Battle of Wits (2006)

Battle of Wits (2006)
Aka: Battle of the Warriors
Chinese Title: 墨攻
Translation: Mohist Attack

 

Starring: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Wang Zhiwen, Fan Bingbing, Nicky Wu Chi-Lung, An Seong-gi, Chin Siu-Ho, Wu Ma, Sammy Hung Tin-Chiu, Choe Shi-won, Yu Chenghui
Director: Jacob Cheung
Action Director: Stephen Tung Wai

 

The Zhou Dynasty of China is the second dynasty for which we have definitive archaeological evidence for—the supposed Xia Dynasty is to have predated the Shang Dynasty, and shows up in literature from that period, but there is no real evidence for its existence. The Zhou Dynasty was founded in 1046 B.C. and ran for some 789 years, ending with its absorption into the Qin Kingdom in 256 B.C. The Qin Kingdom, founded during the famed Warring States Period (481 – 221 B.C.), eventually conquered all of the states and formed the Qin Dynasty, led by Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor.

As it goes with most dynasties, a period of artistic and technological advancement is eventually followed a period of decline, as the Powers That Be grow increasingly corrupt and focused on their own pleasures, and less concerned about running a large kingdom (or empire). The complacent central government—the dynasty—becomes weak as local warlords grow in power in their respective provinces or territories, ultimately leading to the fragmentation of the kingdom (or empire). Sometimes the fragmentation is temporary, but in the case of the Zhou Dynasty, it lasted more than 250 years.

During the Warring States Period, seven major states were formed, with the Zhou royal family just hanging out in the capitol, unable to do much about anything. There were a handful of smaller states—in the case of Battle of Wits, the focus will be on the small kingdom of Liang—that just existed until they were ultimately overcome by any of the bigger kingdoms.

This film is set in 370 B.C. That puts it about 110 years after the death of Confucius and 100 years after the birth of Mozi. Just who is Mozi? Well, he is credited as the founder of Mohism, one of the lesser-known of the major philosophies—Taoism, Confucianism, and Legalism—that was founded during the Zhou Dynasty. The philosophy preached a “universal love” and were largely pacificists, albeit semi-practical ones. They came to be during a period of perpetual war between the neighboring kingdoms, so they were more about helping those cities that were on the defensive during those troubled times. They became the best military strategists of their time, trying to defend their client’s cities while losing (and killing) as few people as possible.

We open with an intertitle informing us that the Kingdom of Zhao (in northern China) has sent a ginormous army to the neighboring kingdom of Yan (in northeastern China/southern Manchuria). The army will pass through the mini-state of Liang on their way and will most likely conquer it without any effort. The King (Wang Zhiwen, of The Storm Riders and The Emperor and the Assassin) has sent for a Mohist strategist to assist them, although it has taken a bit too long for him to arrive and the Zhao army is already on their doorstep. So, the King hastily sends General Niu (Chin Siu-Ho, of Fist of Legend and Legend of the Fox) to sign a non-aggression pact with the lead Zhao general, Xiang Yanzhong (Musa the Warrior’s An Seong-gi).

While that is going on, Mohist strategist Ge Li (Andy Lau, of A Moment of Romance and Firestorm) arrives at the city gates. They let him in and he quickly convinces the townspeople that they need to defend themselves, on the logic that a non-aggression pact won’t stop the Zhao army from executing most of the ministers, raping the locals and pillaging the city. He heroically fires an arrow at the Zhao frontline General Gao (Sammy Hung, son of Sammo) to show them he means business. The Zhao army retreats to confer with General Xiang on how to proceed.

The worthless King is initially too drunk to receive Ge Li, but the next day he questions and tests him and ultimately decides to give him command over the city’s armys, much to the dismay of the Royal Tutor (Wu Ma, of 14 Blades and Swordsman). General Niu is also surprised to see his power usurped by a new guy, although he keeps it to himself for now. Ge Li’s first item of business is to dismantle one of the walls from the palace to build a fortress around the exposed southern gate of the city, as the other sides are protected by mountainous terrain. He also promotes talented archer Zi Tuen (Nicky Wu, of Love in the Time of Twilight and The Valiant Ones New) to the rank of general over the archery division. All this time he is closely accompanied by Crown Prince Liang Shi (Choe Shi-won, of Dragon Blade and Helios), who comes to admire Ge Li’s wisdom. Also admiring his wisdom—initially from afar—is Cavalry Captain Yi Yue (Fan Bing-bing, of The Shinjuku Incident and The League of Gods).

The Zhao army eventually decides to attack the city of Liang, but thanks to Ge Li’s tactics, they are able to repel the invaders. And this despite an internal mutiny by condemned criminals being forced to fight in exchange for freedom. They even manage to kill General Gao and wound General Xiang. Following the battle, more people start to trust Ge Li, including Yi Yue, who just flat-out falls in love with him—can’t have a post-2000s period piece without an unrequited love subplot. Ge Li and Yi Yue discover that the Zhao Army is planning to invade the city via a series of tunnels, but the former sets up a series of traps and is able to capture the tunnel brigade—most of them, the rest are burned to death inside the tunnel or presumably are able to flee.

At this point, Ge Li has become a hero among the populace. Everybody praises him, except for the Royal Tutor and the King, that lazy good-for-nothing lay-about. In fact, the King is so jealous that he convinces himself that Ge Li is planning a rebellion with the intent of putting himself on the throne of that rickety little state. This is very similar to the story of David and Goliath. David slays Goliath, repelling the Philistine army. People eventually start singing David’s praises, boasting of his killing ten of thousands while King Saul only kills thousands. And then King Saul gets jealous and turns on David. Same story here. So, the King will charge General Niu with quelling a non-existent rebellion. Not only does that guarantee that innocent people will die, but the entire state of Liang will not have the competent people in charge when the Zhao come-a-knockin’ a third time…

The film is based on (and shares the same title as) a Japanese manga known as Bokkou (“Mohist Attack” in Japanese), which was written by Hideki Mori and first published in 1992. Apparently, the manga was popular and ran for about four years, when the story was concluded. The manga was based on a novel of the same name, written by Ken’ichi Sakemi and published the year before the manga was written. Reading the synopses of both the manga and the novel on Wikipedia, they seem to be more or less identical to what happens in the film, although the size of the Zhao army seems to be off by a factor of ten. The manga and novel tell of a Zhao army of 10,000 soldiers, while the Portuguese subtitles in the version I watched said 100,000 soldiers. If the number was indeed 10,000, then the 5000 casualties that General Xiang talks about in his final confrontation with Ge Li means that not only did he lose half of his army, but he also lost his ability to attack the Yan Kingdom as planned.

One aspect that the film makes a certain ado about is the fact that Ge Li was not formally sent by the Mohist clan to take up the Liang’s cause. He comes on his own. He never explicitly states why, but the Wikipedia synopsis of the Bokkou novel states that the Mohist clan had already grown corrupt in its third generation of leadership. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they probably started asking for gifts and monetary compensation, something that Andy Lau’s character is adamant in not receiving throughout the film. As they say (or misquote), every good cause becomes a movement, then a business, and finally a racket.

