The Death Games (1997)

Death Games (1997)
Chinese Title: 衝破死亡遊戲
Translation: Breaking through the Death Games

Starring: Fan Siu-Wong, Kim Maree Penn, Billy Chow, Ngai Sing (Collin Chou), Leung Kar-Yan
Director: James Wu Kuo-Ren
Action Directors: Lam Man-Cheung, Allan Lan, Yam Pak-Wang

Every once and while, we martial arts fanatics need a return to the basics. You know, a current movie that, instead of bucking all the current trends and fads, gives us what we want in terms of talented martial arts actors busting out some good ol' butt kickin' without all the bells and whistles that accompany many of the recent, mainstream efforts. Now don't me wrong, mainstream efforts can be good in and of themselves, but after a while, they begin to look the same. It is at this point that the true cream rises to the top.

Ever since The Matrix has come out, martial arts in American movies (especially the mainstream) has never been the same. Where fighting was almost always static and bound in reality, The Matrix showed Americans that fights could be exaggerated and cool at the same time. Since then, a lot of fight scenes in movies now utilize Matrix-style editing and slow-motion, wires, CGI-fu, etc. Even Jet Li, who has more talent than the cast of The Matrix and Charlie's Angels combined, was thrown in movies where the producers thought that using CGI fu would be cooler than his actual physical skills. Jackie Chan found himself in the same position, at least stateside, as the once great fighter/stuntman/comedian (all at the same time, mind you) found himself using wires and special FX in his American movies.

Now, not all fight scenes in American cinema are following in the Matrix's footsteps. Others are doing something that is arguably far worse. In order to keep the fight scenes "high-octane," filmmakers and choreographers are overediting fight scenes to the point that they can cause convulsions in small children. Close-ups, quick cuts, and creative camera tricks are also becoming the norm for a lot of movies, which is probably worse than CGI-fu. Now, this isn't to say that it never works. I loved the fight scenes in Donnie Yen's Legend of the Wolf and they did all of this, but it was more of Donnie's artistic vision rather than an attempt to be "cool" and it worked.

Hong Kong, who once were responsible for most of the greatest fight scenes ever committed to film, is in the same situation. Most of the movies made since the mid-1990s (with some exceptions, of course) suffer from watered-down choreography, over-editing, CGI and wire enhancement, doubles, excessive use of slow motion and posturing, etc. This is in part because many of the actors in action movies aren't real martial artists, so tricks like these make it easy to hide their lack of skill. One of the other reasons is probably because Hong Kong is a very trendy place, and people lose their popularity as quickly as the gain it. Therefore, talented people like Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Wu Jing, and Zhao Wen-Zhuo don't have quite the large market like they used to (in the case of the last two, they quite had the market).

Luckily, there are some rays of sun among the clouds. Since the mid-1990s, a few films have appeared on the horizon that assured us that there are still talented martial artists here who can bust it out and make it look good on film. The most recent example is Tony Jaa, a Thai martial artist who turned a lot of heads with his film Ong Bak, a movie that is supposed to be filled to the brim with brutal fighting and stuntwork, just like the old days. Back in the late 1990s, American B-movie actor Mark Dacascos worked with choreographer Koichi Sakamoto and his stunt team on Drive, a stunt-filled fight fest that is said to be the best American martial arts film and is quite certainly the best Jackie Chan film to not star Jackie Chan. Other good attempts were Kane Kosugi's (son of 1980s ninja icon Sho Kosugi) Blood Heat, Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon, and Jackie Chan's Mr. Nice Guy (except the finale). All of these movies gave us the hard-hitting martial arts and stuntwork that made the 1980s Hong Kong movies so great.

So, Death Games is another such movie that finds itself in this small, but valiant group of movies that have taken martial arts in film back to its roots. The first five minutes is solid proof to this fact. You remember those old school chopsockey flicks in which the main guy does some forms or beats up some random guys in front of a red background just to show what how tough he is? The first examples that come to mind are Jackie Chan's Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin and Sammo Hung's Enter the Fat Dragon. This movie begins in a similar way: we get to see star Fan Siu-Wong engage in not one, but TWO random fight scenes that serve no other purpose rather than to tell us that he really does know his stuff. One fight involves escrima and tonfa (the night sticks that cops use) and the other has him taking on four kicking experts simutaneously. Yup...that's what it's all about.

So after his little exhibition, we get with the real plot. We start off with an older guy getting out of a prison. He basically walks out of the prison and the guard gives him a brief "farewell" and off he goes into the real world. Well, not five minutes later (and keep in mind he's still walking alongside the prison wall and not in any direction that would put him at any far distance from the place) a van drives and the guy, Tong, is forced inside. There, a bald Caucasian man with sunglasses shoots him in both knees. The white guy then spouts off some nonsense about Chinese philosophy demanding revenge for a person's father and shoots Tong in the chest and throws him out of the van. He is found by his best friend, Fu (Leung Kar-Yan, in a non-fighting role), who had come to pick him up. He offers some dying last words about his daughter before finally buying the farm.

