The Tournament (2009)

The Tournament (2009)

 

Starring: Ving Rhames, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, Ian Somerhalder, Liam Cunningham, Sebastien Foucan, Craig Conway, John Lynch
Director: Scott Mann
Action Director: J.J. Perry, Jon Valera

 

I think in recent years, Indonesia has become the paragon of violent action movies. In fact, I think they’ve held onto that title since the 1980s when Barry Prima was active. More recently, the works of Iko Uwais have been masterpieces of graphic violence and unrelenting brutality. The Raid speaks for itself. But it was trumped by its own sequel, which featured gory scenes of Julie Estelle mutilating multiple opponents with a claw hammer, Iko Uwais pushing a guy’s face against a stove until his face burned off, and a man getting decapitated with a shotgun, to name a few scenes. I’m not sure how, but Headshot felt even worse (or at least more mean spirited), what with its wanton slaughter of innocent bystanders and police officers,  not to mention the plot point of throwing kids into a dry well and having them fight each other to the death. And to think that The Night Comes For Us is even worse than those just makes me shutter.

So, what would be the most violent action movies outside of Indonesia? Well, Hong Kong has lots of violent movies, like the works of John Woo, Johnnie To and Ringo Lam. For example, Hard Boiled has a body count of about 300. Those movies tend to be stylized, however, and are often “poetic” in their presentation. One exception might be Daniel Lee’s Black Mask. Another, more notable one is Soi Cheang’s Dog Bite Dog, which is probably the bleakest, most unpleasant film to come out of Hong Kong. I’m sure that Japan, the land of the Rising Sun and blood geysers, has more than a few masterpieces of bloodletting that rise high on the chart. Thai action movies, especially those associated with the late Panna Rittikrai, were often brutal and full of bone-crunching action, albeit not always gory per se.

What about in the West? One film that comes to mind is Punisher: War Zone, which was extremely gory (and, surprisingly enough, directed by a woman). The Blade movies were also pretty hardcore for their time, even though some of the gore is lessened by the dated CGI, especially the first one. Kill Bill Vol. 1 was threatened with an NC-17 rating; Quentin Tarantino got around it by presenting one of the action set pieces in black and white. There are a number of others, which y’all can mention in the Comments. One contender for the “most violent film to not come out of Indonesia” would be The Tourament from 2009.

The set-up is simple. Every few years, a tournament is staged in which 30 of the world’s greatest assassins are let loose in a small town and have to kill each other until only one is left standing. The winner gets both the prestige of being the best and a ten-million-dollar reward for his (or her) efforts. At the beginning of the movie, we are placed in the final minutes of one such Tournament, set in the city of Shirão, Brazil[1]. The combatants have been whittled down to Joshua Harlow (Ving Rhames, of Pulp Fiction and The Undisputed), some expendable meat, and a lunatic named Gene Walker (Alien Hunter’s John Lynch). Harlow is able to use some sort of gun-like slaughterhouse tool to literally blow Walker’s head off, after which he offs the Expendable Meat, who’s already bleeding out. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!

Seven years later, it’s time for the next tournament. This time around, the carnage is to take place in small town in Ireland. We follow the steps of Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu, of Cradle 2 the Grave and X2: X-Men United), a Triad hitwoman who’s competing in the Tournament. She heads over to her hotel, where she gets all showered up and drinks a liquid from a mysterious beaker (as instructed by the contest organizers). She passes out and a clandestine medical team shows up to surgically implant a tracking device in one of her love handles. The same happens to all of the combatants.

As soon as she wakes up the next day, the Tournament begins. Lai Lai narrowly misses being strangled to death in her hotel room by a nutcase named Steve Tomko (Doomsday’s Craig Conway). After dispatching of him, she takes to the streets to track down the other contestants. Meanwhile, some of the richest men and most powerful crime bosses in the world are watching the spectacle somewhere in the vicinity, placing bets every time the tracking radar shows that two targets are about to meet. At the same time, a pair of tech nerds have hacked all of the security cameras in the city—plus have installed numerous more in the locale’s blindspots—so that the betters can watch the Tournament unfold. All of this is overseen by the mind behind the Tournament, an enigmatic man named Powers (Liam Cunningham, whom I recognized from Afonso Cuarón’s The Little Princess).

