The Fortress (2017)

The Fortress (2017)
Korean Title: 남한산성
Translation: South Han Mountain Fortress

 

Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Kim Yoon-suk, Park Hae-il, Goh Soo, Song Young-chang, Park Hee-soon, Lee Da-wit
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Action Director: Heo Myeong-haeng, Ryoo Sung-chul

 

As a kung fu movie fan, I’ve seen numerous movies set during the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1644 – 1911). Many of them involve Han Chinese patriots and folk heroes fighting against the Qing (or Manchu) “dogs” in a valiant (but ultimately unsuccessful) effort to restore the Ming Dynasty (or at least put the Hans back in power). A few of them deal with conflicts unique to that dynasty, like the infamous Taiping Rebellion. And others—like most films involving Wong Fei-Hung—have the Qing Dynasty as a backdrop, but don’t delve too much into the politics of the era (save the first few Once Upon a Time in China films). The Fortress is interesting because it tells a story from that period from a distinctly Korean point-of-view.

The film is set in A.D. 1636, eight years before the Manchurians will able to defeat the Ming Emperor and establish rule over China. The Ming Dynasty—a failing surveillance state thanks to a paranoid emperor and power-hungry eunuchs—is falling, while the Qings, composed of the Manchurian Jurchen tribe, are winning. Now, the region known as Manchuria borders on Korea (known then as the Joseon Kingdom) and both the Manchu and Korean languages are part of the same linguistic family. So, there’s a naturally feeling of brotherhood between them. The problem is that the Ming Dynasty had helped out Joseon against Japanese invaders (probably pirates) at some point and thus the royal family of Joseon pledged support to the Ming throne. Now that the Qings are trying to conquer China, they are offended that their “brothers” would support their enemies. So, a Qing army has come to the Joseon kingdom in order to force capitulation by the king.

When the movie starts, the Qings have already marched into the capital, forcing King Injo (Park Hae-il, of War of the Arrows and Hansan: Rising Dragon) and his ministers to flee to the south and take refuge in the fortress of Namhansanseong. A number of civilians from villages located around the mountain have also sought refuge, so there’s about 13,000 people holing up at the place. The problems are two-fold: first, the Qings have surrounded the mountain and cut off all possible escape (or entrance) routes from the place; second, it’s winter and this looks to be an especially harsh one.

The bulk of the film involves the interaction between King Injo and his ministers. Choi Myung-kil (Lee Byung-hun, of G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra and I Saw the Devil) is the Minister of the Interior, who is initially sent to try to negotiate peace terms with General Yonggoldae (Heo Sung-tae of Dragon Ball: Son Goku Fights, Son Goku Wins). The initial terms are for the king to renounce his support of the Ming Dynasty and to deliver up the crown prince (whom we never see) as a hostage to the Qing Emperor. Not only are the other ministers against this very idea, but they accuse Minister Choi of being in cahoots with the Manchus. This is a running theme throughout the film, that most of the king’s ministers exist to do nothing but tell the king to kill the messenger. In any case, Choi is in favor of peace at any costs, even it means becoming a vassal state to the Qing Emperor.

Opposing him directly is the Prime Minister (Song Young-chang, of Thirst and The Man from Nowhere) and Kim Sang-hun (The Yellow Sea’s Kim Yoon-seok), the Minister of Rites. To them, it is a question of national morality to not go back on their support for the Ming throne, as it is a question of dignity for the country to defend itself and be in bondage to nobody. While these two factions are going back and forth, the elements and limited supplies are weighing down on the soldiers’ morale. Enter a resourceful blacksmith named Nal-so (Goh Soo, Haunters and The Front Line), who manages to “befriend” Minister Kim and give him advice on how to take of the soldiers and maintain their weapons. Kim comes to trust Nal-so—especially after his advice helps them repel several ambushes from the Manchu soldiers. So as the winter drags on and things become dire, Kim entrusts Nal-so with a special mission: sneak out of the fortress with a letter to give to the reinforcement army camped out not too far away from the mountain…