Following Tong's death, we see Fu with his two daughters, Min and Jen burning money for Tong. This is Buddhist philosophy that I learned in a country presentation in 9th grade (I'm 23 now so of course I'm going to botch up the explanation). I guess whenever you burn money (they usually use "Hell Bank Notes"...I swear I'm not making this up), it goes into heaven for the person to use there. Money in heaven? Was Led Zeppelin on to something?

While they're burning money, Fu thinks back into how this all started. It seems that him and Tong were small time hoods or something. For not wanting to smuggle with some white guy named Lyon, a price was out on their heads. Tong got captured by Lyon. However, while they were talking, Lyon's little daughter happened onto the scene(!) What kind of a stupid person would engage in gunfights and drug deals and such business with his little daughter nearby? Well, Tong grabs the girl to use as a hostage and pushes Lyon over a railing to his doom. Tong makes a break for it, dodging gunfire in the process. Unfortunately, right as Tong whizzes by one of the doors, Lyon's wife is coming out to see what's going on and takes a few herself(!) Well, Tong gets to safety but realizes that he has inadvertantly squeezed the poor little girl to death during the mix-up. So, he decides to turn himself in and Fu takes upon the responsability of taking car of Tong's daughter, whom he raises as his own.

Back in the present day, we learn that Fan Siu-Wong is Kao, teacher at a small, local tae kwon do school. One day he's running over to visit the florist where Fu and his daughters work when all of a sudden, Tiger's men tries to mow down Fu in a gangland style shooting. Kao helps the three get away from the gunmen, only to be attacked by some more henchmen armed with metal bats, led by Shelly (Kim Maree Penn). Kao takes out the henchmen and engages Shelly in hand-to-hand combat. He bests her and she lets them go out of respect for a superior opponent.

Kao asks Fu and his daughters to hide out at his school until things blow over. He tells Fu that the reason he had been at the market was because Tong had been the cellmate of his father. Tong took care of his father so when his father died, he asked Kao to go to Tong as soon as he had gotten out of prison. Without knowing that Tong was already dead, he had gone over to see Tong at the florist at the exact moment Tiger's men were passing by. Well, because Tong took care Kao's father, Kao is willing to help out Fu and his daughters as a sign of gratitude to Tong. There's a lot of reference to Chinese philosophy as far as returning good for good and a life for a life and such in this movie.

Well, Tiger sends his goons out to kidnap the Min and Jen, but unfortunately (for the goons), Kao is in the vicinity and well...lays the smacketh down on them. So Tiger sends his men again to bring in Fu, who's trying to sell his garden. At the same time, Kao, who is teaching wushu at a different school, receives a visit from Shelly. It's interesting, because she walks in the school with a receipt of payment, saying that she wants to learn from him how to beat him. The result? An old school fight utilizing wushu and traditional weapons. You know, our world would be a much cooler place if people would use traditional weapons and martial arts to resolve their differences rather than guns and drive-by shootings.

So Fu gets "invited" for a visit with Tiger and is "asked" to stay. Getting worried about his not returning home, Kao goes to Tiger's place to bring him back. Tiger, a pretty jovial fellow, offers Kao a briefcase full of money for him to keep his nose out of everything. Kao, using that good ol' Chinese philosophy, accuses Tiger of cowardice for buying off someone stronger than him and sequestering someone who is weaker and older. Not wanting to look like a coward, Tiger releases Fu...but no sooner than he does that, he sends his men BACK to kidnap Min.

After figuring out that Min has been kidnapped, Kao once again returns to Tiger's mansion, although this time it's in full fighting mode in order to rescue her. While Kao is taking out the guards, ninja-style, Tiger is taking a few pages out of the Book of Bruce and hiring some top fighters to deal with Kao. After besting Shelly in a sword fight, Kao takes off into the forest with Min. Tiger, however, is prepared: he's brought in perennial Hong Kong movie bad guys Billy Chow and Ngai Sing(or Collin Chou). Billy Chow is David, master of the Thai fist style (Muay Thai, I presume), sporting a shaved head and military fatigues. Ngai Sing is Long (insert 16 Candles joke here), a Japanese ninja master. That's rather interesting, since Long has always struck me as being more of a Chinese/Southeast Asian name rather than a Chinese name.

The next morning, David takes some of Tiger's men into the forest to track down Kao and Min. Meanwhile, Fu turns himself in to Tiger in exchange for them leaving his daughters alone. You know what that means, right? Kao is going to have to fight his way back home (with some help from an unlikely source) after which he'll find out that Fu is back at the mansion and then he'll have to storm the mansion yet again to rescue Fu and...it goes on like this.

Death Games is a very low budget martial arts film that, in spite of its low budget and limited resources (locales, stuntmen, etc.), accomplishes what it sets out to do: show off the talents of its stars, especially its star: Fan Siu Wong. The story is old school: a martial arts teacher getting involved with an organized crime gang. We've seen it all before. It's almost like a 70s/early 80s martial arts movie made 20 years later. The script is interesting in that most of the characters talk in proverbs and Chinese philosophy. Well, not quite. But there's a lot of reference made to Chinese culture and philosophy, especially by Fan's character. It's like being a righteous martial arts master also makes you a philosopher at the same time. Isn't that actually a stereotype of sorts?

