other classic martial arts films that have done the same thing? Did Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury not start the "Chinese are good, Japanese are evil" subgenre of film? Were the first two Shaolin Temple films, which are considered classics, also propagandistic? Was Zhang Yimou's much-praised Hero also of the same nature? Why criticize this gun-fu movie then? 

From what I've seen of our man Zhao, this is his best film. Anyone who has seen his movies knows that he plays most of his roles as a stoic. We actually get to see him show a lot of emotion this time around. I thought it was a nice stretch for him, him playing the role of a patriot who has allowed his nationalistic sense to get in the way of his personal life. The rest of the cast does pretty good. Andrew Lin manages to be a cult leader without overacting and looking silly. The rest of cast does pretty good. The English speakers aren't as bad as say, the ones in The Master. 

Ching Siu-Tung helms the choreography in this one, as frankly, this is one of the (if not THE) best movies he's worked on. It's probably because for the first time, a movie choreographed by him is actually the best showcase for the actor's physical talents. I mean, usually his use of wires and imagination ultimately overshadows the performers' talents. This is all well in good in movies where the actors aren't necessarily martial artists, but sometimes you just want to see what the people are truly capable of doing. In this film, Ching's choreography is reminiscent of his work in Steven Seagal's Belly of the Beast (or at least the fight scenes that I've seen from it). There are some wire stunts and undercranking, but that doesn't get in the way of the wushu on display here. 

So as I said, Zhao furnishes his best martial arts work ever in this. In several of the fights, especially in the subway fight and in the finale, Zhao shows us that he can boot with the best of'em and unleashes some awesome jump kicks on his opponents. The finale, which begins with hand-to-hand fighting and ends with a sword fight, is nothing short of amazing. It's interesting to compare this film's finale with that of Mahjong Dragon. While the two movies had different choreographers, they both made good use of environment and kept the fighting on the ground while using wires as occasional enhancement rather than as replacements for true skill. And while the latter's choreography is more crisp and polished, Zhao gets upstaged by Ken Low's legendary kicking prowess. In this film, however, the fight scenes truly belong to our man Zhao. 

I'd like to recommend this movie to anyone who can watch it. However, there is a bit of brutal violence in it so all those who are easily offended should beware and either wait for it to come on television or seek an edited version of it. While other films may have mor fighting, better lead villains, or more artistic mertis, this movie does contain Zhao Wen-Zhuo's best performance to date. And that is enough for me.