There are a lot of pontifications about the effectiveness of Mohism as a philosophy throughout the film. Universal Love is good. Fighting in self-defense is acceptable and perhaps even to be lauded. Trying to kill a few people as possible in an armed conflict would be great when possible—just see Sergeant York. I guess Mohism is really limited by the context in which it grew: the Warring States Era. Whether it was border conflicts, expansionist designs, or a race to see who could conquer their neighbors and establish a new dynasty first, the Warring States Era was simply not going to end by itself. And by simply going from one invaded state to the next—even if job #2 had previously been the aggressor in job #1—they were more or less perpetuating the war by not taking a definitive side. People like Shi Huangdi and Cao Cao/Cao Pi are often considered villains in history, but they were the ones who united China at different moments, even if they resorted to butchery to do so.

The battle scenes were staged by Stephen Tung Wai, for which he received two nominations for Best Action Choreography—at the Hong Kong Film Award and Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. He lost out to Yuen Woo-Ping’s Fearless, however. And I understand that. Battle of Wits is not Red Cliff (or even Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon), so don’t go in expecting that. As we have a very small army taking on a much larger one, the key to success is a lot more dependent on strategy, trickery, traps and long-range archery than on powerful generals taking out dozens of soldiers with a single swing of their guandao. So be prepared for hidden gates, creative uses of fire, and even a fun use of underground water sources. The relative realism of these battles may be a breath of fresh air to some, but those looking for weapons choreography in a mass battle scenario will surely be disappointed.

Beyond that, the film benefits from good performances, fine art direction, great cinematography, nice costumes and is just a great-looking production all around. It was a co-production involving Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan and South Korea. Most of the Japanese influence was behind the scenes: Yoshinao Sakamoto (Tsui Hark’s Missing) was the director of photography; Yoshi Kawai, whose credits include the Ip Man films, Seven Swords, the ”When They Cry” anime, and the “Ghost in the Shell” sequels and Hollywood adaptation, did the music; and Yoshimitsu Yoshitsuru, whose credits include the Kuchisaki-Onna films and the Sex & Chopsticks movies, helped produce. I’m sure the Koreans contributed money and their actors, including Choe Shi-won, whose first film this was. If you want a good historical film, look no further than Battle of Wits. If you want something like Red Cliff, stick with Red Cliff.

Heroic Duo (2003)

Heroic Duo (2003)
Chinese Title: 雙雄
Translation: Duo

 

Starring: Leon Lai Ming, Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Karena Lam Ka-Yan, Raymond Wong Ho-Yin, Anson Leung Chun-Yat, Samuel Pang King-Chi, Rico Kwok Nik-Hang, Kam Hing-Yin, Xu Jinglei
Director: Benny Chan
Action Director: Stephen Tung Wai

 

Heroic Duo is almost the “lost” film in the filmography of the late Benny Chan, sandwiched between the universally-reviled Gen Y-Cops and Jackie Chan’s New Police Story. It has a unique premise, a fair amount of competently-staged action, and lots of cops getting mowed down, a Benny Chan trademark. It has good-looking actors turning in solid performances and Francis Ng playing a smooth-but-vile bad guy. So why don’t people talk about it as much as Benny Chan’s other movies, including his failures? Let’s see if we figure this out.

The movie begins at the house of a policeman, K. L. Cheung (Kenny Wong, of The Storm Warriors and Invisible Target), who has been taken hostage by a bunch of bad guys, led by The Mission’s Francis Ng. Cheung informs the head honcho that somebody is in prison, after which he is shot to death in front of his wife in cold blood.

Switch to the apartment of Senior Inspector Ken Li (Ekin Cheng, of The Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero), who is plagued by dreams about rescuing some girl from drowning. Li is woken up by a series of phone calls from work regarding an urgent situation. One of the higher ups has recently entered the station’s evidence vault, stolen some files, and then set everything else on fire. During interrogation, the man claims to have no memory of stealing the files. He claims he was hypnotized, flashing back to a bar where a mysterious stranger handed him a drawing of a man and a little girl. Shortly after the interrogation, the officer steals a gun and shoots himself in the head.

As far-fetched as it may seem, Ken isn’t about to discard the hypnosis theory outright. He has men look up records of any registered hypnotists that have ever been prosecuted for crimes. This leads him to Jack Lai (Leon Lai, of City Hunter and Seven Swords), a trained hypnotist and former police psychiatric consultant. Lai has been convicted of manslaughter after apparently shooting a man at his apartment, but has managed to get supervised league to lecture to psychology students at the local university. Ken Li offers to help lighten his sentence if Jack will help him out on this case.

The stolen files belong to a group of policemen who were chosen to work as special security guards at an auction for a series of priceless Egyptian jewels. Jack thinks that whoever had the files stolen did so in order to create a psychological profile of each guard in order to steal the jewels. Ken takes Jack to the auction to keep watch over the proceedings. However, things go south when Jack hypnotizes Ken into stealing the jewels himself, which makes Ken a target for the police, led by the unhinged Officer Yeung (Raymond Wong, of Lifeline and The Death Curse). There is a big shoot-out between the police and the jewelry thieves, but the only one who ends up in police custody is Ken.

Obviously, hypnotism doesn’t go all that far as an excuse in legal matters, so it appears that Ken is up the creek. He does however, have an ace up his sleeve. One of the cops on the case is his long-suffering girlfriend, Brenda (Karena Lam, of Dragon Blade and The White Storm 2). Brenda knows Ken hasn’t done any wrong and Ken convinces her to do a background check on Jack, including his family and friends. You see, before hypnotizing Ken, Jack left in his mind a mental image of a drawing of calm, moonlight sea. Ken is able to recreate the image, which turns out to read “SOS” when viewed from a certain angle. We then learn that the main bad guy, whom Jack calls “Mastermind,” has not only kidnapped Jack’s wife, Mandy (Xu Jinglei, of The Warlords and The Shinjuku Incident), but K.L. Cheung’s widow and children, too. Jack has to get the jewels back in order to protect them, but when do bad guys ever keep their promises? The only external force that can help him is Ken (and Brenda), but Ken has the entire department on his heels…

I like the idea of a violent cop thriller revolving around hypnotism. I wish more had been done with the premise. The movie never really explains how the rather complex orders are given to those hypnotized. The camera does cut away from the scene once the characters are falling into trance, so it might be the traditional, “You will do my bidding…” That surely would have been so cartoony so as to deflate most of the film’s tension. The script also glosses over how exactly the dueling hypnotists can put people into trance so easily. There is a lot of talk about exploiting the back doors to people’s minds, but what we see on film feels more like something that would make a person feel uncomfortable, not give up their free will.

Benny Chan is known for his violent commercial action flicks that pile on the sentimentality whenever it needs to manipulate the audience’s feelings—except Gen-Y Cops. This one does it in measured doses during the second act, but then ruins the climax by hauling in the mawkishness with a dump truck. By the time there is only twenty minutes left, the heroes have converged at the villains’ hideout—a James Bondian-base built under a highway tunnel—and the bad guys’ gang has been whittled down to just a couple. That’s a lot of time for a cat-and-mouse game given the race against time that are heroes are engaged in. Thus we get these drawn-out, slow-motion shots of Leon Lai desperately trying to rescue his loved ones from confinement while the heroes and villains just look on. And when the heroes are able to turn the tables on the “Mastermind,” the idea is a lot sillier in execution than it looked on paper.

