Beyond Redemption (2015)

Beyond Redemption (2015)

Starring: Brian Ho, Don Lew, Paul Wu, Johnson Phan, Anthony Towe, Linna Huynh, Vicky Huang, Osric Chau, Paul Lazenby, Eddie Ko Hung
Director: Bruce Fontaine
Action Director: Andrew Chin, Darryl Quon

Beyond Redemption is a Canadian martial arts film that comes very close to being a surrogate Hong Kong movie. The vast majority of the cast is Asian, mainly Chinese players with a few Vietnamese ones (judging from the surnames). The characters often start speaking Cantonese for now reason, especially the Triad leader Yuan (Don Lew). The director, Bruce Fontaine, is a veteran of a lot of Golden Age Hong Kong action films, like The Outlaw Brothers; Armour of God 2: Operation Condor; and the Angel Terminators films. And the action directors, while veterans of Hollywood (and Canada, I presume), are also of Chinese descent.

The film is set on the mean streets of Vancouver, British Columbia. Our protagonist is Billy Tong (Veteran stuntman Brian Ho, whose credits include Skyscraper; Power Rangers; and Wu Jing's stunt double in Wolf Warrior 2), an undercover cop who has just gotten his chance to enter the big leagues. He's chilling in his apartment when his Triad contact, Jimmy (Johnson Phan, whose stuntman credits include Godzilla and Birth of the Dragon), calls him with some work. Work in the illegal fighter circuit, that is. Billy faces off with a hulking gwailo (Paul Lazenby) and bests him, which catches the attention of Jimmy's boss, Yuan (Don Lew, whose stuntman credits include the "Kung Fu" reboot series and Snake Eyes).

Billy joins Yuan's gang as an enforcer, which work includes going to the warehouse of associate Wen Lo (Davin Tong, of iZombie and "Wu Assassins") in order to execute him and his men for diluting drugs...y'know, skimming a little off the top. Billy does well enough during that job--which ends in a gun n' fu melee--to win Yuan's trust. Who doesn't trust Billy, however, is second-in-command Bosco Yang (Paul Wu, whose stunt credits include X2: X-Men United and The Bulletproof Monk). But that will have to wait a little.

The second act is a little slow, as we start getting into the thick of the real plot. We learn a little about Billy, including how he got into the undercover business: he almost beat suspect to death and was given the choice: undercover or the streets. We also learn that he has an ex-wife, Melinda (Filipino actress Josette Jorge, whose credits include extensive voice work on the "Bakugan" anime), who is now pregnant after a post-marital fling. Billy would like to get out of this gig, but his boss on the force (Darren E. Scott), won't let him.

The main story involves a businessman named Xi Long (Anthony Towe, of The Hunted and Live Feed). His computer company is a front for his Triad activities, which he runs alongside Uncle Bao (Eddie Ko Hung, of Lethal Weapon 4 and Hitman in the Hand of Buddha). Xi Long has actually found a way to mix the two businesses, with some sort of software McGuffin that does...something. I don't think the film ever explains what. We just know that he is about to sell it to a Persian arms dealer, Amir (Patrick Sabongui, of Godzilla and 300). But Yuan wants the software, and has decided to kidnap Xi Long's daughter, Tiffany (Linna Huynh), to that end. Unbeknownst to Xi Long, his young trophy wife, Lucinda (Vicky Huang, of Shadow of the Lotus and 88 Minutes), is mole placed in his household by Yuan himself. The kidnapping goes as planned and Billy is left in charge of supervising Tiffany while Yuan negotiates with Xi Long. But his reluctance to do things like manhandle the hostage will cause his cohorts to doubt his identity...

Beyond Redemption feels like a pastiche of things we've seen before. Undercover cops who are in danger of getting their cover blown are a dime a dozen. Undercover Chinese cops are just as much so, whether it be well beloved films like Hard Boiled and Infernal Affairs, or cheaper fare like a lot of Yukari Oshima's 90s films. The detail of the pregnant wife feels cribbed from The Raid 2, which came out the year before. Kidnapping a businessman's daughter, only to find out that the businessman has ties to organized crime made me think of Kirk Wong's The Big Hit. The second-in-command who is a better judge of character than the boss is like Mark Cheng and John Lone in War. Even the undercover cop's gang contact being the goofier (or more cowardly) member of the bad guys is pretty common, reminding me to some extent of Blackie Ko in My Father is a Hero. Most viewers watching this will have an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu  while watching this.

Action fans should find something to enjoy here, even though they will take umbrage at the film slowing down to a crawl during the second act. The first fight with veteran stuntman (aren't they all?) Paul Lazenby was a little misleading: the choreography felt like something you'd see in a 1990s DTV martial arts film, with a little extra ground fighting thrown in. In that regard, it reminded me of Gary Daniels's Rumble, which had a similar approach. Things pick up in the last 20 minutes, both in the film's pacing and the fight pacing. The fight choreographer was (you guessed it...) veteran stuntman Andrew Chin, whose credits as a stunt coordinator include the "Kung Fu" reboot series and the "Van Helsing" series.

The fights at the end have a definite Hong Kong feel to them, as we see all the main characters participate in a series of one-on-one and one-on-many encounters with complex choreography and some nice kicks and falls. For example, Don Lew (as Yuan) faces off with Xi Long's and Persian Guy's henchmen. Brian Ho impresses the most, as he gets to fight all of his colleagues, plus a number of henchman. The fighting is good enough that I'm surprised that nobody involved has become more prominent in the Hollywood fight direction arena, even though they all seem to keep themselves pretty busy as it is.

The film's DVD cover--in both English and Portuguese--touts the addition of Osric Chau in the cast. I wonder just how big Chau is: I know him from the late David Carradine's Kung Fu Killer, but that's all. Is that enough to win marquee preference above the other characters who have actual roles in the film? Anyway, Chau plays one of Xi Long's main enforcers. He gets to beat up some gangsters in a bar, but is disappointingly absent from the climax, as he's hanging around offscreen with the Lucinda character...who never actually gets her comeuppance for being a plant from a rival gang. Uh...okay.

The entire film is standard, unoriginal fare until those last 20 minutes, when it manages to remind us (in a good way) of the Golden Age of Hong Kong martial arts action. It's just too bad there wasn't more if it.