Revenger (2018)

 Revenger (2018)

 

Starring: Bruce Khan, Park Hee-soon, Yoon Jin-Seo, Kim Na-Yeon, Kim In-kwon, Choi Je-Heon, Jeong SooJin, T.J. Storm
Director: Lee Seung-Wan
Action Directors: Yang Tae-Yeol, Bruce Khan, Jeong Chang-Hyeon, Ahn Kap-Yong

 

Does anybody remember No Escape? Not the recent action thriller about Owen Wilson trying to get his family out of SE Asia following a coup d’état, but the 1994 futuristic prison-dystopia sci-fi thriller starring the late Ray Liotta. It was made a year or so after Hard Target, and hit theaters at roughly the same time as the Ice-T film Surviving the Game. All three of those movies presented some sort of modern (or futuristic) take on the “Hounds of Zaroff” theme of human hunting. Hard Target moved the most dangerous game into the urban hellhole that is Baton Rouge. Surviving the Game took it what I think was the Pacific Northwest, but was essentially a low-budget remake of Hard Target.

No Escape, however, played a little looser with the formula. Set on an island serving as a penal colony, it mainly left the prisoners up to their own devices. The prisoners ultimately set up two factions, one that strived for a degree of civilization and one that went full-on Lord of the Flies. Chances were that you’d meet up with the latter before you did the former and would get hunted through the forests of the island if you refused to join them. It sounds like an updating of an all-but-forgotten film called Terminal Island from 1973.  I bring this movie up because Revenger is essentially a martial arts-heavy variation on that particular theme.

We open with a girl and her mother on the run from some barbarous types on the beaches of an island, which the opening intertitles inform us is a place were all countries in Asia send their worst criminals. The mother, Mali (Yoon Jin-Seo, of Oldboy and Lady Vengeance), is initially able to hold her own, but is ultimately subdued by the brigands’ leader. The little girl, Jin (Kim Na-Yeon) makes a run for it. Although the thugs catch up to her, their attention is drawn to a lone figure standing on the beach. Said person is all shackled up with his face obscured by an anti-bite mask. Yup, we have ourselves a new inmate on the island. The newbie, whose name is Kim Yul (Bruce Khan, who did stuntwork in The Medallion and Gen-Y Cops), proceeds to kick the holy sh*t out of the prisoners using only his legs. He also saves Mali’s from rape while he’s at it.

Jin leads Kim Yul, who’s carrying an unconscious Mali on his shoulder, back to the hidden village where some of the less-crazy inmates have set up shop. Well, “less-crazy” should be explained. Most of the villagers are pretty nuts, but it’s in the way that you might expect due to years of social isolation, as opposed to having just given in to their baser instincts. Most of the other inmates, however, have indeed turned themselves over to their more primal selves. They are also being led by a former crime kingpin named Kuhn (Park Hee-Soon, of Monstrum and The Fortress). Kuhn is the guy who murdered Jin’s dad in order to establish his authority over the inmates. He’s also the fellow who brutally murdered Kum Yul’s wife and daughter some years before. That means…you guessed it…Kim Yul intentionally committed some murders back in the Civilized World just to get sent to the island. Get ready for some near non-stop action.

Revenger for the most part does right by its premise, although it loses points for some bad humor. Many of residents of the “good” village are all a bit quirky due to a lack of normal social interactions, and “quirky” oftentimes is confused with “downright goofy.” The supporting characters’ shenanigans frequently deflates the overall tension and serious mood of the movie. That especially goes for the village doctor, who often has these fits where he starts to think he’s a woman, and has to kiss a man to revert back to his normal self. The movie also suffers from some bad writing and acting. This applies especially to lead actor Bruce Khan, who has less lines than Kurt Russell did in Soldier. I don’t think he even reached ten lines of dialog in this movie. I think Tony “Where’s my elephant?” Jaa gave more nuanced performance in Tom Yung Goong than Bruce Khan did in this film.

Nonetheless, like most other hardcore martial arts fans, I came here for the fighting got my money’s worth here. Bruce Khan dominates in his fights and is quite the well-rounded screen fighter. Too many Korean tae kwon do experts that get into movie-making are rarely more than their legwork (with the exception of Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee), but Khan does it all: kicks, punches, throws and ground fighting, and even weapons. He does a few flashy aerial kicks, but he’s more about doing your basic front, side, roundhouse and spinning kicks with speed, power and snap. I can easily respect that.

Teaming up with him for the action design are Yang Tae-Yeol, Ahn Kap-Yong and Jeong Chang-Hyeon. For those first two, this is their freshman effort. Jeong Chang-Hyeon, however, has had planted a firm base in Korean cinema, working in the industry since the early 2000s. Jeong did the action direction for films like Fighter in the Wind and City of Violence, so he definitely knows what he’s doing on the action front. People who have enjoyed the bone-crunching brutality of both Thai and Indonesian cinema will definitely find a lot to like here.

After the opening fight, the action picks up again when Kim Yul raids a building that Kuhn’s men use to keep “good” inmates prisoner and occasionally rape and/or torture them. The bad guys inhabiting this place are led by T.J. Storm, the Hollywood stuntman best known these days for doing Godzilla’s motion capture in the recent MonsterVerse films. Aiding him are famous superkickers Kim Won-Jung and Kim Won-Jin, the latter best know for Operation Scorpio. (note from Future Blake: apparently the two Kims in question are members of the Best Stunts team. The Scorpion-style legend usually just goes by Won Jin--thanks to J.J. Hayden and Paul Bramhall for their correction) There are some great boots here, even though the fight with T.J. Storm is shorter than most of us would’ve liked.

That’s followed by a cat-and-mouse action sequence involving trained archers, including Mali. All that leads into a vicious group melee/massacre between Kuhn’s men and the villagers, which itself leads into a simply magnificent swordfight against the Kuhn’s men. Among them is Kuhn’s right-hand man, Jareugal (Choi Je-Heon), and a hunchback who wields a pair of machetes with deadly precision. Some of my colleagues have compared this display of weapons prowess to the best moments of the recent Rurouni Kenshin films. I haven’t seen those yet, but I was extremely impressed with the speed and choreography on display as Bruce Khan goes buck wild with a sword in the best possible way. It’s such a great scene that the final fight with Kuhn—which goes more for the ground fighting and general brutality--is almost a letdown in comparison. I don’t think we’ve gotten weapons choreography of that calibre on the Hong Kong/China front since Fearless, or at least Vincent Zhao’s pudao workout in True Legend. That said, I’m glad that we have other Asian countries to pick up China’s slack while they still waste their talent with wires, unnecessarily slow motion, and CGI effects.