The action, staged by Stephen Tung Wai, is solid, albeit unexceptional. Although Tung Wai has been in the game since the 1970s and is often considered one of the top action directors in the business, I have rarely seen him do anything that rose above “workmanlike and efficient.” He can do “slick modern action” like nobody’s business, but very few of his films feature set pieces that are for the ages. This is the case here. Tung Wai fills the screen with gunfights, car chases, a few stunts that Jackie Chan would approve of, and the occasional burst of fisticuffs from Ekin Cheng. There are even a handful of moments where Benny and Stephen set the screen alight with pyrotechnics. I’m sure that when a certain character is enveloped in flames at the end, there is CGI used. But surprisingly enough, it wasn’t so bad as to distract me from the film as a whole, as CGI fire in Chinese cinema is wont to do even to this day. That said, the action still feels like the sort of generic thing that your average Hollywood stunt coordinator could’ve pulled off in 2003.

So why doesn’t anyone talk about Heroic Duo much anymore? I mean, I’m pretty sure people still have fond memories of Gen-X Cops and stuff like that. I’m guessing that once you get past the underdeveloped premise, the film is just too generic, even for an action auteur like Benny Chan. Stephen Tung Wai would have had to have upped his game to A Better Tomorrow levels, or Benny would have had to have cast Donnie Yen in Ekin’s stead, in order to give more chutzpah to movie about jewelry thieves with an unexpected modus operandi.

Extreme Challenge (2001)

Extreme Challenge (2001)
Chinese Title: 地上最強
Translation: The Strongest on the Ground

 

Starring: Yeung Chuen-Ai, Ken Chang Tzu-Yao, Patricia Ja Lee, Jacqueline Li, Paul Rapovski, Somchai Siabkuntod, Stephen Tung Wai, Scott Adkins, Nikki Powell
Director: Stephen Tung Wai
Action Director: Jack Wong, Go Shut-Fung, Christopher Chan Sai-Tang

 

Extreme Challenge is a decent example of the fighting-for-fighting’s-sake martial arts film that doesn’t get made anymore in Hong Kong. It feels like a throwback to late 80s/early 90s American tournament movies with an Internet angle that really doesn’t get explored, but at least centers it in the new millennium. The fights are well choreographed, even if all the surrounding material is trite and shoddy at best…and this coming from Golden Harvest, who produced all of Jackie Chan’s most iconic films!

So, there’s a martial arts tournament called the World Wide Web Y2K Martial Arts championship. It’s organized by the Power Net Show Internet Corporation, with financial backing from another corporation called Champion Athletes, which is looking to expand business into East Asia. The tournament is organized by Karen Li (Jacqueline Li, of Gorgeous and Tai Chi Warrior), who is in charge of both the fight logistics and supervising the technical side. The current martial arts champ and favorite to win is Ian Maxfield (Paul Rapovski, of Hitman), although the corporate sponsors would like an Asian champion this time in order to appeal to the upcoming new demographic. Thus, the organizers will have their eye on Fang Jin (Yeung Chuen-Ai), one of the favorites to win.

There are two more notable Chinese participants. The first is a female fighter, Tang Ning (Patricia Ja Lee, of Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers in Space), who wishes to honor her late master by participating in the tournament. The second is Kuang Kin (Ken Chang, of Sunshine Cops and The Legend of the Flying Swordsman), who hails from the same school as Fang Jin. Just what are his motives for entering? I dunno, although the bulk of the film is shot (or dubbed) in English, the Chinese characters switch to Cantonese whenever they talk amongst themselves (and the version I watched lacked subs).

So, the tournament commences and there’s some drama as Karen Li tries to shore up the results by fixing the “random” computer-generated match-ups and even paying some people to take the fall. For example, when the preferred candidate for the win is to fight against a female fighter, Karen has it switched so that Champion Athletes’ new spokesperson won’t be regarded as a woman beater. That kind of thing.

Tournament movies don’t really give themselves over to lengthy reviews because the plots usually have one act worth of story and the rest is fighting with a couple of shallow character moments. That’s what we martial arts fans expect from these things, unless it’s The Quest, which manages to push the fighting all the way into the third act. Extreme Challenge is no different from the rest, so anyone expecting depth needs to refer themselves over to the first few Once Upon a Time in China movies or the works of Wong Kar-Wai. You’re not getting it here.

We’re here for the fighting, which wasn’t choreographed by Tung Wai himself, even though he directed the film. Instead, the action team consists of two former Jackie Chan stunt team members--Go Shut-Fung and Christopher Chan—and Jack Wong, who recently got award recognition for his work on Warriors of Future. Christopher Chan worked on a handful of Jackie Chan movies before moving over to Stephen Tung’s stunt team in the late 1990s. He’s since assisted Tung with films like Purple Storm; Mulan (the Vicky Zhao version, not the Disney remake); Seven Swords; and The Accidental Spy. His more recent efforts—Let the Bullets Fly and Ip Man: The Final Fight—suggest that he later switched over to Nicky Li Chung-Chi’s stunt team later on.

The first set piece and initial elimination round of the tournament is a sort of race where the fighters have to make it to a spot in the middle of a lake while not falling in ditches or into the water. The fighters trade blows while trying get a limited number of tokens that have to be inserted into a mechanism at the end point in order to move forward. There is lots of group fighting here, which is all well-staged. The second action sequence is a sort of a martial arts version of King of the Hill, where the sixteen or so fighters have to make their way up a structure while beating each other up, after which they’ll get a token and take a zipline to the finish line. The martial arts in this sequence is also quite good, although fans of Scott Adkins will be disappointed that he doesn’t fight more here.

The quarter-finals are a series of one-on-one weapons duels between the eight surviving combatants, which include our main characters, Scott Adkins, a Thai Boxer (Somchai Siabkuntod), a Japanese fighter (played by the director himself), and another female fighter (Nikki Powell, who squared off with Claire Forlani in The Medallion). Adkins does some nice work with the nunchaku. Rapovski impresses with his escrima skills. The others do respectable jobs with the pole.

The semi-finals are rather sketchy from a storytelling perspective, but the prolonged fight between Patricia Ja Lee and Yeung Chuen-Ai was really good, with just enough intensity and environment-assisted acrobatics to really make it one of the best fights of the movie. The finale pits the two remaining Chinese fighters against each other, and while it’s a good fight, I think I liked the previous one better. That said, some of the fights are hampered by out-of-place photographic effects, which suggest the filmmakers were learning about Microsoft Movie Maker and testing its features for the very first time. It’s stupid. It’s cheesy. It’s shallow. But I also lament that we don’t get any more of these movies out of Hong Kong and China anymore.

Reign of Assassins (2010)

Reign of Assassins (2010)
Aka: Rain of Swords; The Swordsman’s World
Chinese Title: 劍雨
Translation: Sword Rain

 

Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Jung Woo-Sung, Wang Xue-Qi, Barbie Hsu Hsi-Yuan, Shawn Yu Man-Lok, Kelly Lin Hsi-Lei, Guo Xiaodong, Jiang Yi-Yan, Leon Dai Li-Jen
Director: Su Chao-Pin, John Woo
Action Director: Stephen Tung Wai

 

Most of us were excited when this film was announced. Part of it had to do with the fact that John Woo was producing and co-directing. As he was still riding a high from the warm reception to his Red Cliff films, another period piece wuxia film felt like a good idea. However, we were more excited at the prospect of Michelle Yeoh headlining her first wuxia pian since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and her first full-on martial arts role since 2004’s Silver Hawk. We fans were fine with her doing dramas and getting paychecks for limited roles in Hollywood blockbusters, but we wanted her to get to basics and this seemed like as good an opportunity as any.