Much of the film is less about the actual skirmishes between the Joseon and Manchurian armies and more about the political maneuverings between the two “factions” among the king’s ministers. The inability of the king’s ministry to really unify themselves amidst a situation that is quickly going from bad to worse quickly reflects on the soldiers’ morale, which then leads to discipline issues between the soldiers and the highest brass of the military (i.e. the Prime Minister). The malfeasance of the higher-ups is best exemplified by a series of scenes in which the Prime Minister resorts to draconian measures to solve one problem, only to completely render the sacrifice void in order to solve another. Case in point: the lack of access to the grounds outside the fort leads the horses to go hungry, which start collapsing en masse. Scared of losing their cavalry, the Prime Minister orders that the straw roofs of the peasants’ houses and the soldiers’ sleeping bags (made of straw) be confiscated to feed the horses. But within a few day, the army runs out of food and start butchering the horses for meat. Thus, had the Minister not acted so rashly, the soldiers and peasants wouldn’t be suffering from so much cold, given that the horses would’ve been slaughtered (onscreen and in graphic detail) anyway.

The film is directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, who these days is best known for creating the international hit series Squid Game. For the most part, he handles all of the drama as well as he can—not too stoic, not too over-the-top during certain emotional moments. He also never lets the story get too convoluted, given the epic scope of the story and the possibility of introducing too many characters into the mix. The film looks great, from the costumes to the photography. It is a bit grittier and more realistic than many of the Chinese movies about the same subject, with a visual palate that recalls The Warlords more than any Shaw film about the subject. Moreover, I applaud his decision to the film the scenes with the Manchu characters in the actual Manchu language, something we never saw in Chinese films, too.

My main problem with the movie is that at 140 minutes—a common run time for too many Korean movies—the film feels that length. I think we could have tightened up several of the scenes of the ministers debating the morality of their options, or droning on about the authorship and character of a capitulation letter to the Qing Emperor, or stuff like that. You could made a few cuts to bring the run time down to smidgen past two hours and it would have improved the final product immensely.

There are a few battle sequences—more like minor skirmishes—in The Fortress, staged by Heo Myeong-haeng (The Restless and The Good, the Bad and the Weird) and Ryoo Sung-chul (Alienoid and The Battle: Roar to Victory). Thankfully, these scenes, while short, are visibly shot and edited nicely, so you can see what’s going on. We see Qing soldiers fighting with swords, spears and kwan do (or assault blades—wielded by cavalry officers), plus the occasional use of cannons. The Joseon soldiers fight mainly with swords and rifles. There isn’t any room for length exchanges of sword swings and blocks, but the battles are exciting. I just wish there were more of them: the action probably accounts for less than 15 minutes in a 140-minute historical drama.

The Fortress was a huge success at home and was a critical darling, too, winning all sorts of awards in different ceremonies. Kim Jee-yong won “Best Cinematography” in three different awards ceremonies; legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto won “Best Music” in two; Hwang Dong-hyuk won “Best Director” in two; and the movie won “Best Film” in three.  It’s certainly a good movie, possibly a very good one. I just think it needed to be tighter on the editing to reach great status.

 

Furies (2022)

Furies (2022)
Vietnamese Title: Thanh Sói
Translation: Thanh the Wolf (proper name)

 

Starring: Dong Anh Quynh, Toc Tien, Thuan Nguyen, Veronica Ngo, Rima Thanh, Song Luan, Gi A Nguyen, Thanh Nhien Phan
Director: Veronica Ngo Thanh Van
Action Director: Kefi Abrikh, Yannick Ben

 

The first Furie was a resounding success in its native Vietnam, becoming the most successful domestic film of all time. And considering its warm welcome in other countries, it went without saying that a sequel would be in the works soon. This time, singer-actress Veronica Ngo, who had produced and starred in the first film, would take on the directing duties. The project was announced as a prequel to the first film. Interestingly enough (for me), that is the last I really followed the film until it came out on Netflix. I knew it was a prequel and naturally assumed it would be about Veronica Ngo’s Hai Phuong character. Instead, it is an origin story to the tough-as-nails villain Phạm Thị Châu Thanh. I honestly thought that was a twist, but while prepping for this review, I saw that this detail was in plain sight on the IMDB. I guess I should feel silly for thinking it was a twist in the first place.