I imagine that whatever was spent on the drive-by scene and on Billy Chow and Ngai Sing, that made up the bulk of the budget. I'm probably exaggerating here. However, notice how few locales there in this movie; most of the movie is filmed either at Kao's school or Tiger's mansion. I guess the forests of Hong Kong are also cheap places to shoot a film. Donnie Yen's Legend of the Wolf were filmed in the forest and that movie was very cheap as well.

First and foremost, this film is a showcase for Fan Siu-Wong. Fan, who has yet to achieve popularity among the masses of Hong Kong moviegoers, is an incredibly-talented screen fighter with training in both wushu and tae kwon do, much like Donnie Yen. While he doesn't enjoy a lot of popularity on the big screen, he's done a lot of work on HK television, including Fist of Power, which was recently released in the States as Iron Fist. However, his greatest claim to fame are two movies that are favorites among Hong Kong cult cinefiles: Stanley Tong's epic jungle adventure Stone Age Warriors and the over-the-top martial arts gorefest Story of Ricky (or Rikki-Oh. He can also be seen as one of the cops who assists Michelle Yeoh in Supercop 2.

Anyone who watches him in this movie will wonder why he never became famous on the big screen. He has the physique, the skills, and the looks to be a great martial arts actor. Sadly, his career has been limited to television and low budget films. However, I'm happy to report that he tears up the screen in this movie. Traditional weapons, stylish kicking (including some hop kicking that Tan Tao Liang and Donnie Yen have done), traditional wushu, modern kickboxing, he does it all and looks fantastic doing it. He delivers the type of performance that I wish Jet Li would deliver in more of his movies (poor Jet, he seemed to have caught a break just as wires and fantasy kung fu were the big thing). His character is fairly one-dimensional; he's the type of righteous kung fu master that is always morally correct in whatever he does. It's the type of role that Jet Li could play in his sleep.

Just as much a revelation as Fan Siu-Wong is Kim Maree Penn, who plays Shelly. I mentioned a little about her in my review of In the Line of Duty V. She occasionally appears as a villainess in Hong Kong cinema. American filmgoers may recognize her as the blonde girl in the Thailand scene of Jackie Chan's Supercop and she was the stunt double for the blonde villainess in Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher. She comes close to stealing the show from Fan. Her character is definitely the most interesting, as she has a constant conflict between Tiger, her boyfriend and Kao, a fighter whom she deeply respects. By the end of the movie, she has become one of the most sympathetic characters. She gets a number of fights and gets to fight both hand-to-hand and with weapons. Physically, she's in great shape and has a lot of talent to show off, which she does. The only other movie where she may get more fight scenes is City of Darkness, which also stars Billy Chow and Collin Chou (plus Donnie Yen too).

Now, we can't have a review without mentioning Billy Chow and Ngai Sing. Well, they've appeared in enough reviews on this site that there's not a lot I can say. More often than not, they bring a certain feeling of authority to whatever film they appear in, even though they're almost always villains. Billy, who had been working in movies for about 10 years when he appeared in this, is looking pretty good. Some people may be slightly disappointed that Ngai, playing a Japanese ninja (and an effeminate one at that), doesn't do anything distinctly ninja-like. However, he does get to show us that it IS possible to base a martial arts style solely on pinching people. He also gets a few brief moments to show us that he's just as much a kicking dynamo as were some of his contemporaries, including Donnie Yen and Ken Lo. I think he does better in this movie than he did in Bodyguard from Beijing.

The fights themselves are great, albeit a bit short at times. There are no wires or camera tricks used to make the fights look "cool." There isn't any need to. All the performers are their own special effect, just the way it should be. In most movies, usually the fights build up to a climatic fight, after which the film ends. This movie is the first movie that I've seen that starts with a fight, builds up to a climax, and then ends with a "cooling-down" fight after the climax. Well, that's all good. If I have any complaints about the fight scenes, it's that Fan's character gets to be a bit Steven Seagal at times. Nonetheless, there's enough on display that such is easily forgivable. I mean, unlike Steven Seagal, who doesn't know how to portray himself as a bada** AND show off the talents of others at the same time, this movie is able to do both of them pretty well. None of the fights are necessarily all-time classics, but they're all well-done and a breath of fresh air from the usual popular stars who try to fight onscreen.

Are there any flaws to this movie? Yeah, there are. There are frequent grammatical and spelling errors in the subtitles. There's the question of the formulaic plot and logic lapses that often accompany these movies (i.e. why do these guys insist on using knives and hand-to-hand instead of guns and bazookas and stuff like that?). I really liked how the actor that played Tiger used a lot of exaggerated facial expressions to portray his descent into insanity. hehehe Min and Jen are thoroughly annoying and spend most of the movie being overmelodramatic. However, I guess those are small potatoes when talking about a movie with so much skill on display.

So, Death Games is one of those movies that need to be made more often. In spite of its flaws, it delivers the goods where it counts the most. Any movie that showcases so well as many people and styles as this movie does deserves great praise. For all of you martial arts fans who are tired of Matrix-style editing, CGI-fu, and quick cuts and junk, Death Games is ray of hope for all of us martial arts fans.