The movie is set in the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368 – 1644), in the capital city of Nanjing. An official (Lee Hing-Cheung, of Generation Pendragon) and his household are slaughtered by a mysterious gang of assassins known as the Dark Stone. The reason? Apparently, the official was in possession of the corpse—well, half of it—of the Indian monk Bodhidharma, aka Tamo, aka the guy who invented Shaolin kung fu. Legend states that whoever is in possession of the full corpse can be cured of any ailment, no matter how grave. One of the assassins, Drizzle (Kelly Lin, of Martial Angels and The Legend of Zu), takes the corpse and disappears with it.

During her flight, she has two fateful encounters. The first is with the official’s son, Zhang Renfang (Guo Xiaodong, of True Legend and An Empress and the Warriors). He survived the massacre and is particularly angry with Drizzle for delivering the killing blow to his father. But he’s in no shape to fight and Drizzle dispatches him with a blow to the heart with her super-flexible sword. The second encounter is with a monk named Wisdom (Lee Zong-Han, of The Lost Bladesman), who apparently had been Drizzle’s lover before deciding to take his vows. He engages in a duel with her and purposely loses, but not before giving her a few swordplay pointers and admonishing her to leave the Martial World and live an honest, nonviolent life.

Drizzle takes his advice to heart and visits Dr. Li (Chin Shih-Chieh, The Great Emperor’s Concubine and The Flying Tigers and the Kung Fu Kids), who subjects her to the 15^th century equivalent to plastic surgery, only with ravenous insects. Drizzle gets a new face and adopts the name Zeng Jing and is now played by Michelle Yeoh. She gets a job in Nanjing selling fabric and living a quiet existence. Her neighbor, Auntie Cai (Pau Hei-Ching, of White Hair Devil Lady), tries to play matchmaker with her, much to her annoyance. However, she can’t help but notice the bumbling, but good-natured charm of the local courier, Jiang Ah-Sheng (Jung Woo-Sung, of Musa the Warrior).

Zeng Jing eventually decides that her karma is good enough for her to settle down. She and Jiang get married and set up a peaceful existence at her house, living an ordinary life and having ordinary problems: health problems that cause them to go over-budget, shoes with holes in them, etc. However, a visit to the local bank changes all of that. Rumors have been swirling around the Martial World that the other half of Bodhidharma’s corpse is being kept in the bank vault. A gang of assassins stages a robbery at the same time Jiang and Zeng are there. The assassins paralyze everybody present with pressure point strikes, although Zeng is crafty enough to deflect the one directed at her. When would-be robbers start killing all the witnesses, Zeng springs into action and defeats them with her dormant martial arts skills. However, in doing so, she inadvertently reveals her existence to her former colleagues of the Dark Stone. And now that they know that Drizzle is both alive and living in the capital, the Dark Stone will surely track her down and get back what is theirs. Zeng Jing’s idyllic existence is thrust into chaos as secrets on all sides start coming to light…

David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence (2005) inspired a lot of filmmakers around 2010. The idea of your regular Joe Nobody standing up to some local riff-raff, only to reveal that he was once Somebody, shows up in a number of films. That was part of the premise of the Japanese martial arts flick KG: Karate Girl. It was also an important part of the plot of Donnie Yen’s Wu Xia, which was A History of Violence by way of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It also serves as the turning point of the story in this film, which has been a little light on the martial arts up to this point. Things ramp up once Zeng Jing’s cover is blown and she finds herself compelled to take up the sword in order to protect her husband from her former employer.

Obviously, this film is a lot different from A History of Violence. Although it uses the same plot mechanic as that movie did, here it is an impetus to a story that involves the (supposedly) magical, mummified remains of an Indian kung fu monk and the conniving parties that will invent any lie and betray any colleague just to lay claim to it. We know that Zeng Jing has kept it as a sort of bargaining chip should she be discovered, but everybody else associated with the corpse becomes corrupted by the promise of the power it purports to give to the owner.

In that way, the cadaver of Tamo himself is much like the Sacred Scroll of the Swordsman trilogy, itself based on Jin Yong’s novel Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (translated as “The Laughing Swordsman” or “Laughing and Proud in the Martial World”). The thing is, if you know what happens in that story, especially Jet Li’s Swordsman II, then it becomes doubly interesting when the movie reveals the designs that the Dark Stone’s leader, the enigmatic Wheel King (Wang Xue-Qi, of Warriors of Heaven and Earth and Bodyguards and Assassins). Not only is it the exact opposite of what Brigitte Lin’s Asia the Invincible did to himself/herself in that film, it’s a complete subversion of all those powerful villains that populated 1990s wuxia films, like Dragon Inn and Swordsman.

Kudos to Taiwanese writer-director Su Chao-Pin for being able to do something that is both similar and different from the films of two decades earlier. Su Chao-Pin is best known for his unconventional horror films Silk (which he wrote and directed) and Double Vision (which he just wrote). Those were very interesting movies, but both suffered from giving the audience convoluted explanations for their respective supernatural goings-on, only for the characters to wave them away at the last moment in favor of a “Love is a powerful force” theme. The Power of LoveÔ does up at the end, but ultimately as an explanation for the characters’ final decisions as opposed to 90 minutes of Spooky Stuff, so it works.

Su Chao-Pin and John Woo’s assured direction for the former’s script is bolstered by a strong cast of (generally) well thought-out characters. Both Michelle Yeoh and Jung Woo-Sung make for likable leads, especially once things start getting ugly. My favorite moment of the latter is when he returns to find a naked seductress in his bed, played by Connected’s Barbie Hsu. Hsu almost walks away with the movie as Drizzle’s replacement: a sexually-insatiable but completely amoral killer. Shawn Yue (Dragon Tiger Gate and The Invisible Target) also does a great job as the needle-throwing killer Lei Bin, whose alter-ego is that of a loving family man. His final scene is one of the more touching moments of the film.

The fight scenes are staged by veteran action director Stephen Tung Wai. Tung Wai had previously worked with Su Chao-Pin on Silk and is best known for helping John Woo invent the Bullet Ballet sub-genre with A Better Tomorrow. However, when it comes to martial arts and swordplay, as slick as Tung’s choreography can be, one shouldn’t come into the film expecting any all-time classic fights. I mean, it’s one thing when he’s working alongside other choreographers like Yuen Bun (The Blade) or Ching Siu-Tung (Hero). But when he’s the head action director, expect some good solid fights but nothing more. There are lots of fun swordfights to be seen, although some of them are edited too much for their own good. There’s certainly nothing her that equals Michelle Yeoh’s fights with Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Jet Li vs. Donnie Yen in Hero.

In the end, Reign of Assassins succeeds because it’s such a well-rounded film. From the story to the acting and casting to the action, it does everything right, even if it doesn’t necessarily surpass the best examples of the genre in any given department. And given the state of wuxia films coming out of China today, sometimes that’s just more than enough.

This review is part of Fighting Female February 2023: The Month of Michelle. Click on the banner below for more reviews of her films.