The film revolves a girl named Bi (Dong Ahn Quynh), the daughter of a prostitute. Her mother turns tricks in order to get her daughter into school with the hopes of Bi getting a good job and the two out of poverty. Those hopes are dashed to pieces when one of her mother’s clients shows up drunk and rapes Bi—yes, this film depicts child rape. The resulting scuffle between Bi, the John and Bi’s mother leaves the latter two dead and Bi left to her own devices.

She takes the first bus to Saigon and (unsurprisingly) ends up on the streets. She supports herself through pickpocketing and hawking food, which quickly earns her the ire of the local extortion gang running that particular street. They try to rape her (oh dear, I need an adult), but she is rescued by a mysterious woman named Jaqueline (Veronica Ngo, of Clash and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny). Jaqueline takes Bi under her wing and gives her food and shelter at an apartment located above a small ramen shop. Also living with Bi are two other young women: Hong (Rima Thanh Vy, of Muoi: The Curse Returns) and Thanh (Toc Tien). Hong was once raped by a train of ten men, while Thanh is a former prostitute. Jaqueline trains them in the martial arts so that they may rise up against the gangs in Saigon that specialize in trafficking women.

The gang that Jaqueline has in mind is led by a nutcase named Hai Cho Dien (Thuan Nguyen). He has three Lieutenants in his organization: Son (Gi A Nguyen), his bodyguard; Long (Song Luan), the drug distributor; and Teo (Thanh Nien Phan), who handles the human trafficking. Before Bi can join the effort to take these men down, she must complete her training alongside her new “sisters.” Hong, who is more chipper and fashion-minded than Thanh, warms to Bi quite quickly. Thanh is a tougher nut to crack, although her own personal darkness mirrors Bi’s own demons, which eventually forges a real bond of sisterhood to them.

Their initial mission—take out Teo and rescue a shipment of adolescent girls—is a success. It is at that point that we learn that Jaqueline has a member of Hai’s gang on her side. However, the next mission—kill Hai himself—is not so successful. And in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Bi begins to question the purity of Jaqueline’s motives.

Similar to the first Furie, the plot of Furies revolves around women in the dregs of society rising against the underworld that profits the exploitation of women and children. In the first film, it was child kidnapping and organ harvesting. In this film, the focus is on prostitution and trafficking women (especially adolescent girls). This makes the villains far more loathsome than if they were your average drug dealers and extortionists. That said, it is interesting that someone as awful as Phạm Thị Châu Thanh would be given such a tragic backstory. There is a touching scene after she murders her first gang member that she’s desperately trying to wash the blood off her hands. She explains to her surrogate sister Thanh that she enjoyed killing the S.O.B., but fears becoming consumed by the feeling. By the end, she has become so hardened by killing, loss, and betrayal that she ultimately allows herself to be consumed “by the darkness” that was inside of her. And thus is born one of the most horrific villainesses of recent action cinema.

The acting for the most part is good around the board. Dong Anh Quynh makes a good impression as the brooding Bi. She is a young woman who was dealt a losing hand, lost, started to hoist herself up from the bottom of the well, and then had that snatched from her. Complimenting her is the more optimistic Hong and Thanh. Thanh, as played by Toc Tien, is initially suspicious (and outright dismissive) of Bi, but warms to her as she sees much of herself in the newbie. Their relationship becomes the crux upon which the more emotional moments of the climax are set. Veronica Ngo pushes herself to the sidelines as the mentor character for the leads, but still gets to show the full range of emotions from vulnerable (she has been wronged by Hai in the past) to completely ruthless.

Speaking of ruthlessness, there is a fair amount of violent action here, choreographed once again by Kefi Abrikh and Yannick Ben. The training of Hai Phuong’s character in the first Furie was glossed over in flashbacks, but takes center stage in the second act. The girls spar, practice with punching bags, and even train in close quarters knife fighting. The first big set piece has the three girls storming a hideout for kidnapped girls and fighting a bunch of gang members there. That is trumped by the next one, which has the girls fighting a bunch of blade-wielding goons in a narrow hallway at a nightclub. There’s some nice choreography here and all three actresses make a strong showing for themselves. Unfortunately, that is followed by a motorcycle chase involving guys on motorcycles wielding machetes, a la John Wick Chapter 3. That scene is ruined by an excess of dodgy CGI, including what appears to be some “CGI people performing techniques of questionable physics” that we saw in films like Spider-Man (2002).

