Sino-Dutch War 1661 (2001)
aka Hero Zheng Chenggong
Chinese Title: 鄭成功
Translation: Zheng Cheng Gong
Starring: Vincent Zhao Wenzhuo, Jiang Qin-Qin, Du Zhi-Guo, Yoko Shimada, Xu Min, Zhang Shan, Yang Guang
Director: Wu Zi-Niu
Action Director: Lin Luen
Interesting historical melodrama about the historical personage Koxinga, the military leader who more or less established Taiwan as a part of China during the early days of the Qing Dynasty. Despite the film's title, the movie focuses on Koxinga's adult life and military career, with the titular conflict really coming into in the fore only in the last act.
Koxinga, born Zheng Sen, is played by Vincent Zhao Wenzhuo, who was still doing better work on TV than he was doing in film at this point. Zheng Sen returns home from the military academy just as the Manchurians have taken over the Beijing, forcing the Ming Emperor to flee to Southern China--this is 1646. The Emperor has set up shop in the Fujian Province, across the sea from Taiwan. Zheng Sen's father, Zheng Zhilong (Du Zhiguo), is a Ming General and Loyalist. Zheng Sen is promoted to high military rank and given the title Imperial Namekeeper, with his name changed by the Emperor to Zheng Chenggong. He is sent into the mountains to look for turncoats in the Imperial Army stationed there.
What he doesn't know is that the entire batallion stationed there has already switched sides...at the behest of his own father. He makes it out of Shaanxi alive thanks to his adopted sister (Bloody Brothers' Jiang Qin-Qin). After confronting his father about it, his dad heads to Beijing to accept his promised post, only to be betrayed by the Qings and executed. The Qing Army finally invades Fujian and ultimately conquers all of China. Zhen Chenggong remains a Ming Loyalist military commander, although instead of leading uprisings against the new dynasty, he builds up a navy in order to kick the Dutch out of Taiwan.
The most interesting part of this film, historically speaking, is how the Qing Emperor ultimately decides to leave Chenggong alone. He hasn't professed loyalty to the Qing Dynasty. He hasn't shaved his head and started wearing the queue. But the Emperor is content to leave him alone. Why? Because he's Chinese and it's better to leave your enemy alone if they can defeat a greater enemy--the non-Chinese Dutch (naturally)--for the benefit of all of China. In the end, we learn that by the third generation of the Zheng family in Taiwan, they professed loyalty to the Qings and Taiwan was absorbed into the empire without any unnecessary shedding of blood. Very savvy on the Emperor's part.
There are a handful of action sequences, namely the Siege of Fuzhou and the initial attack on the Dutch stronghold in Taiwan (the rest of the war is glossed over in intertitles at the end). The action was staged by C (or D)-level action director Lin Luen, whose filmography includes such obscure films as Big Job (with Chin Siu-Ho) and Watch Out (with Chin Kar-Lok). The battle scenes are okay, although sometimes the editing is too choppy. Vincent Zhao does get to perform some wushu swordplay in these sequences, with him looking good during the Siege sequence and the finale battle, which pits him against the Dutch general. I like Vincent Zhao a lot and would put this in the center of the Vincent Zhao bell curve.
Manhattan Midnight (2001)
Chinese Title: 午夜曼哈頓
Starring: Richard Grieco, Michael Wong Man-Tak, Maggie Q, Stacia Crawford, Joe Rejeski, Wong Kam-Kong
Director: Alfred Cheung
Action Director: Bruce Law
Interesting shot-on-digital-cam film (apparently the first) from long-time HK actor-writer-director Alfred Cheung, which was shot with a mixed cast and crew on location in New York (no mention of Vancouver in the closing credits). Richard Grieco (whom I know the most for the 007 send-up If Looks Could Kill) plays "M", a former SEAL-turned-hitman who's operating out of NYC. He's hired to off a pretty young business analyst named Susan (Maggie Q, credited as Maggie Quigley on the Brazilian DVD cover), but he accidentally kills her twin-sister-that-nobody-knew-about, Hope, instead. Feeling that he owes his victim, he decides to protect his quarry instead.
The first half plays like a pretty standard hitman-goes-good thriller, not too unlike The Replacement Killers by way of Maximum Risk. The latter comes about in the form of scenes of "M" visiting Hope's mother and learning about the twin sister that was given up for adoption at birth. The second half grows muddled, which has some supernatural overtones, an unconvincing love story (Susan figures out M's reasons for protecting her, but isn't repulsed by him for a moment), a subplot about the FBI trying track down M, and his attempts to kill his boss (with the help of his colleague and fellow SEAL, played by Michael Fitzgerald Wong). There is something of a Vertigo-esque angle within the romantic subplot about Grieco's character trying to convince himself that Susan is Hope by having her use her sister's clothes, but it's not really shown (just sort of talked about in retrospect).
Grieco gives a one-note performance, speaking all his dialog with the same smooth whisper. The only time he shows a bit of life is when he's talking to Danny, Michael Wong's estranged son. Maggie Q is fine in a dual role as a cynical (and worldly) mistress and an upbeat, naïve college girl. Maggie Q fans will be happy to learn that she does have some brief nudity during a sex scene with Grieco--making it the second film of hers where I've seen that, alongside Naked Weapon. Michael Wong is Michael Wong: you love him or hate him...or simply love to hate him.
There are a handful of gunfights staged by Bruce Law, which aren't bad. I have to give the film points for not going soft of the violence: there are lots of squibs and bloody gunshot wounds in this film, so kudos there. In the final gunfight, one character takes several bullets to the arm, causing the entire thing to detach from the shoulder(!). The two-fisted gunplay isn't always convincing as it is in most HK bullet ballets, but I thought the carnage itself made up for it.
I wish the final shot was explained a bit better. I think I know what's going on, but it's mainly a succession of images with Hope's poetry being recited in the background, so I'm not sure.
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