Double World (2020)

Double World (2020)
Chinese Title: 徵途
Translation: Journey

 

Starring: Henry Lau, Peter Ho Yun-Tung, Lin Chenhan, Jiang Luxia, Him Lo Chung-Him, Bobo Hu Ming, Kira Shi Shi, Mark Cheng Ho-Nam, Wang Zi-Yi, Tiger Xu Ming-Hu
Director: Teddy Chen
Action Director: Stephen Tung Wai, Fan Yizhu, Zhang Mang

 

I think I’m starting to lose my once-great memory in my old age[1]. I watched this movie early this year—or late last year, and all I could remember from it was that I liked it more than I was expecting to. Big-budget epic Chinese fantasies are really hit and miss, and my initial thoughts on it were that it fell on the lower end of “hit.” But before I sat down to rewatch it earlier this week, I could honestly not remember a single thing from the movie. I kinda remembered one tournament events, but that was about it. Characters, set pieces, and story elements had become a complete blur in my mind. Is it that my memory is starting to fade (a scary thought)? Or was it just a forgettable film? And this coming from a guy who has a good memory of bland 70s basher film like The Brave Lion!

The movie opens with some subtitles informing the viewer that the Fantasy Asia-land the story takes place in is divided into two rival kingdoms: Southern Zhou and Northern Yan. After year of war, a stalemate was reached between the kingdoms and fighting came to a standstill for a number of years. However, the new King of Yan has decided to end the ceasefire and start war again. We then meet the political heads of the Zhou kingdom, which include the young king and Royal Tutor Guan (Bobo Hu Ming, of 1911 and Iceman: The Time Traveler). The former is the subject of an assassination attempt by Yan emissaries—one of them is killed in combat and the other is slaughtered by Guan’s pet lion(!). They decide to go forward with a traditional martial arts tournament to determine the army’s Field Marshall, who will lead the king’s armies against Yan forces.

Meanwhile, in some desert wasteland east of the Zhou capital, the Hu Xiao people live in a set-up that looks cribbed from Mad Max: Fury Road. The men spend their days toiling in mines while the women wait in line to get water from the local magistrate, who usually stops distributing it before everybody in line can fill up their pitchers. That doesn’t stop Dong Yilong (Henry Lau), a young orphan with video game-esque jumping skills and dodges authorities a lá Aladdin. He steals water and all sorts of things, but manages a happy-go-lucky attitude, even after he gets caught. In any case, the Royal Decree reaches the Hu Xiao Clan and they are required to send three volunteers to the capital, under threat of clan-level genocide. Dong  Yilong, a former soldier named Chu Hun (Peter Ho, of The Monkey King and The Sword Master), and some arrogant little jerk sign up for the quest. That last one gets killed by giant CGI scorpions a few minutes after they start their journey.

While crossing the desert, Dong Yilong makes friends with warriors from the Lizard Clan after saving their leader during a sandstorm. They also meet a girl who had stolen the Lizard Clan’s token to enter the tournament—her name is Jinggang (Lin Chenhan) and she wields a Claymore-class weapon, despite being shorter than the weapon itself (shades of Sayu and Noelle from Genshin Impact). Long story short: Jinggang eventually joins the Hu Xiao Clan team to make up for the death of nobody-cares-what-his-name-was. Chu Hun also “accidentally” buys a slave girl from Northern Yan named Bi Nu (Jiang Luxia, of Vampire Warriors and Coweb). Bi Nu happens to be the daughter of a general whom had been slain by Chu Hun’s brother (Tai Chi 2’s Mark Cheng, in a cameo) years before. Also, it was at that same battle that Royal Tutor Guan had failed to send reinforcements—we learn early on that he’s actually a spy for Northern Yan—to Chu’s army, resulting in his brother’s premature death. So Chu Hun and Bi Nu have axes to grind, and its Dong Yilong and Jinggang’s goodness and compassion that keeps everybody together throughout the ordeals of the competition.

The tournament isn’t your average martial arts fight fest. The first event involves the contestants running across a GINORMOUS cargo net made of large chains, making their way over a pit of spikes while giant iron balls rolls back and forth, threatening to crush anyone in their way. The second event feels cribbed from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which the contestants have to steal an egg from a giant dragon in a cave filled with poisonous flowers and carnivorous vines. And the last event? Well, there’s only ONE Field Marshall on the books,  you know.

Teddy Chen is usually dependable for big budget mayhem with a bit of heart. From Purple Storm to Accidental Spy to Bodyguards and Assassins, the man knows his way around large scale action and strong visuals. With Double World, which was apparently based on a video game (or online RPG), he demonstrates that same basic knowledge of making his films look good and scoring (for the most part) on the action front. Most of the main characters have their important emotional moments, some kind of a backstory, and have chemistry with their co-stars. And like most Hong Kong films, there really is no plot armor for anyone in the cast. Anyone can die at any time.

Henry Lau reminds me of a shorter Jaycee Chan, although Lau is a bit more charismatic than Jackie’s scion. He doesn’t provide the story with much martial arts, however, which is left to co-stars Peter Ho and Lin Chenhan. Sadly, Jiang Luxia is mainly wasted in the role of a character who is brooding for revenge for most of her screen time. Peter Ho experiences most of the character development, as he goes from angry and cynical to something a little more heroic. Henry Lau’s compassion is his defining trait throughout and he is likable, but also a bit one note in his goodness.

The action sequences were overseen by Stephen Tung Wai, with Fan Yizhu and Zhang Man handling the fight choreography itself. Fan Yizhu has performed stuntwork on a number of high-profile films in the past decade or so, and was assistant action director for Detective Chinatown and God of War. Zhang Man has a similar résumé, although he cut his teeth as an action director on The Monkey King 3: Kingdom of Women (the one nobody remembers or talks about). The action is mainly swordplay and spear swinging, with a few small doses hand-to-hand combat. The fighting is wire-assisted at every turn, so people who hate wuxia movies on account of their “unrealistic” will have plenty to complain about here. The choreography on the whole isn’t bad, and there are several weapons combat sequences and a few pretty solid weapons exchanges, too.

Stephen Tung Wai did get nominated for a Best Action Design Award, although he lost to Ip Man 4 for obvious reasons. It’s actually kinda interesting, because usually when Stephen Tung Wai and Teddy Chen have teamed up, it has resulted in a win for Stephen. Just see Downtown Torpedoes; Purple Storm; The Accidental Spy (where Tung Wai teamed up with Jackie Chan for the action); and Bodyguards and Assassins. Moreover, Stephen Tung Wai was part of the trio that directed the fighting for Kung Fu Jungle, alongside Donnie Yen and Yuen Bun. That also won the award. So the Tung Wai-Teddy Chen collaboration were five-for-five until this film came around, in which they lost to Donnie Yen and Yuen Woo-Ping.

Double World is a fun little fantasy epic, but there’s a good chance that you won’t remember it a few weeks after you see it. In other words, it’s a typical big budget blockbuster—disposable entertainment at its slickest and most forgettable.

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[1] - I turned 40 this year.