The action does right itself, fortunately, at the big climax. It starts with an awesome gun-fu sequence that does remind one of the better moments of John Wick, with the women fighting with their fists, feet, joint locks, throws and gunplay. That leads to a fight with different goons as they make their way closer to the main villain. At one point, Bi finds herself in a fight with a drug-addled junkie armed with a syringe in a fight that recalls the Donnie Yen/Wu Jing knife fight in SPL. There is some neat choreography as Bi uses all sorts of blocks, defenses and joint locks to keep her opponent from jabbing her with God-Knows-what.

Veronica Ngo stays out of the action spotlight until the finale, where she steps up. Her opponent fights with a more brutal and intense fighting style. Ngo, the “master” of this film, has a more laid back style that shows a greater economy of movement. She doesn’t throw her entire body into the fight initially because it’s not necessary: she can either step aside or defend herself with simple techniques. It’s only as the fight becomes more pitched that her movements become more vigorous. It also features a one-on-one martial arts/gunplay exchange that is cleverly choreographed and great to watch.

As a director, Ngo shows a lot of promise. However, she needed to tighten the film up a bit more. A lot of the dramatic moments that occur during the fights are too drawn out, affecting the pace of the both the action sequence and the film as a whole. She also loses points for the ambitious, but unconvincing, motorcycle sequence. But she does wring good performances out of the cast around a theme that is unsavory and uncomfortable, but needs to be addressed in one way or another. But if she were to direct another action film, I would certainly be interested in watching it.

Ballerina (2023)

Ballerina (2023)
Original Title: 발레리나
Translation: Ballerina

 

Starring: Jeon Jong-seo, Kim Ji-hoon, Park Yu-rim, Shin Se-Hwi, Kim Mu-Yeol, Jang Yoon-ju
Director: Lee Chung-hyun
Action Director: n/a

 

I don’t watch as many South Korean films as I should, even though they’ve consistently proven to be (for the most part) the best written, directed and photographed films coming out of East Asia since the turn of the millennium. Although they don’t do much in terms of pure martial arts these days, they often do action and suspense with at least one memorable set piece. I have seen some, and plan to watch much more, but I think that mainly has to do with Thailand and Hong Kong drying up in terms of action, and Mainland China being inconsistent with their quality. So, I have more time for South Korea. Time is a necessary component, since South Korean action movies—at least those on Netflix—regularly run about as long as a Harry Potter movie. It’s hard to just plop down and watch a 140-minute action epic, especially at this point in my life. But I will try to get a few more of these movies reviewed for your pleasure, so let’s start with the one that runs barely more than 90 minutes.

Ballerina is a pretty simple film. Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo, of Burning and Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon) is a former bodyguard with a (cough!) special set of skills. Those are introduced to the viewer via a scene in which she beats up some would-be convenience store robbers with a can of fruit. Beyond that, we don’t know much about her save the fact that she lives alone. One day, she receives a phone call from an old friend named Min-hee (Park Yu-rim), who works as a professional ballerina. We also don’t know much about Min-hee, save that she botched her last ballet performance because something was visibly disturbing her. When Ok-ju arrives at her apartment, she finds a present box with her ballet shoes inside and a note asking Ok-ju to avenge her. Ok-ju then finds her friend’s dead body in the bathtub with her wrists slit.

Ok-ju initially doesn’t have much to go on, save an online user name on the suicide note. She discovers that the user leads to an online sushi seller…who accepts payment in bitcoin. Not suspicious at all! Her break comes when the seller calls Min-hee’s cell phone, threatening her in some way if she doesn’t come out to meet him. Well, Min-hee has nothing more to worry about (being dead and all), which gives Ok-ju the liberty to go to the established point and spy on the mysterious caller. It turns out that the sushi-to-go business is a front for drugs (who would’ve thunk?). Ok-ju follows the guy—who drives a Lamborghini—back to his house. She bides her time until he leaves again before sneaking in and checking out the place. Once inside, she discovers a cabinet full of BDSM equipment and a collection of flash drives with videos of the guy, Choi (Kim Ji-hoon, of The Age of Blood), sleeping with different women, including Min-hee. So, there presumably was some sextortion going on.