Thanks to a clever subterfuge of a French assassin named Anton Bogart (Sebastien Foucard, the parkour guy from Casino Royale), one of the trackers endings up in the digestive system of a drunken priest, Father MacAvoy (Robert Carlyle, of The World is Not Enough). When the good Father goes to his parish to pray to the Virgin Mary, he’s set upon by a Russian assassin, Yuri Petrov (Scott Adkins). Only the timely intervention by Lai Lai Zhen saves MacAvoy from becoming one more innocent bystander. As soon as she realizes that MacAvoy isn’t a competitor, she has him tag along with her so she can protect him from the others.

While all that is going on, we see two other contestants in action. One of them is a sadistic basket case named Miles Slade (Ian Somerhalder, of “The Vampire Diaries” and “Lost”). When we meet Slade, he’s slicing the finger off a guy he’s just offed…and then kills a stray dog in the area just for fun. Yes, he’s Eeeeeevil! The other contestant is Joshua Harlow, who is back in action, looking for the assassin who murdered his pregnant wife. One of the contestants claims it was Slade who did it, so Harlow now has a score to settle.

The Tournament is, for the most part, a non-stop action ride full of gunplay, martial arts, explosions and even some car stunts. The filmmakers made the most of their nine-million-dollar budget and the film looks great for a low-budget action flick. The film has a solid cast of mainstream actors we’ve seen in other, bigger movies and seasoned character actors. Ving Rhames and especially Robert Carlyle offer genuine performances, and even the ice-cold Kelly Hu has an opportunity to emote at one point. I also really liked the general premise of the movie; it’s something you could see happening in the world of John Wick at some point. I would have liked to have seen more action from the unnamed, “minor” competitors and maybe a little bit more on the background of the Tournament itself, but for the most part, I was satisfied.

Now, I have to say that this film was violent. I mean, ultraviolent. I mean, gory violent. This film was hardcore. We have lots of body parts getting severed, especially fingers. Some characters get their heads blown off in the most literal way possible. More than a few characters go out in what Rose Harper would refer to as “meat explosions.” I mean, people blow up something fierce in this movie. You also have your requisite shootings, stabbings, and even someone performing surgery on himself. Plus, you know, RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST A DOG!

The action scenes were staged by J.J. Perry and Jon Valera. The latter is credited as having choreographed the fight between Kelly Hu and Craig Conway, in which the two trade blows while he tries to strangle/slit her throat with a garotte. Valera is a Hollywood veteran, best known for choreographing films like Birds of Prey and Hitman: Agent 47. He also assisted in staging the fights in the John Wick movies. This fight is a little chaotic, but has some decent work from Kelly Hu.

Meanwhile, J.J. Perry is a long-time Hollywood stuntman, most famous working with hard hitters Michael Jai White and Scott Adkins for the likes of Undisputed 2 and Blood and Bone. Obviously, the best fight is when Kelly Hu throwdown with Scott Adkins inside the church. Perry said that he drew inspiration from Jackie Chan movies in how the scene was shot and edited. Adkins gets to throw his trademark kicks, namely a nice combo of a false jumping crescent kick, followed by a standing crescent kick, ending in a front kick. Meanwhile, Hu uses some nice jiu-jitsu moves against him. Hu’s stunt double, Kimberly Chiang (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Pacific Rim) gets banged up good as Adkins throws her against stone columns and stuff like that. It all ends with a meat explosion.

Also adding to the martial arts quotient is Sebastien Foucan, best known for being one of the founding fathers of parkour. He gets to do plenty of free running and jumping in this movie, so parkour fans will have their fill. He also faces off against Kelly Hu at the climax, in a gonzo action sequence set inside a moving double-decker bus. Hu and Foucan are trading blows while Ving Rhames, driving a truck, is constantly ramming into them. Foucan shows off some nice footwork in this part and ultimately gives the movie’s best overall physical performance.

If you want a large helping of action and some nice ultraviolence, The Tournament will scratch your itch. Fans of Scott Adkins might be disappointed that his role amounts to little more than a cameo, but at least he gets a good fight out of the exercise. With a game cast and overall good direction, The Tournament is surely worth a view.

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[1] - As far as I know, there is no city or town in Brazil named Shirão. There is a ceramic store in the city of São Caetano do Sul, right next to São Paulo, that is called “Casa do Shirão,” however.