Hard Boiled (1992)

Hard Boiled (1992)
Chinese Title: 辣手神探
Translation: Hot Hand Detective

 

Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Phillip Chan Yan-Kin, Phillip Kwok Chun-Fung, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Kwan Hoi-San, Stephen Tung Wai, Bowie Lam Bo-Yi, Bobby Au-Yeung Tsan-Wah, Ng Shui-Ting
Director: John Woo
Action Director: Philip Kwok

 

Early fall – 1997. My sister, Carolyn, and I go to the dollar(-seventy-five) theater on the Miracle Mile (i.e. Pacific Avenue) in Stockton, California. The double-bill for this Satuday? Two action movies starring Nicolas Cage: Con Air and Face/Off. And yes, it was a totally ass-kicking evening for my sister and I. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. At the time, I was beginning to collect Jackie Chan movies and was familiar with John Woo thanks to Hard Target. Meanwhile, Carolyn knew John Woo (at least in concept) because of Broken Arrow, which she watched while she went through a Christian Slater crush phase. This was the 1990s, after all.

I was so impressed with the scale and quality of the action in Face/Off that I decided it was time to watch John Woo’s Chinese movies. It was funny, the name came to my attention when Hard Target came out four years earlier. His name was touted on the trailers and TV spots, even though I had no idea who he actually was. At about the same time, I noticed that the ’99 Drive-In (Stockton had a Drive-In theater way out on the south side that I never actually went to before it closed down) started showing some of John Woo’s earlier films. I saw that the Drive-In was showing some movie called “The Killer,” but instead of Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cast, there were a bunch of Chinese names I’d never heard of. I was 11 at the time.

There was a video store right behind UOP (University of the Pacific) located on the corner of Alpine and Pacific Avenues. It wasn’t one of our main video stores, but we had a membership there and occasionally stopped there to rent movies, especially after Alpine Video (also located on Alpine Avenue, but a few miles away on the other side of UOP) closed down. One evening in my early Sophomore year in high school I went there, scoured the Action-Adventure and Foreign Movies sections, and found A Better Tomorrow. I rented it and absolutely loved it. Excellent film all around.

Not too long afterward, we were at the Blockbuster Video on the corner of Pershing and Robinhood (right behind Delta college) and I saw that they had a John Woo movie called Hard Boiled. I immediately picked it up and put in on the pile for my mom to rent. I saw that it starred Chow Yun-Fat, who had been in A Better Tomorrow. Now, bear in mind that I’m still a Hong Kong neophyte at this point, with most of my experience coming from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. In Leonard Maltin’s review of A Better Tomorrow, he praised Chow’s performance as a mob enforcer. For some reason, I equated Chow with Soon Ji-Ho, Ti Lung’s character. So when I popped Hard Boiled into the VCR, I was expected to see an action movie starring a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. I quickly figured out that Chow Yun-Fat was not the main character from A Better Tomorrow, but rather, his best friend who gets a fat hole blown in his head during the climax. Oh, okay.

A brief opening introduces us to Chow Yun-Fat’s character, a cop referred to by his colleagues as “Tequila.” He’s playing jazz clarinet at a jazz bar (owned by a former cop played by the director himself) and we see that the drummer in his band is his partner, Lung (Bowie Lam, of Doctor Vampire and Most Wanted). Tequila’s clarinet solo is played to the backdrop of the seedier parts of Hong Kong and newspapers informing us about the general surge in gun violence and crime overall. It certainly sounds like the U.S.A. circa 2022, if you ask me.

We then switch to a teahouse where Tequila and Lung are to break up an arms deal. The guns—Chinese models--themselves are hidden in the birdcages that the bad guys have brought. It doesn’t take long before the cops—disguised as waiters and customers—step in and a huge gunfight breaks out. The firefight is made even more complicated by the fact that a) the criminals hold absolutely no regard for human life and b) there’s a third-party gunman (Japanese actor Jun Kunimura, of Godzilla Final Wars and Tomie: Forbidden Fruit) who opens fire on the cops of his own accord. By the time the smoke clears, all of the criminals are dead. Lung is also dead. And the mysterious gunman is dead. Unfortunately for Tequila, the latter was an undercover policeman working under the supervision of Tequila’s boss, Chief Pang (Phillip Chan, of Bloodsport and Double Impact).

“Give the man a gun, and he’s Superman. Give him two, and he’s God.” 

We then meet a new set of characters. The first is a hitman named Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, of The Magic Crane and Seoul Raiders), who is in the employ of an older arms dealer named Uncle Hoi (Kwan Hoi-San, of the Project A films). Hoi’s major business rival is Johnny Wang (Untold Story’s Anthony Wong). Considering that this is early 90s Anthony Wong we’re talking about here, you can guess what kind of person Johnny Wang is: a complete and utter psychopath with (you guessed it) no regard for human life. In fact, it was his men who were involved in the teahouse incident. After Alan wastes one of Johnny’s new acquisitions—the hit is carried out in a surreal scene at a hospital—Johnny tries to woo Alan over to his side.

As this is happening, Tequila is mainly making himself a nuisance by harassing Johnny Wang in public (which almost gets him a bullet in his head for his troubles). However, when Johnny decides to put an end to Uncle Hoi’s hegemony in the market, Tequila gets word of it through his informant, Foxy (Stephen Tung Wai, of Once Upon a Time in China V). Johnny gives Alan a chance to prove his loyalty to him during a raid on Uncle Hoi’s warehouse, located in the deepest corners of the port. A huge three-way shootout (played in two parts) between Johnny’s killers, Uncle Hoi’s men, and one-man-army Tequila ensues, ending the lives of dozens of arms dealers. Tequila finds himself face to face with Alan at the end of the shootout. Although, Tequila is out of bullets, Alan is not. So, why doesn’t Alan kill him? Could it be that he’s an undercover cop, just like the one Tequila killed at the beginning?

Hard Boiled was John Woo’s last Hong Kong film before moving to Hollywood the following year. The handover of Hong Kong back to the People’s Republic of China was looming on the horizon and even with the Basic Law guaranteeing “business as usual,” nobody knew what was going to happen. It ended up taking more than twenty years, but the CCP found a way to circumvent the Basic Law with questionable national security laws, which have found a way to censor (and even retro-censor) movies. There was a lot of uncertainty, however, and some directors and actors went to Hollywood to test their fortunes. John Woo was the first of the lot—if you exclude Jackie Chan’s failed attempts in the 1980s—and he had a promising start with Hard Target. Woo hit his stride with his third American film, Face/Off, which was a hit with both critics and audiences alike. He reached the apex of his Hollywood career with his fourth effort, Mission Impossible II.

Woo followed it up with the earnest-but-failed WW2 film, Windtalkers. He closed out his Hollywood phase with the generic sci-fi action film Paycheck with Ben Affleck. Upon returning to Hong Kong, he went for the big one and made the 4+ hour Three Kingdoms epic Red Cliff, which was broken up into two movies. Woo’s subsequent films had mixed reviews, and his current project is a remake of his own masterpiece, The Killer, but with Western actors.

Hard Boiled was not as successful as some of Woo’s earlier Heroic Bloodshed films, although it was probably the biggest of those in terms of scope and has a strong fan following to this very day. It also got a video game sequel, Stranglehold, for the Playstation 3 in 2007. It is arguably his bloodiest film, with a body count surpassing 300—307 to be exact, according to Collider. That would make it the second highest number for a movie set in contemporary films, a mere three dead bodies behind Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse[1]. And this movie is absolutely vicious: at least a third of the people killed are innocent bystanders, including doctors, nurses and hospital patients, all of whom are mercilessly mowed down during protracted climax at the hospital. For the scale of the action alone—not to mention that this is all practical effects—this is easily one of the best action films of the 1990s, if not all time, in all of world cinema.

