Archive for the ‘Action’ Category
Monday, December 30th, 2019
IP MAN 4: THE FINALE is from the makers of the IP MAN trilogy, according to the giant standee in the multiplex lobby that made me aware of its Christmas day release. I’m grateful to be able to see movies like this on the big screen.
IP MAN is a series released across 11 years with stories spanning from the 1930s to the 1960s, with the great Donnie Yen (HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME) not only showcasing his great fighting skills (in a style he hadn’t previously practiced), but also giving his greatest acting performance as this distinctly gentle and polite asskicker. That’s why I wish it could go on forever. I’m sure we’ll get other great Donnie Yen movies, but I’ll miss him playing this character.
The final Ip Man adventure begins with the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships and takes place primarily in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Back home in Hong Kong, Ip lives in a tiny apartment with his moody teenage son Ip Ching, who has been kicked out of school for fighting (actually defending himself with too much enthusiasm). The principal and others convince Ip he should send his son to study abroad, so he decides to use a plane ticket sent to him by his former student Bruce Lee (Danny Chan, the Bruce-lookalike goalie from SHAOLIN SOCCER who subsequently played Lee in the TV series The Legend of Bruce Lee and then IP MAN 3) to try to get him admitted into a school in San Francisco. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Lee, Chris Collins, Danny Chan, Donnie Yen, Ip Man, Mark Strange, Scott Adkins, Vanness Wu, Wilson Yip, Wu Yue, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Tuesday, December 17th, 2019
CLASH is an earlier (2009) vehicle for Vietnamese action star Veronica Ngo that I rented after loving this year’s FURIE. (Thanks for the recommendation, everybody.) This one also uses Ngo’s considerable dramatic acting chops for some emotional scenes (they took her daughter again), but it’s a little less melodrama, alot more exaggerated, more in the vein of a flashy modern Hong Kong crime movie of slightly above average quality. (In fact, one character accuses the heroine of being “so cheesy like a Hong Kong movie.”)
Ngo’s character is known as Phoenix, and she’s the hard-ass leader of a crew doing an arms deal as a ploy to steal a certain laptop with access to— well, doesn’t really matter. Whatever. The international conflict is of no interest to her, she just needs it because her boss (Hoang Phuc Nguyen, CYCLO) needs it, and he’s a scary guy who wears white suits and shades and thinks he’s really cool and deep for repeatedly comparing human beings to the pieces on the go/chess type game he plays in his limo. Fuck this guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hieu Hien, Hoang Phuc Nguyen, Johnny Nguyen, Veronica Ngo, Vietnamese film
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019
If you enjoy the HAS FALLEN saga, now in its third chapter, you don’t need to read me disrespecting it in this review. I have no quarrel with you. But as much as I appreciate the existence of any ongoing theatrically released rated-R action series in this day and age, I have never achieved a worthwhile level of enjoyment from these fucking things.
What I remember from the first one, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, is that the action was messy enough to inspire me to invent the action comprehensibility rating (ACR) system, but there was one part where Melissa Leo defiantly recited the Pledge of Allegiance to terrorists about to execute her, and I liked that. What I remember about the second one, LONDON HAS FALLEN, is that the action scene that people claim was good made no impression on me and I was disgusted by its moronic jingoism and casual murder of civilians (which some tried to convince me was supposed to be sarcastic, but I couldn’t see it).
The first two were location-based premises (the White House is attacked, London is attacked), this one makes the fair assumption that if we’re still watching these we’re okay just following legendarily amazing Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler, DRACULA 2000) whether he goes to a new city that gets attacked or not. “ANGEL” refers to him, a “guardian angel” who has “fallen” by being blamed for an attempted assassination of the president and having to go on one of those old fashioned fugitive runs to prove his innocence. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gerard Butler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lance Reddick, Morgan Freeman, Nick Nolte, Piper Perabo, Ric Roman Waugh, Robert Mark Kamen, Tim Blake Nelson
Posted in Action, Reviews | 49 Comments »
Monday, November 25th, 2019
I sorta knew of Veronica Ngô Thanh Vân, a.k.a. Veronica Ngo, from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON: SWORD OF DESTINY (she played Mantis) and STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (she played Paige Tico, Rose’s sister who dies heroically at the beginning). But now that I’ve seen her star in FURIE… holy shit. I’ll have to see more.