Having filled the house with surveillance equipment, Ok-ju can listen in on the guy’s conversations and follows him to a club where he tells a friend he’s going “fishing.” Ok-ju attracts the man’s attention and allows herself to be wooed by him, who takes her to a special hotel off the beaten path. He tries to slip her a roofie and go all leather bondage on her, but she’s ready. She beats him up real good, even going so far as to slice his cheek wide open with a knife. She makes it out of the place with one of the girls who was forced to work there as a prostitute by her side. But you know how these things go: establishments focusing on a human sex trafficking rarely are run by a lone individual. There’s usually an organization involved. And the gang who runs that hotel will not be happy to know that some upstart femboss™ is getting in the way of their business…

Ballerina is fairly middle of the road when it comes to female-centric action movies, which we’ve gotten a ton of in the past decade from countries outside of Hong Kong/China. On the good side, the film is generally well-acted, well photographed, and just all-around good looking. Not only is the photography particularly strong, but the use of colors (like the neon lights that adorn Min-hee’s apartment) and lighting makes it a very pretty film all around. The story is very intimate, and even when the action takes a step up on the scale of grandiosity at the end, it still feels very personal, unlike the constant barrage of world-ending events in the MCU, the city-ending events in Batman films, or even the one-man army nature of the John Wick films.

The problem is the action, at least in my estimation. First of all, there isn’t enough of it. The very first scene is the set up for a fight. The second fight comes near the end of the first half. And then there’s the big finale, which is actually an exciting sequence of gun-fu, with Ok-ju taking on an entire drug lab full of goons. There is a lot of up-close gun fire as she repels and deflects melee attacks and then shoots her opponents as they become vulnerable. That particular sequence was actually quite good, if too heavy on the shaky cam. The other problem is that the fights are very much in the Bourne style of shaky cam, quick cuts and fast edits. Although actress Jeon Jong-seo did her own stunts, it’s clear that she’s no master of tae kwon do or hapkido and the editing style is more to make up for her shortcomings in the fighting department. Although I can agree that this rapid-fire editing style can be done well—which this film does—I’m just not a fan of it. It certainly looks better than, say, Batman Begins. But it’s not really my cup of tea.

That said, the other aspects of the film work for the most part. The villain is slimy enough that you want to see Ok-ju kill him dead. There are some fun quirky characters, like the old couple that serve as Ok-ju’s arms dealers. Their scene was especially amusing. And like I said, the production values are good, the money goes onscreen quite well, and I like the intimate change of pace for the story. I just wanted more and better action.

 

 

 

Hidden Strike (2018/2023)

Hidden Strike (2018/2023)
Aka: SNAFU; Project X-traction; Ex-Baghdad

 

Starring: Jackie Chan, John Cena, Ma Chunrui, Jiang Wenli, Xu Jia, Gong Jun, Rima Zeidan, Hou Minghao, Pilou Asbæk, Amadeus Serafini, Tim Man
Director: Scott Waugh
Action Director: Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association, Bruce Law

 

This movie will be an interesting footnote in Jackie Chan’s career as the movie that took five years to see release, yet cost a hefty (by Chinese standards) 80 million dollars to produce. It was announced in mid-2017 as a collaboration between Jackie Chan and long-time friend Sylvester Stallone under the title Ex-Baghdad. The plot synopsis, which is essentially what we got in the end, was:

 

"When a China-run oil refinery is attacked in Mosul, Iraq, a Chinese private security contractor (Chan) is called in to extract the oil workers. He learns, however, that the attackers’ real plan is to steal a fortune in oil, and teams up with an American former Marine (Stallone) to stop them."

The director was announced to be Scott Waugh, who had previously directed Act of Valor and Need for Speed. He went on to direct Expend4bles, which also came out this year. Within a few months, it was announced that Stallone was no longer going to be in the film, him citing schedule conflicts with Creed 2. Nonetheless, the film was said to still be “in development.”

