Seoul Raiders (2005)

Seoul Raiders (2005)
aka: Tokyo Raiders 2
Chinese Title: 韓城攻略
Translation: Seoul Raiders

Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Richie Ren, Shu Qi, James Kim, Meme Tian, Hanna Cho Han-na, Choi Yeo-Jin, Jo Su-Hyun, Saki Seto
Director: Jingle Ma
Action Director: Ailen Sit, Kim Wong Jin, Tang Chiu-Yau

 

Tokyo Raiders was a fairly big hit in Hong Kong in 2000, a time that the territory’s local cinema was floating adrift the doldrums of general mediocrity. It didn’t make all that much compared to some of the hits of the previous decade, especially Jackie Chan’s and Stephen Chow’s films. However, it made 28 million HKD, which placed it second place[1] for local fare that year. It was inevitable that a sequel would be made, although the question remained of who of the main cast—Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Eking Cheng and Kelly Lin—would return. When Jingle Ma finally gave us a sequel five years later—and a year after his Michelle Yeoh vanity project Silver Hawk—only Tony Leung returned as the super-suave Japan-based-Chinese spy Lam.

The movie opens with cat burglar J.J. (Shu Qi, of The Assassin and TheBlacksheep Affair) breaking into a building to steal a pair of counterfeiting plates known as “The Avenger.” She arrives near the safe, only to discover that Lam is already there, having knocked out all the guards. He blows up the same in her presence and the two make a break for it, with the remaining guards on their tales. A fight breaks out and J.J makes off with the plates, only to discover that Lam bamboozled her and kept them on his person.

The next day, Lam shows up at the American embassy where CIA attaché Owen Lee (Richie Ren, of Silver Hawk) receives the plates. While retrieving Lam’s cash reward, Lee slips Lam a mickey and absconds with the plates, leaving Lam to answer for trespassing at the embassy on a weekend. The Hong Kong police bails out Lam and directs him to Seoul, where Owen has fled. It is presumed that he has gone there with the intent of selling the plates to an elusive Asian crime boss named Polar Bear. So off to Seoul for Lam…

Arriving there, he needs an entourage of hot Korean girls to assist him, as his Japanese entourage (including Cecelia Cheung and Yuko Moriyama, both absent from the film) probably wouldn’t know their way around town. His assistant Saya (Saki Seto) brings in a trio of Korean girls to help him: a model, Lee Youn-Mi (Hanna Cho Han-Na); a go-go dancer, Moon Ji-Hee (Jo Su-Hyun); and an athlete, Choi Sun-Ah (Korean TV actress Choi Yeo-Jin). So, a series of chase-and-fight action sequences ensue as Lam and his assistants—and eventually J.J.—track down Owen as the latter tries to close a deal with Polar Bear.

And that’s basically the movie. The protagonists find out where Owen is, stake out the locale, get into a big fight sequence, Owen gets away, rinse and repeat. There are a couple of twists to the story in the third act, although perceptive viewers will figure everything out by the hour mark. That basically leaves the viewer with few things to do during the 99-minute run time: 1) ogle Shu Qi and her luscious lips (she has rarely looked cuter than she does here); 2) stare awestruck as you realize just how much Richie Ren (sans the goatee from Silver Hawk) looks like Yuen Biao when viewed from certain angles; and 3) enjoy the fight scenes. The absence of Eking Cheng leaves us without Tony Leung to act off of, so his smarmy character isn’t as amusing in this movie as he was before.

The fight scenes are once again choreographed by the late Ailen Sit, who had helmed the action for the previous Tokyo Raiders and Silver Hawk, with the assistance of Korean Superkicker Kim Wong Jin and Hong Kong veteran Tang Chiu-Yau (Bloodmoon; Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal; and The Battle of Lake Chongjin). The choreography style is very similar to those films, with lots of slow-motion as a means of hiding the actors’ lack of real martial arts ability complementing Jingle Ma’s camerawork. However, this film is definitely missing the Jackie Chan-esque object-based fighting of Tokyo Raiders and the natural athleticism of Michelle Yeoh, Luke Goss and Michael Jai White in Silver Hawk. Tony Leung and Eking Cheng are not the greatest screen fighters, but the use of bottles, umbrellas, vacuum cleaners, stun guns and sticky slime really gave the fight sequences a creative edge. Likewise, Silver Hawk had some nice gimmick-driven set pieces, but those were bolstered by the presence of veteran screen fighters like Yeoh and White.

Sit unwisely chooses to base the action in this movie largely around hand-to-hand combat. The use of stunt doubles for our three leads—and probably the Korean girls, too—feels even more egregious here. It almost feels like they made a movie about Korea, so they wanted everybody to fight with tae kwon do. And so they had to double them even more than Ekin and Tony would have been doubled in Tokyo Raiders. Moreover, when it really is Tony, Richie or Shu throwing the punches, the editing is more invasive, the camera pulled in closer to the combatants. In some ways, the action feels like Richie Ren and Tony Leung performing early 70s basher choreography, but with early 00s editing and stylization techniques to hide it…only for the camera to pull back for a long shot with their doubles performing a flashy jumping spin kick or something. There is enough fighting that more undemanding audiences might be placated, but choreography buffs and seasoned kung fu veterans will find these scenes rather weak.

The only thing that Seoul Raiders does better than its predecessor is give us a fairly decent climax. Tokyo Raiders ended the movie on an unexciting boat chase (is there any other type). This one has a lot more fighting, starting with a brawl at a Korean baseball stadium and later a(nother) vehicle-based stunt sequence, this time involving cars and airplanes. But at least the characters are fighting in, on and around the airplane, so there’s that. Nonetheless, Tokyo Raiders still wins on account of its having more and better eye candy overall, a better rapport between the male leads, and more imagination on the action side of things. Plus, that film gave us fight scenes set to salsa music, while composer Tommy Wai is content to simply rip off the Kill Bill soundtrack this time around.

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[1] - The highest grossing domestic release in HK in 2000 was Johnnie To’s drama Needing You…, starring Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng. Never underestimate the star power of Sammi Cheng in the early 2000s Hong Kong.