Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Monday, April 11th, 2022
I’m an idiot so it took me more than a decade to get around to watching REIGN OF ASSASSINS (2010), even though it’s directed by John Woo. Well, sort of – it’s actually directed by Su Chao-pin (SILK [2006]), but Woo was with him the whole time to mentor him, so he got a co-director credit. He says he gave advice, but never imposed his style. And I definitely wouldn’t confuse it for his movies.
It is a pretty enjoyable wuxia movie though, and it stars Michelle Yeoh, so I’m glad I finally got my shit together.
The story concerns various killers fighting over the mummified corpse of “the powerful monk Bodhi” because, according to the narrator of the prologue, “They say that whoever possesses the Bodhi remains will rule the martial arts world.” Through some not-great illustrations and freeze frame/bullet time character introductions we learn that members of “The Dark Stone, a secret guild of the world’s deadliest assassins” killed Minister Zhang Haiduan and stole the remains, but “amidst the chaos an assassin, Shi Yu (apparently called “Drizzle” in some translations), discovers Grandmaster Bodhi’s remains and disappears into the night…” All the other assassins try to kill her to get a reward. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbie Hsu, Chin Shih-chieh, John Woo, Jung Woo-sung, Kelly Lin, Leon Dai, Li Zonghan, Michelle Yeoh, Stephen Tung Wai, Su Chao-pin, tofu, Wang Xueqi, wuxia
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 6th, 2022
It’s hard not to think of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE as some kind of miracle movie. I had no idea it was something I needed, or something that anyone would think to make, until a couple months ago when the trailer came out. It stars Michelle Yeoh in her best ever English language role, a very layered character who gets to be funny and goofy and troubled and kind of an asshole but totally lovable and yes, she also does some kung fu. It co-stars Ke Huy Quan, who we knew as a child star in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and THE GOONIES, but who hasn’t been in a movie in almost 20 years, making a triumphant return in surely his best part ever (and he also gets to fight).
It would be worth celebrating just for putting those two actors together, even if it didn’t entirely work. But this thing is much more advanced than that. Written and directed by “Daniels” (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, of SWISS ARMY MAN and various music videos), it’s a very original movie, but if I had to give it a short hand description based on other people’s work I’d go with “if Michel Gondry made THE MATRIX.” Or if that scares you, substitute Stephen Chow. It uses a convoluted sci-fi gimmick as a vehicle for some absurd humor, artfully hand-crafted imagery and outlandish action, which all weaves together to explore ideas about life and relationships and family and happiness. That title is no lie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Le, Brian Le, Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan, Martial Club, Michelle Yeoh, multiverse, Stephanie Hsu, Tallie Medel
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 84 Comments »
Tuesday, April 5th, 2022
I only paid attention to THE SOLDIER (1982) because I noticed it had a score by Tangerine Dream. (Turns out to be a good one, too, though hard to find as an album.) I should’ve checked it out anyway just because it’s written and directed by James Glickenhaus between THE EXTERMINATOR and THE PROTECTOR. It’s a little more normal and less sleazy than those – it’s a covert ops movie in the mold of THE KILLER ELITE or SWORD OF GIDEON or one of those – but I think I liked it even better.
Ken Wahl (THE DIRTY DOZEN: THE NEXT MISSION, THE GLADIATOR) plays the titular The Soldier. That’s his code name! Seems like there could be some misunderstandings there. He leads an elite counterterrorism unit that operates completely off the books and answers only to the head of the CIA (Ron Harper, BODY COUNT, PEARL HARBOR). And they’re introduced in a pretty funny way. In the first shot, a limo carrying an ambassador is driving through Philadelphia and an old lady – well, a woman wearing an old lady costume – crosses in front of her with a babycart. The driver doesn’t even slow down, just nails the woman and keeps going. A woman with a shopping bag, a construction worker and a businessman all see it happen and come running over, to find the lady dead. Inside the babycart is a doll and an uzi. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alberta Watson, James Glickenhaus, Jeremiah Sullivan, Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Wahl, Klaus Kinski, Peter Hooten, Ron Harper, Steve James, Tangerine Dream, William Prince
Posted in Action, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Friday, April 1st, 2022
“Listen, Annie’s parents were killed for a piece of plastic pizza. I want you guys to just stay home and not get hurt.”
If you’re like me, you’re very excited for Michelle Yeoh’s new movie EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, which is in a platform release right now in the U.S. (I’m gonna see it tomorrow, some cities are getting it next Friday). And if you know about that movie you may also know it co-stars Ke Huy Quan, formerly known as Jonathan Ke Quan. He’s a superstar to anyone who was a kid in the ’80s, because he played Short Round in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and Data in THE GOONIES. But after that he worked more sporadically than he wanted. He’s American, born in Vietnam, but he did a few movies in Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, while his most prominent Hollywood roles were a season of Head of the Class and a small part in ENCINO MAN.