It took a year, but news finally broke in June 2018 that the movie was going to start production. Stallone would be replaced with actor-wrestler John Cena (The Marine and 12 Rounds). The title of the film changed to Project X, which I was skeptical about, considering that we already had three movies with that title, including a then-recent comedy about the house party to end all house parties. Filming had begun in August, with Inner Mongolia doubling for the Middle East. The official title was now Project X-traction (a slight improvement, and the title that Brazil maintained until today).

We may assume that by 2019, the film had finished production. Strangely enough, however, news of the production (and its release) went dead around May of that year. It wasn’t until 2021 that official images of the film were released. By that time, John Cena was showing up in the Fast/Furious franchise and pissing off China for referring to Taiwan as a country, while the ever-productive Chan had released no fewer than eight movies in that interval. Moreover, the English title of the film was changed to SNAFU, military jargon means “Situation Normal All F*cked Up.”

So what held the movie up? Well, initially, part of the reason can be traced back to COVID-19, which took the world by storm in 2020. By the time that quarantines and lockdowns were starting to be lifted, Chinese audience tastes were shifting in favor of local blockbusters, thus years of trying to pander to Chinese censors and audiences were swiftly going down the drain. So, nobody knew how an American-Chinese co-production would fare in this environment. This was compounded by the backlash about Cena and Taiwan, which caused further worry about how to market the film in China. It took another two years for the film to finally see release, where it went straight to Netflix in most Western countries under the new (and generic) title Hidden Strike.

The film is set in generic Middle-Eastern-stan, where a Chinese company runs a huge oil extraction and refinery outfit. We learn via the Plot Point Specific Radio Bulletin that different factions in said country have been fighting each other over oil rights, with the Chinese company getting caught in the middle. The fighting has gotten so bad that the Chinese government has sent a crack team of operatives, led by Dragon Luo (Jackie Chan), to extract all the Chinese nationals and whisk them away to safety.

Meanwhile, a former Marine-turned-mercenary, Chris (John Cena), is hanging out in some village, playing with the kids and befriending the locals. His brother, Henry (Amadeus Serafini), asks him to participate in a raid on the Chinese convoy in order to capture a wanted criminal among the fleeing nationals. Chris initially turns down the offer, but relents when he discovers that the village he lives in is not only out of water, but it will cost a cool hundred grand to get the equipment necessary to pump out water from deeper in the ground.

Chris, Henry, and the latter’s team use a special jet engine (?) to engineer a manmade sandstorm (??), during which they launch their raid on the convoy. Only two buses are hit, one that will serve as a decoy and another one housing a certain Dr. Cheng (Jiang Wenli, of Farewell, My Concubine and The Master ’15) and her entourage. They are kidnapped and taken to a “graveyard” of giant satellite dishes, where Chris learns the identity of his employer: Owen (Danish actor Pilou Asbæk). Owen is an employee of Unicorp, another company that has been extracting petroleum in the region. He has kidnapped Dr. Cheng in order to get the information from her in order to get the Chinese refinery back online, so he can steal the oil and make a fortune for himself.

Chris didn’t sign up for a kidnapping, however, so he’s out. But once he discovers that Owen has murdered Henry behind his back, he wants revenge. Meanwhile, Dragon Luo had been trying to find the attackers after leaving the sandstorm, even going so far as to trade firepower with them. The resulting firefight resulted in the death of some of his men, so he wants to find out who’s responsible. This leads him to Chris, which will ultimately result in an uneasy team-up with the men. Also, tagging along for the ride is the oil refinery’s head geologist, Mei (Ma Chunrui, of Fate of Swordsman), who happens to be Dragon Luo’s estranged daughter.

It's pretty straight-forward stuff, with the main plot hole being that there’s a traitor among the Chinese oil refinery employees who rats out on which bus Dr. Cheng is riding, but then is more or less ignored for the rest of the movie. I was curious to find out how that would solve itself, but in the end, it goes completely unaddressed. Bad writing there, folks. Everything else checks out, I guess. There isn’t a lot of background on Unicorp, the company the villain is said to work for. I think it’s a competing petroleum company, or at least a company that supplies oil extraction equipment to the region. All I know is that the villain, Owen, is one of those disgruntled “I do all the work and see none of the profits while the fat cats live in splendor” types.

