Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Tuesday, March 28th, 2023
FURIES (Thanh Sói) is a great new Vietnamese action movie on Netflix as of last Thursday, and it’s a prequel to FURIE (2019). On one hand I want to be clear that not having seen FURIE would hardly affect your viewing of FURIES – it’s just an origin story for one of the supporting characters, and you don’t even know for sure which one until the end (it’s kinda like LEATHERFACE in that sense). On the other hand, FURIE is fuckin great, so you should definitely watch it. But I really don’t think the order matters.
FURIE starred Ngô Thanh Vân a.k.a. Veronica Ngo in a knockout performance as a rural debt collector who has to venture into the city when her daughter is kidnapped – and it turns out that when her daughter was born she ran from a life there as a gangster, which is why she knows the ins and outs of this underworld, as well as how to kick 75 different types of ass. For FURIES, Ngo takes over as director, as well as having a supporting role in the movie. As a totally different character! It’s weird. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kefi Abrikh, Rima Thanh Vy, Song Luan, Thuan Nguyen, Toc Tien, Veronica Ngo, Vietnamese film
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Martial Arts | 2 Comments »
Monday, March 27th, 2023
JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4 is the culmination of one of the great movie series of our time, and a masterwork of its genre, one of the few American action movies to arguably outdo overseas epics like THE RAID 2, THE NIGHT COMES FOR US and THE VILLAINESS. Like its predecessors it expands on JOHN WICK’s distinct style of martial-arts-and-guns ultraviolence, introduces colorful new allies and enemies, and invents even more astounding ideas for types of action spectacle you haven’t seen before. But this one adds an extra layer of emotion through heroic bloodshed style bonding and a deeper realization that everything John Wick does in these movies only digs his hole deeper.
I’ll warn you before I get into the biggest spoilers, but as usual this review will be better for reading after you’ve seen it. If you’re just wondering how good it is compared to other chapters, I believe the first film stands on its own and then the sequels get better the more spectacular they become. So CHAPTER 3 was the best but has now been usurped by CHAPTER 4. (But I love the Halle Berry and Mark Dacascos stuff in 3 so much it’s not an easy choice.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Skarsgard, Chad Stahelski, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Marko Zaror, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Shamier Anderson
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 58 Comments »
Tuesday, March 21st, 2023
Ronny Yu’s 1982 film THE POSTMAN STRIKES BACK (or THE POSTMAN FIGHTS BACK in the U.K.) is not a sequel to Kevin Costner’s THE POSTMAN, but it is about a heroic letter deliverer. Courier Ma (Bryan Leung, IRON MONKEY, IP MAN, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) enjoys his humble life as a messenger in bandit-ridden territory between Canton and Shanghai. Like many of us he has the shadow of technological advancement hanging over him: when the trains come in, people like to tell him, they won’t need guys like him anymore. But he’s still reluctant to take 300 taels of gold for a sketchy delivery-through-the-mountains job offered to him by Hu (Eddy Ko, HEROES SHED NO TEARS, THE EAST IS RED, LETHAL WEAPON 4).
He only delivers letters, he says. And you can see why he likes it. The villages treat him like the ice cream man when he shows up. Now that I think about it it might not be because of the letters – he actually does bring the kids treats. He tries to introduce some kids to chocolate, which he got in Canton, but they refuse it because they say it looks like mud (or dog shit in the dub). I guess that shows you how important it is to experience different parts of the world and learn from different types of people. Those dumb little shits missed out on free chocolate! Back when it was rare!
Ma’s wimpier friend Yao Jie (Yat-Chor Yuen, CHINESE HERCULES, SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU, IN THE LINE OF DUTY 4) really wants to take that job, and he can’t do it alone, so eventually Ma gives in. All they have to do is carry several cases, “a gift for Zhao Long” to deliver by his birthday to keep the peace. They just can’t look to see what’s in the cases. (That’s one of the Transporter’s rules also.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bryan Leung, Cherie Chung, Chow Yun Fat, Eddy Ko, Fan Mei-Sheng, Yat-Chor Yuen, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 13 Comments »
Monday, March 20th, 2023
Ronny Yu is a director whose work I’ve enjoyed since the ‘90s, when I first saw his beautiful wuxia film THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. Part of what’s interesting about him is that he was so adept at making those lush martial arts fantasies, but he was on a trajectory to come to Hollywood and make something quite different, including two of the more notable and unusual franchise horror films of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
But he started out in another place entirely – making raw, low budget Hong Kong cop thrillers like his very-hard-to-find first two films, THE SERVANT (1979) and THE SAVIOUR (1980).
