Red Skies (2002)

Red Skies (2002)
aka: Skies Red

 

Starring: Vivian Wu, Shawn Christian, Kadeem Hardison, Rachael Crawford, Sidney Liufau, Pauley Perette, Caroline Lagerfelt, Roger Yuan, Clancy Brown
Director: Larry Carroll, Robert Lieberman
Action Director: Philip Tan, Jeff Pruitt, Clay Fontanot

 

Red Skies is an interesting relic from the early 2000s, when the success of The Matrix; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and Jackie Chan movies were still on producers’ minds. The film feels like an attempt to replicate the success of “Martial Law” starring Sammo Hung. However, now that CTHD had proved to mainstream American audiences that Asian women could kick major ass, too, this one does a sort of gender inversion of the premise of the “Asian cop comes to America, teams up with the local boys, and kung fu’s the living daylights out of everyone.” I’m guessing that this pilot wasn’t successful enough to warrant a first season, so all we got is this movie.

The movie opens up with a hostage situation foiled by a crack team of FBI agents known as “The Enforcers.” Basically, The Enforcers have leeway to play fast and loose with “the rules,” especially in situations where time is of the essence. At this moment, the Enforcers are made up of Agents Cross (Shawn Christian, of the “Birds of Prey” series) and Riley (Kadeem Hardison, of Drive and Instinct to Kill). Although they diffuse the hostage situation without any casualties, the Deputy Director of the FBI is pretty pissed that he’s been shown up, so their boss (Clancy Brown), has them do some grunt work for the time being.

Said job involves helping the Coast Guard rescue illegal Chinese immigrants from being smuggled into Hong Kong as slave labor. Cross and Riley get two more field agents—Kay (Sidney Liufau, who did stuntwork on Mortal Kombat and Blade) and Nicole (TV actress Rachael Crawford)—to assist them on the job. Now, this particular immigrant ship is special. For one, one member of the crew is a Chinese criminal named Zhao Lo (Shanghai Noon’s Roger Yuan), who’s fleeing China to set up legitimate businesses in the States—where corporation heads never get prosecuted. Following him are Chinese policemen Po and Wen Li (Vivian Wu, of TMNT 3 and The Pillow Book), determined to bring him in before he can “go straight.” There ends up being some fighting on the ship and Po is killed, while Wen Li is taken into FBI custody.

Once her identity is confirmed by the Chinese consulate, Wen Li is allowed to stick around in sunny Southern Cal while The Enforcers investigate Zhao Lo. Although he has his papers in order, an assassination attempt on Wen Li leads her and the Enforcers to investigate how he got his immigration papers in order. This will lead our team of good guys to the INS and later to the Pierson girls, who run one of Zhao Lo’s “legitimate” businesses, actually a front for child labor, drugs and prostitution.

The film ends with (SPOILER) Wen Li sticking around California to assist The Enforcers as a “Pan Pacific-Asian Consultant,” which means that the ensuing series would have been about our five heroes (SPOILER) working their way through Zhao Lo’s gang until he himself is finally apprehended or killed. That itself means that although one external conflict—the kidnapping of the immigrant children by the Piersons—is resolved, the overarching story of Wen Li trying to bring Zhao to justice is not.

The characterizations are pretty standard for this sort of film/show. Vivian Wu plays Wen Li as an impatient hothead who is willing to beat up anybody (and everybody) in her search for vengeance. I do think that that sort of role is a bit out of her league and she comes across as a bit wooden in this. She does get a pseudo-sexy moment where she dances seductively with co-star Shawn Christian at a nightclub. That’s enough to make me want to check out The Pillow Book. Shawn Christian is also depicted as being an expert martial artist—there’s a running bit about him being an FBI agent who doesn’t use a gun—and a former serial killer profiler. He has an easygoing charisma and his interactions with Kadeem Hardison are what really carry the film when the punches aren’t being thrown. The character of Kay barely reaches one dimension, while Nicole is the stereotypical “Rookie who has to prove herself.” I’m guessing that the former would have had some more moments to shine had the series gone foreward. Roger Yuan as the villain is playing basically the same role he did in Shanghai Noon, so if you liked him there, you’ll like him here.

The action is provided by some Hollywood veterans. Philip Tan has worked in Hollywood since the 1980s—he was a gymnastics and tae kwon do champion before that--and choreographed films like Martial Law and the Bloodsport sequels. Jeff Pruitt is also a long-time Hollywood stunt veteran whose credits include Jeff Wincott vehicles like Martial Law II; Mission of Justice; and Martial Outlaw. Clay Fontanot doesn’t have quite so much experience as the other two—he joined the game in the late 90s—but his résumé is no less impressive: the Blade films (including doubling for Wesley Snipes); Logan; the Equalizer films.

The fight sequences are more or less what you expect from an American production in the early 2000s. The specter of the Hong Kong/wire-fu influence is present, although thankfully the wire-fu moves are kept to a minimum—notably in the beginning when Vivian Wu (or her stunt double) perform a quadruple bicycle kick on a stuntman on the immigrant ship. The pacing of the fights is something out of a 1990s Hollywood martial arts film, but with a lot of quick cuts to hide the actors’ stunt doubles. The finale is a bit of a disappointment—it pits Vivian Wu against Pauley Perette atop a narrow rafter in a warehouse. There is some wire-assistance, but the fight feels slow and uncoordinated. Although Shawn Christian does some fighting early on (including a brief tussle with Wen Li), he doesn’t do as much at the end, which disappointed me. Meanwhile, Kadeem Hardison goes the two-fisted pistol route in his action sequences because…y’know…Hong Kong influence and all.

I’m not sure how many more of these martial arts-infused American TV movies from the turn of the Millenium there are, but this one is sort of in the middle. It’s better than The Lost Kingdom, but not as good as Invincible.