Jackie Chan is playing Jackie Chan. Serious when he needs to be, but always with his trademark charisma and physical humor, even when he’s not fighting or firing guns. John Cena’s character is the “mercenary with a heart of gold, but with a past.” He stays in the village where he was supposed to carry out a job, which job cost him the life of his dad. He’s a good man who is driven to extremes by a need to help those he cares for, in this case, the inhabitants of the village torn apart by years of conflict. He does start falling for Mei, whom he describes as having a nice booty[1].

That said, the other characters are mainly one-dimensional. Jackie Chan has often tried to play the role of “leader of a competent team of action people” in his later movies, like this, Vanguard and CZ12. I understand that he’s getting old and needs to find someone to fill his shoes. But he never seems to find anyone that is equally charismatic, or a writer who can write these youngsters as such. So, he often shines above them while they fade into the background. Case in point, Dragon Luo’s team more or less disappears from the film following the bus convoy sequence. Once again, there is no “new Jackie Chan” promised in this.

The action, as expected, was staged by Jackie Chan’s Stuntman Association, with Bruce Law on hand to help with the car stunts. The action varies from gunplay to vehicular mayhem to fisticuffs and, of course, lots and lots of explosions. The assault on the bus convoy reminded me of Mad Max: Fury Road, with mercenaries in dune buggies shooting grappling hooks into buses and whatnot…in the middle of a sandstorm. Talented B-movie fight choreographer Tim Man (Triple Threat; Ninja: Shadow of a Tear) gets to play one of the mercenaries and he gets to spar with Taiwanese actress Rima Zeidan during this set piece. There is lots of Ryuhei Kitamura-esque spinning camerawork during their short scuffle.

The first showstopper is the inevitable fight between Cena and Chan, which has the two throwing down at the satellite base before joining forces. Cena fights mainly by throwing Chan around or throwing oil drums at him, while Chan uses wire-assisted acrobatics against Cena. I’m not one of the people who complain about Chan using more wires as he gets older. I mean, you can only break your bones for our entertainment for so long before you need to rely more on that sort of assistance. Considering that Chan was 64 when production started, that’s fine by me. He can still throw a good kick, tumble and twirl a prop around during a comedic fight, but we can’t reasonably expect even a New Police Story performance out of him now, let alone an old Police Story performance. It is interesting to see Chan using more knife and ground fighting than he used to, especially considering his criticism of MMA during the 2000s.

There are some more martial arts when the two team up to fight some mercenaries raiding the village. There is some physical humor between the two leads involving hand signals, while Cena establishes himself as the strong man who will pull or shove his opponents through walls. Things get a bit more intense at the finale, which has Jackie Chan fighting machete-wielding guys in masks—I assume it’s Chinese stuntmen playing Arab henchmen—while balancing on pipes. The showstopper is the big fight between Chan and Tim Man. This should be a fight for the ages, considering that one was one of the best choreographers and screen fighters of all time while the other fits the bill for the last decade or so. Man does show off some impressive kicks, especially while the two are fighting in the computer room. However, it eventually gets bogged down in a gimmick fight involving bungee cords and a room full of soap suds. It’s still a creative fight, but I think all of us expected more unadulterated fisticuffs from the two. The movie then ends on a series of car chases and vehicular mayhem, not unlike Mr. Nice Guy and The Accidental Spy.

A lot of fans are dismissing this film as crap, and I can understand. It’s watchable and moves at a fast clip. Chan is as likable as he usually is, even if his trademark action style is watered down by wires and his advancing age. I personally still enjoy watching it. I watched this with my father-in-law and he liked a lot, so it does have an audience somewhere. It’s just no Operation Condor.

---

[1] - The strangest part in the entire film comes during the outtakes, when we get to see Cena’s Chris talking about how he’d like to perform anallingus on Ma Chunrui’s character, and even “reverse motorboat” her. Was that in the original dialog? Or was it ad-libbed by Cena and then cut?