Yu was born in Hong Kong in 1950. He suffered from polio as a child, preventing the type of physical play most kids take for granted, and leading him to retreat into his imagination, especially by watching movies. “In the dark I could forget about my problems. I could forget that I couldn’t walk so good,” he later said. He attended a boys school in England, and in the ’70s he wanted to go to UCLA and study filmmaking. His dad wouldn’t pay for that, and told him that to really understand the United States he should live in the heartland. So – figuring commercials were similar to movies – Yu studied marketing and communication at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, the alma mater of Paul Newman and Richard Dean Anderson. Other filmmaker alumni include Joe Eszterhas and Betty Thomas.
Becoming a director was kind of an accident, and it came, strangely, from being friends with a cop. Philip Chan had been a police officer for around 15 years before working as a consultant (and ultimately co-writer) on JUMPING ASH (1976) gave him the bug to be a movie star. He got a few bit parts, but his dream was to be a leading man in a movie about his experiences as a Superintendent in the Anti-Triad Squad of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. No one was giving him that role, so he had to create it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfred Cheung, Gigi Wong, Hong Kong New Wave, Ken Cheng, Kent Cheng, Pai Ying, Ronny Yu, Tien Feng, Zero External Reviews on IMDb
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Thriller | 14 Comments »
Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
It’s weird that there’s a studio action-thriller starring Jeff Bridges (THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT) and Tommy Lee Jones (ROLLING THUNDER) from the prime year of 1994, and I never bothered to see it before. I think I heard it was bad at the time, but when did that ever stop me? I think more recently I’ve seen people writing fondly about it, and I realized it was directed by Stephen Hopkins (following DANGEROUS GAME, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD, PREDATOR 2 and JUDGMENT NIGHT), so I got myself excited to see it.
I’m afraid the early rumors weren’t wrong, though – this is a laughable movie, and not entirely in the way that I enjoy. On the positive side, it will be fun to write about, and seeing this type of studio thriller craftsmanship did give me some of that particular warm nostalgia I was looking for. You know, you’ve got all this production value, on location shooting, glorious crane shots (cinematographer: Peter Levy, CUTTHROAT ISLAND, BROKEN ARROW, TORQUE), and composer Alan Silvestri (THE DELTA FORCE, PREDATOR, THE ABYSS) admirably does his thing without giving in to the temptation to just do a bunch of Celtic cliches. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Silvestri, bomb squad, Boston, Forest Whitaker, Jay Roach, Jeff Bridges, Joe Batteer, John Rice, Lloyd Bridges, Stephen Hopkins, Stephi Lineburg, Suzy Amis, Tommy Lee Jones
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 26 Comments »
Monday, February 27th, 2023
Tsui Hark’s groundbreaking 1983 wuxia epic ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN recently got a fancy new blu-ray release, inspiring me to finally get around to seeing it. In fact I watched it right before I watched IRON MONKEY for the first time, so that was a hell of a night of filling in (some of) my Hong Kong cinema blind spots.
I can’t say I liked ZU as much as IRON MONKEY, because I can’t say I followed it as well. Like much of Tsui’s work it has a haphazard, is-he-making-this-up-as-he-goes-along? feel to the storytelling, which here I think is a combination of his sensibilities and the difficulty of someone from another culture (me) processing a DUNE-like cinematic condensation of a famous 1932 Chinese fantasy novel steeped in mythology I don’t necessarily have a context for. But I can say that it’s an enjoyable fun house ride, an absolute visual delight, and a key missing link in my understanding of Tsui’s filmography. Everything else he’s made makes more sense after seeing this. I guess it’s kinda like if I’d seen all the modern Spielberg movies and then saw E.T. and JAWS for the first time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Cheng, Arnie Wong, Brigitte Lin, Chris Casady, Corey Yuen, Damin Lau, John Scheele, Mang Hoi, Moon Lee, Norman Chu, Peter Kuran, Robert Blalack, Sammo Hung, Tama Takahashi, Tsui Hark, wuxia, Yuen Biao
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 12 Comments »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2023
Watching Ryuhei Kitamura’s latest THE PRICE WE PAY this week reminded me to finally catch up with his previous one, THE DOORMAN (2020). I remember I was excited that he did a Ruby Rose action vehicle, but I heard some negative things and it scared me off. I shouldn’t listen to that stuff, because I like so many movies that normal humans hate, but I’m susceptible to rumors of poor action scenes.