Chow Yun-Fat’s Tequila is the definition of ultra-cool. He routinely fights with his boss to his face and ignores orders when he knows he’s right—apparently the Chinese title, Lashou Shentan, was also the Chinese title for Dirty Harry. And once Tequila has a loaded gun in his hand, he will (to quote Ordell Robie) “absolutely, positive kill every motherfucker in the room.” And yet, he’s not a perfect person by any means. He makes professional mistakes, has a turbulent love life with his colleague (Teresa Mo, of Lady Super Cop) and is constantly on the verge of getting fired for misconduct. And yet, he gets results. Crime in Hong Kong was hitting record highs in the 1990s—maybe John Woo shouldn’t have inspired so many youth to join the Triads with A Better Tomorrow—and seems to reflect Woo’s desire for the police to simply blow shit up for the common good (nevermind that Woo claims to be a pacifist).

The deeper character is saved for Tony Leung’s Alan, an undercover cop who’s been on the inside for so long that he no longer remembers his own birthday. He knows that his path will take him into some unsavory places, especially as he tries to bring down a horrible excuse for a human being like Johnny Wang. But even so, Alan does make some friends among Uncle Hoi’s men. So when the mission ultimately requires him to betray them, it takes its emotional toll on him the same way it would had he been a normal Triad betraying and murdering his old friends. It is thanks to Tequila’s constant support—despite their tense relationship—that he able to face his demons as he takes on Wang’s army during the last half of the film. This is film is obviously a template for his lauded role in Andrew Lau’s award-winning Infernal Affairs.

The rest of the actors all do credible jobs with their material. Phillip Chan was a former policeman before entering the movie industry and by this point, could play a police captain in his sleep. Teresa Mo was a respected comic actress and makes her limited role as Madam Chang work—she has a hard time getting along with Tequila at this point, but still respects his work as a cop and even calls out Chief Pang for favoring Alan over him. There is one scene where she callously shoots down a terrorist who slaps her, which was copied by Woo the following year in Hard Target. Stealing the show is Anthony Wong with his unhinged, but not quite over-the-top, performance as the crazy Johnny Wang. My favorite moment with him is when he justifies (to both himself and his men) waging an all-out war with the cops in the middle of a friggin’ hospital: “They only have .38s.” [Scoffs to the point of spitting]

Former Venom Mob trope member Phillip Kwok, who also plays the honorable assassin Mad Dog, orchestrated the big set pieces here. Hard Boiled is undoubtedly Kwok’s best work as an action director following the dissolution of the Venom Mob circa 1983. There are three major set pieces, with a couple of smaller ones, too. The movie opens with the infamous teahouse fight, which has Chow Yun-Fat and his team jumping over and ducking under tables while trading shots with arms dealers, while the undercover policeman guy just sprays everybody with bullets from his Uzi. This ends with the memorable scene of Chow Yun-Fat, covered in flour, pins the assassin to the ground with his gun, spits out his toothpick, and pulls the trigger. In a split second, his white face is covered with blood.

While the teahouse fight was a great example of a mounting a bloody gun battle in a closed space, the raid on Uncle Hoi’s arsenal (and Tequila’s subsequent raid on Johnny’s men) is a more open fight. The warehouse in which Hoi’s men are loading their guns into shipping containers is quite spacious, giving Johnny’s top enforcers (led by Mad Dog) lots of room to drive around on motorcycles and slaughter people wholesale with Uzis and Mac-10s. I’m pretty sure that the use of motorcycles in the climax of Hard Target was inspired by this sequence. Then Tequila goes all Rambo on everbody with an HK Submachine gun and a 12-gauge shotgun whose cartridges must have been loaded with nitroglycerin pellets, judging by the explosions they cause. The sight of Chow Yun-Fat blowing up motorcycles in mid-air made my 15-year-old brain explode back in the day.

The characters start converging on the hospital at around the hour mark, which is where the film spends the rest of its running time. After a few brief skirmishes between our heroes and the bad guys, there’s an intense bout of fisticuffs between Tony Leung, Chow Yun-Fat and Philip Kwok, set inside the villains’ arsenal. Upon their escape from the room, the film kicks into high-gear and never stops for a moment. My favorite single moment has Chow Yun-Fat sliding across the floor of the hospital lobby on his knees before taking out two bad guys with  a single shotgun blast. Bad. Ass. That scene is quickly followed by popular single tracking-shot gunfight as Alan and Tequila work their way through the halls of the hospital as they look for Johnny. Then there’s an absolutely insane rematch between the good guys and Mad Dog, but in this case, it’s a highly-choreographed gunfight, with them unloading hundreds of rounds at each other—Mad Dog is armed with an M-16 with a grenade launcher in this segment. And the madness does not end after that. This film is just absolutely berserk!

Hollywood has often tried to mimic the sheer insanity of Hard Boiled, but never quite made it there. Even John Woo himself never quite recaptured the emotions of this film’s action, and he was becoming a caricature of himself by the time he got to Mission Impossible II. The two Expendables films got the body count down, but were missing the style. Shoot’em Up came close, but was a bit silly for its own good. The Matrix and Mr. and Mrs. Smith had some great gunfights, but felt sanitized on the whole. Hard Boiled is where it’s at.

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[1] - The movies that beat those two were all historical or fantasy films with large-scale battle sequences, like Troy; The Last Samurai; and the Lord of the Rings movies.

Twin Dragons (1992)

Twin Dragons (1992)
Aka: Brother vs. Brother
Chinese Title: 雙龍會
Translation: Double Dragon Club

 

Starring: Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Nina Li Chi, Teddy Robin Kwan, James Wong Jim, Sylvia Chang Ai-Chia, Kirk Wong Chi-Keung, David Chiang Da-Wei, Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting, Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei
Director: Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam
Action Directors: Yuen Woo-Ping, Stephen Tung Wai, Tony Leung Siu-Hung, Tsui Siu-Ming, Chris Lee, Jackie Chan

In Clyde Gentry’s Jackie Chan: Inside the Dragon, Gentry places his remarks about this movie in the chapter reserved for “Jackie’s other children.” That expression is used to describe the Jackie Chan movies that, up until 1997, had been directed by others who didn’t quite share Jackie’s approach to moviemaking. That would include Gordon Chan (Thunderbolt), Wong Jing (City Hunter) and Kirk Wong (Crime Story). Gentry more or less summed up the chapter by stating that Chan himself hated all these films, although he showed a bit of ambivalence toward Drunken Master II (directed by Lau Kar-Leung). The criticism with this particular movie is that despite having two critically-acclaimed directors running show—Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam—neither of the men’s style really show through. Instead, it feels like a standard Jackie Chan action comedy whose detours into goofiness rival the dumbest moments of My Lucky Star.

There is a certain reason for Twin Dragons feeling like less of a movie than usual. That is that it was meant as a fundraiser for the Hong Kong Director’s Guild, specifically to get said organization its own office. Despite the moving making 33 million HKD at the time—placing it at #9 for that year in a particularly strong year for domestic films—apparently the Director’s Guild didn’t get their office built. In any case, it is mainly a disparate collection of action scenes and sight gags, held together by a thin story and tinge of romance.