He left the business in the early 2000s, but the success of CRAZY RICH ASIANS inspired him to try again, and right away he got to play Michelle Yeoh’s husband! Good for him. His return inspired me to finally check out a movie I’d been curious about for years, BREATHING FIRE (1991), because it’s his only previous English language martial arts movie, and very much the kind of chintzy low budget b-movie I enjoy. Atrocious dialogue and acting, convoluted-to-nonsensical story, but lots of laughs, training montages and pretty cool Hong Kong style fights. A fun time. To give you an idea, the DVD I rented was a double feature with a dubbed Bruce Li vehicle called EDGE OF FURY, and the cover pretends like Bolo Yeung (who plays one of the bad guys and is credited as “Bolo Young”) is the star. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bolo Yeung, Ed Neil, Jerry Trimble, Jonathan Ke Quan, Laura Hamilton, Paul Hertzog, T.J. Storm, Tan Tao-Liang
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, March 16th, 2022
I was excited to watch INVINCIBLE as soon as it came out, because it’s the first major Marko Zaror role I’ve been able to see since SAVAGE DOG in 2017. Since then he’s been in something called THE GREEN GHOST that I don’t think has come out, he had a tiny appearance in ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, he doubled young Will Smith in GEMINI MAN, and it looks like he was in one episode of a Marvel TV show that I haven’t watched because it’s a crossover of several other Marvel shows I haven’t watched. I’ve missed him, so it was exciting to finally have another movie with his name on the cover.
Unfortunately, this is not what I consider to be a good movie, and not bad in an interesting enough way to recommend it to most people. It does however once again demonstrate Zaror’s extreme talent and professionalism – not just anyone could be in a production this shoddy and still be good in it, so for that reason I don’t regret watching it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Daniel Zirilli, Jason Archilla, Johnny Strong, Marko Zaror, May Myat Noe, Michael Pare, Sally Kirkland, Vladimir Kulich, Wych Kaosayananda
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »
Friday, March 11th, 2022
(there will be spoils)
Yes it’s true, comic book super heroes hold too much of a monopoly on movies and television right now. I agree, we get it, but also I enjoy the genre. And of all the ongoing super hero franchises the one I get most excited about is Batman.
Tim Burton’s 1989 BATMAN was a foundational movie for me, and I believe it kicked off the first real era of comic book movies, since SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE didn’t have many riding its coattails. I don’t think it could’ve happened with another character. There was something about the zeitgeist at that time, that the world was ready to see Batman on screen, and the marketing ingeniously took advantage of that. More importantly, the specific psychological and visual qualities of the “dark” Super Friend and his evil clown nemesis attracted Burton and gave him a weirdly perfect canvas on which to fuse his particular talents with blockbuster filmmaking, and create something that felt simultaneously of our past and completely new.
Because that was the first one, a distinct, stylized look was an expected element of comic book movies throughout the ‘90s, paving the way for the likes of DICK TRACY, THE CROW, TANK GIRL… I’d even throw in gaudier digital age ones like SPAWN and THE MASK for at least having their own looks. And Burton’s followup, BATMAN RETURNS, is still one of the most beautiful looking comic book movies to date. It only makes sense, being adaptations of an illustrated medium, but it’s a tradition somewhat neglected in the era of shared universes and realistic CG. I think THE BATMAN is one of the ones that brings it back. It looks stunning, and completely unlike other movies of the same genre, or even about the same character. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Serkis, Barry Keoghan, Colin Farrell, DC Comics, Greig Fraser, James Chinlund, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Matt Reeves, Michael Giacchino, Paul Dano, Peter Craig, Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews | 137 Comments »
Monday, March 7th, 2022
This is not a review of the 1992 Hong Kong FULL CONTACT starring Chow Yun Fat and directed by Ringo Lam. It’s a review of the 1993 American FULL CONTACT starring Jerry Trimble (THE MASTER, TERMINATOR WOMAN) and directed by Rick Jacobson (BLACKBELT, BLACK THUNDER, DRAGON FIRE, Ash vs Evil Dead). There’s no specific reason why FULL CONTACT has to be the title for this one, so they should’ve gone with something else, but they did not. And we need not stress about that which we cannot control.
It’s a movie I bought on VHS years ago – I think it must’ve been when I was doing “The Super-Kumite,” my tournament of tournament fighting movies. But the team I assigned it to must’ve been out of contention, so I never watched it.