That criticism is fair. Many of the action scenes are pretty choppy, they’re certainly not up to the state of the art in the 87Eleven era. And I do think this is a movie that could go over really well if it had a couple knockout fights. So that’s too bad. But I still enjoyed it on a story and character level like I would, say, a Liam Neeson movie where you’d have way less of the real shit than this. So if you’re okay with that, I recommend it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aksel Hennie, Dan Southworth, David Sakurai, Delianne Forget, Die Hard on a ____, Easter, George Gallo, Hideaki Ito, Jean Reno, Juju Journey Brener, Julian Feder, Kila Lord Cassidy, Louis Mandylor, Morgan Freeman, Nick Vallelonga, Patrick Muldoon, Petre Moraru, Philip Whitchurch, Ruby Rose, Rupert Evans, Ryuhei Kitamura, Simon Rhee
Posted in Reviews, Action | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, February 21st, 2023
SENTINELLE is a pretty good 2021 French revenge movie that’s mostly made out of cliches, but benefits from a dedicated performance by its star Olga Kurylenko (HITMAN, MAX PAYNE, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, OBLIVION, THE NOVEMBER MAN, BLACK WIDOW) and the artful direction of Julien Leclercq (THE ASSAULT, THE BOUNCER). You may also be interested to know that it’s only 80 minutes long. I don’t really subscribe to the “movies are too long these days” conventional wisdom, but I was looking for something to watch kind of late and I have to admit that brevity was one of the selling points for me in this instance. (It’s on Netflix.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Carole Weyers, French action, Jerome Gaspard, Julien Leclercq, Marilyn Lima, Melissa Humler, Michel Nabokoff, Olga Kurylenko, revenge
Posted in Reviews, Action | 9 Comments »
Thursday, February 16th, 2023
You may be surprised to hear that I had never seen IRON MONKEY (1993) until now. I rented it many years ago but it turned out to be some Miramax dubbed and chopped version, so I decided to hold off, and I guess I got sidetracked. Now, upon the occasion of a new blu-ray release, I finally watched it. So I’m happy to be the last to tell you this is a straight up martial arts classic!
It’s directed by Yuen Woo-ping (he followed it with TAI CHI MASTER and WING CHUN – that’s a hell of a trilogy!) and written and produced by the prolific Tsui Hark. I could also say “the visionary Tsui Hark” or “the lovable weirdo Tsui Hark,” but I said “prolific” this time because THE EAST IS RED and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA IV (which he wrote) and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA III and GREEN SNAKE (which he wrote and directed) all came out that same year.
The titular Iron Monkey (Yu Rongguang, TSUI HARK’S VAMPIRE HUNTERS) is a Zorro-meets-Robin-Hood-meets-kung-fu folk hero known for leaping around on rooftops at night, stealing the ill-gotten gains of corrupt government officials, and leaving his loot as gifts for refugees and the poor. Our story begins with the authorities battening down the hatches to catch Iron Monkey if he comes for the new governor (James Wong, TIGER ON BEAT), who is cowering in a bed with his mistress (Cheung Fung-lei) and a net set up for protection. But Iron Monkey flips in in his black costume and gaiter and defeats the guards and Shaolin monks guarding the governor. (He either implies the monks are imposters or sell outs, I’m not sure which.) He gets the gold and escapes through the ceiling. Don’t fuck with Iron Monkey. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Donnie Yen, James Wong, Jean Wang, Tsui Hark, Wong Fei-hung, Yen Shi-Kwan, Yu Rongguang, Yuen Shun-Yi, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
THE RED-WOLF (just RED WOLF on the DVD cover) is a 1995 movie directed by Yuen Woo-ping that’s kind of like his take on UNDER SIEGE and/or SPEED 2. Thieves infiltrate a cruise ship and kill the captain in a plot to steal uranium from the boat’s safe; a lone security guard (with help from a waitress/pickpocket) must stop them. It’s far from Yuen’s best directorial work, but of course it has some very good action in it, and I can’t help but enjoy seeing him inject his style into a favorite subgenre of American action.
It takes place on New Year’s Eve (the December one, judging by the number of Christmas trees around) on a luxury cruise ship called the White Whale. That’s a literary reference in my opinion, but most of its influences are cinematic. If you know your important filmic art you know that in the film UNDER SIEGE the captain of an aircraft carrier is killed by one of his underlings, who’s working for a guy who gets on board disguised as the singer for a corny blues rock band. This is kind of a variation on that – the ship’s captain (Steve Brettingham, KNOCK OFF) is a sleazeball who expects to hook up with singer Elaine Wong (Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR), so she gets into his private quarters to whoop his ass and steal his security card. She’s working with the ship’s treacherous first officer (Collin Chou, THE MATRIX RELOADED), who kicks in the door and helps. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christy Chung, Collin Chou, Die Hard on a ____, Digital Native Dance, Elaine Lui, Habby Heske, Hong Kong action, Kenny Ho, Mandy Chan, Mary Hon Ma-Lee, Mike Miller, New Year's Eve, Robert Samuels, Roy Filler, Steve Brettingham, Wu Fung, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