I came across this some time during my junior year in high school, circa 1999. I had stopped by the S-Mart Supermarket located behind my school and was just looking around when I noticed a bargain bin full of VHS tapes. Lying right on top of the pile of tapes was Twin Dragons, priced at $9.99. I don’t even remember why I was even at the market. I saw that and stroked my chin. I didn’t buy it immediately, but after re-reading Clyde Gentry’s remarks on the film, I went to S-Mart again the following Friday after school and bought it with my lunch money.

Now, the funny part is that a couple of months after I bought this, Dimension Films released this with an all-new dub—presumably with Jackie Chan dubbing himself—to American theaters. Although by this point, I was making it a point to support Asian stars in whatever they could get released in the States, I decided to not do that with this one. Instead, I got the gang together at my friend Peter’s house and we just watched my VHS (which had the international dub, plus 15 minutes of footage not to be seen in the new release). The movie only made 8.3 million dollars in the US and Canada (losing about 40 dollars in revenue because I didn’t take my friends to see it), but was successful in Pan-Asian markets, as Chan films were wont to be at the time.

I’ll forego my usual semi-detailed plot synopsis, both because I’m pretty sure my base has already seen it and because trying to sum up the “story” is a bit of thankless task. Needless to say, Chan plays a dual role as renown pianist, John Ma, and a kung fu-fighting car mechanic, Boomer. The latter has a run-in with the local Triads and as that problem spirals out of control, John is sucked into it as well. There is also a subplot in which John falls for Barbara (Maggie Cheung), a karaoke singer whom Boomer’s friend, Tyson (Teddy Robin Kwan) already has the hots for. Meanwhile, a series of mishaps involving mistaken identity places Boomer in bed with Tammy (Nina Li Chi), a hot young lady whose father is trying to marry her off to John for his own benefit.

Although the real-life Jackie Chan has never been a squeaky-clean guy, he always does a good job at playing that sort of role in his movies. At the very least, he’s a regular, likable Joe who happens to have awesome acrobatic kung fu abilities. Playing dual roles allows him to play up to that good boy image while simultaneously playing against type in the form of Boomer. Boomer is a working-class fellow with a ponytail, a smoking habit, and a penchant for getting into trouble with the wrong people. Early dialog suggests that he’s also active on the illegal driving circuit, which comes up later in the film, albeit not in the way one might initially imagine. As I understand it, Armour of God (1987) featured Jackie Chan’s first love scene, which he admitted was even scarier to him than almost dying. Twin Dragons would thus feature his second love scene, although it’s quick and played mainly for laughs. Later on, Nina Li drops her towel in front of John before getting into a bathtub with him. In other words, Jackie presumably got to see what Jet Li was seeing at that time. So, would that make Jackie Chan and Jet Li eskimo brothers?

Maggie Cheung plays the fourth side of the bizarre love “rectangle.” Despite Tyson’s attempt to “stake a claim” on her Barbara character, she initially falls for Boomer. That makes sense, as one is a martial arts dynamo and the other is an annoying klutz—I’m pretty sure 9 out of 10 people will agree that Teddy Robbin’s character is the low point of this movie. However, after meeting John (despite thinking he’s Boomer), she falls for him instead. What I like about this movie is that it didn’t make Maggie Cheung the nagging (or angry or concerned) girlfriend that the Police Story movies made her. She is given a meatier role than her recurring role as May in those films.

Villainy is provided by several actors. Initially, the Triad boss is Yung, played by actor-director Alfred Cheung. As a director—most of the cast are veteran HK directors—Cheung is best known for the Her Fatal Ways series[1]. Interestingly enough, Boss Yung is forgotten about some 30 minutes in after a goofy sight gag involving a mannequin bouncing back and forth against two vehicles. His cronies, played Shaw brothers veteran Johnny Wang Lung-Wei[2] and actor-director-producer Guy Lai[3], then pick up the slack. Then wait! In the last act, we learn that Boss Yung (who has since disappeared from the script) has a boss, played by director Kirk Wong[4]. Kirk Wong’s character was the same guy who caused the separation of the Ma twins at the beginning of the film. How coincidental is it for him to be the head of the same Triad some 27 years later!

As there are dozens of directors in supporting roles and cameos throughout, it comes without surprise that there are a half dozen action directors attributed to Twin Dragons, too. And it goes without saying that these men also had varying experiences as movie directors, too. Yuen Woo-Ping needs no introduction, having directed a number of classic old school movies and modern-day action films. Stephen Tung Wai had been working as an action director since the late 70s, and had directed his first movie, the supernatural action film Magic Cop, a couple of years earlier. Chris Lee, a former Sing Ga Ban member, had started his directing career the year before with Queen’s High. Tony Leung Siu-Hung, brother of Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, was a dependable B-list choreographer with A-grade potential, and had directed at least one movie by this point. Finally, Tsui Siu-Ming was a seasoned director, directing crazy stunt action fests like Mirage and Bury Me High.

Despite the combined talent of these men, much like the collaboration of Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, there isn’t a whole lot of their individual styles that show through in the fights. It’s mainly Jackie Chan doing what Jackie Chan does best. An early fight at a karaoke club has some nice kicks and wince-inducing use of glass panes, including Wang Lung-Wei breaking a pane over Jackie’s back. A short fight against Tammy’s boyfriend, played by Shaw Brothers stuntman-turned director Jamie Luk[5], is played for laughs, although Chan once more does some nice kicks. After the first set piece, the fighting is turned down until the 15-minute climax, set at a car-testing center. In the meantime, there is a boat chase and a well-done car chase, full of nice car stunts and general vehicular mayhem.

The big climax is vintage Jackie Chan, complete with great martial arts and some neat stuntwork from Chan the man. The stunts include running onto a moving car as it races toward him. Some versions show the stunt at regular speed, while others show it in both slow motion and regular speed. Another stunt has Chan barely jumping out of the way as a car smashes against a wall behind him as part of a crash test. In another display of agility and timing, Chan rolls under a car and out the other side as the villains kick out the jacks holding it up, narrowly missing Chan on both sides. The first part of the climax, which involves a series of mistaken identity gags in a carwash room and heating room of the factor, goes on a bit long. But once they’re in the garage, there’s some neat stuff on display. But to get there, there is a lot of silliness that you’ll have to wade through. Is it worth the trip? Or did Dimension films have the right idea in streamlining the whole affair? You be the judge.

  

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[1] - Cheung’s biggest hit was All’s Well, End’s Well ’97, which made more than 40 million HKD and came in at #3 at the domestic box office that year.

[2] - By this point, Wang had also established himself as a director, making brutal action films like The Angry Ranger; Widow Warriors; and City Warriors.

[3] - Lai’s most successful film as director was Sister Cupid, starring Maggie Cheung.

[4] - Kirk Wong was known for his gritty and brutal action films, like Crime Story and Organized Crime and Triad Bureau. In Hollywood, he directed the action-comedy The Big Hit (1998) and was originally slated to direct the project that became Snakes on a Plane.

[5] - Luk is best known for directing the cult film Robotrix. His most successful film, however, was the Carol “Dodo” Cheng ghost-comedy Guests in the House.