But it happens to be one of the early movies of Michael Jai White, back when he was still Michael White. After THE TOXIC AVENGER PARTs II and III he had tiny parts in TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE (uncredited), TRUE IDENTITY, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, and then this. So I chose this to be another tangent in my TOXIC AVENGER review series. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Beverly Gray, Denise Buick, Gerry Blanck, Hiro Koda, Jerry Trimble, Joe Charles, Marcus Aurelius, Matthew Willig, Michael Jai White, Michele "Mouse" Krasnoo, Raymond Storti, Rick Jacobson, Robert King, Sun Tzu
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022
FISTFUL OF VENGEANCE is a new Netflix movie that’s a sequel to the show Wu Assassins. I think I watched two episodes of the show. It stars and is produced and choreographed by the great Iko Uwais, so it had good fights, and it was cool seeing him have a good lead role even speaking English. I also liked the idea of this kind of fantasy in a modern urban world of Triads and stuff. But I spend so much time reviewing movies I have a hard time watching whole shows, and the complicated mythology kinda lost me. Still, I decided to give the movie a shot, and thankfully the references to events from the show are not confusing. It works as a stand alone.
Uwais plays Kai, who on the show was a chef who found out he was a supernatural chosen one called a Wu Assassin who has to kill some magic warlords or whatever. I remember that he would turn into Mark Dacascos sometimes at the beginning of the show, but that doesn’t happen here. He works with a non-supernatural badass named Lu Xin (Lewis Tan, TRUE VENGEANCE, DEADPOOL 2, Into the Badlands, MORTAL KOMBAT) and a smartass former Triad guy named Tommy (Lawrence Kao, MAX STEEL, HONEY: RISE UP AND DANCE) to, I guess fight supernatural threats or something. In the opening scene Kai and Lu Xin are strutting into a cool dance club while Tommy is on a rooftop having champagne with a woman and boasting about himself and his friends, providing us the exposition that they’re trying to find out who killed his sister Jenny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Francesca Corney, Iko Uwais, Jason Tobin, Juju Chan, Lawrence Kao, Lewis Tan, Netflix, Pearl Thusi, Roel Reine, Yayaying Rhatha Phongam
Posted in Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Wednesday, February 16th, 2022
THE SWORD IDENTITY is a 2011 period martial arts movie that’s the debut of writer/director Xu Haofeng, based on his own book. He’s directed a few more movies since then and notably wrote THE GRANDMASTER for Wong Kar Wai. I adore that movie and all its poetic musings about kung fu styles and secret moves, so I tried this one out and, though it’s in many ways THE GRANDMASTER’s stylistic opposite, I was not disappointed.
From the title I guessed it would be kind of a sword forensics thing. Maybe someone recognizes a famous sword in someone’s hand and has to learn of its history to identify the person or solve some mystery about them. It could also just be Jason Bourne with swords, which I would also be down for. It’s closer to the first option. It’s sort of about a sword causing a mistaken identity. When two men come into the town of Guancheng carrying swords of an unusual design they are mistaken for Japanese pirates, causing a citywide ruckus. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ma Jun, Song Yang, swords, Xu Fujing, Xu Haofeng, Yao Wei-Ping, Yu Chenghui
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Thursday, January 13th, 2022
After his horror breakthrough, his failed comedy, and his knockout horror sequel, Sam Raimi finally made it to the semi-big-time. He’d really wanted to do a movie of Batman or The Shadow, but could never get the rights. Then he came up with the idea for his own dark avenger, one with the ability to change his face. His 40-page treatment The Darkman was greenlit by Universal Studios in 1987.
Raimi brought in NAVY SEALS writer Chuck Pfarrer to flesh out the treatment as a screenplay, which was then rewritten by Raimi and his brother Ivan (under the theory that Ivan, a doctor, could help make the medical sci-fi aspects plausible). The studio brought in the team of Daniel and Joshua Goldin (up-and-comers they also had working on PROBLEM CHILD) to bring the various drafts together before the Raimis went at it again. By the time the movie was made and released at the end of August, 1990, Tim Burton had made his BATMAN movie and all the studios were trying to mimic that success. Surely that was an influence on Raimi’s choice of composer Danny Elfman, and on the minimalist marketing campaign based around a silhouette and the question “Who is Darkman?”
I’m sure at the time I would’ve been interested in this movie anyway, but I was specifically excited when I read that it was the genius behind beloved video favorite EVIL DEAD II taking his first shot at a large scale mainstream movie. Seeing the posters, reading about it in magazines, seeing it on the big screen, I accepted it as a big time summer blockbuster alongside DICK TRACY, BACK TO THE FUTURE III and DIE HARD 2. But Raimi having four times his budget on EVIL DEAD II still meant about a third or a fourth of the budgets of those films. Even Cannon’s DELTA FORCE 2, released the same day as DARKMAN, had a slightly higher budget. I think it’s a testament to Raimi’s exciting directorial style that his many green screen and miniature techniques, which have dated technically more than any of those other movies, still seemed flashy enough to stand toe-to-toe with them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arsenio "Sonny" Trinidad, Bill Pope, Chiodo Brothers, Chuck Pfarrer, Colin Friels, Danny Elfman, Frances McDormand, Jenny Agutter, John Landis, Julius Harris, Larry Drake, Liam Neeson, Nelson Mashita, Nicholas Worth, Rafael H. Robledo, Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi, Tony Gardner, William Lustig
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 23 Comments »