This is a really good action vehicle because it introduces her as a cool, morally ambiguous anti-hero, then reveals her vulnerability, then throws her into a classical action scenario (kidnapped daughter, like COMMANDO or TAKEN) that leads to a whole lot of asskicking and stunt work but also inspires a layered, emotional acting performance. I’m completely ignorant of Vietnamese cinema and have no idea if this is representative at all, but it’s like some of the action and some of the melodrama of a Thai martial arts movie, but much more organically fused into one thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kefi Abrikh, kidnapped daughter, Le Van Kiet, organ trafficking, Veronic Ngo, Vietnamese film, Vovinam
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, November 13th, 2019
GEMINI MAN is your traditional “the greatest assassin anybody ever saw decides to retire and then god damn it I thought they loved me but they’re sending a guy to kill me what the fuck” type scenario. The gimmick is that the guy they send after him is a younger version of himself created through the miracle of cloning. He figures this out a good third or more into the movie, but we know from frame one because of the studio’s decision to advertise the film.
Will Smith (“Nightmare On My Street”) plays both extreme retiree Henry Brogan and the facial expressions of the very advanced digital animation character playing his clone. Junior, as he’s called, gets dispatched after Henry’s Old Buddy From the Marines Jack (Douglas Hodge, THE DESCENT PART 2) and Russian operative Yuri (Ilia Volok, AIR FORCE ONE) tell him that that last guy they had him kill, the terrorist, was actually an innocent scientist being eliminated as part of a cover-up. When Henry hears this information he looks up to the clouds just as the lite on a satellite blinks, but it’s only to tell us someone heard this. He doesn’t seem to figure it out himself.
He does catch on that the new manager at the docks where he keeps his boat is really a D.I.A. agent sent to keep tabs on him. He asks Dani (Mary Elizabeth Lucy McClane Winstead, BOBBY) on a date, maybe just to get her to admit she’s spying on him and convince her he’s not a threat. But when some dudes try to kill both of them they end up on the run together. They head to Colombia to meet up with his Old Agency Friend turned small plane pilot Baron (Benedict Wong, LARGO WINCH). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrew Niccol, Ang Lee, Benedict Wong, Billy Ray, Brian Helgeland, Christopher Wilkinson, Clive Owen, Darren Lemke, David Benioff, Douglas Hodge, high frame rate, Ilia Volok, Jeremy Marinas, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jonathan Hensleigh, Marko Zaror, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Stephen J. Rivele, Will Smith
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 58 Comments »
Thursday, November 7th, 2019
BROKEN PATH (2008) is a humble but impressive low budget production, simple in story and filmmaking, but with a high volume of work put into its virtually non-stop action scenes. A little like last year’s NIGHTSHOOTERS, it has the feel of an indie horror movie, but its attraction is high quality fight choreography. It’s what happens when some passionate people get together a little money to make a violent home invasion movie, but those passionate people happen to be a star, director/choreographer and stunt team (Alpha Stunts) from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
I had a hard time getting a hold of this obscure footnote in the history of western martial arts movies of the oughts. I’m not sure I can call it under the radar, because I’ve had it recommended to me a few times over the years and seen it on an underrated action movies list. It never got American distribution though, so when I looked for it years ago I couldn’t find it. But it’s directed by GUYVER 2 and DRIVE choreographer Koichi Sakamoto, so Jack Thursby (and possibly another person on Facebook – sorry that I can’t find your comment) reminded me of it when I did Steve Wang Week earlier this year. This time I was able to order it on a German DVD under the title ATTACK OF THE YAKUZA. I think there’s also a UK release as BROKEN FIST. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alpha Stunts, Dan Southworth, home invasion, Johnny Yong Bosch, Koichi Sakamoto, Lanie Taylor, Michael G. Cooney, Pamela Walworth, Power Rangers, Sonny Sison
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, November 5th, 2019
LEON (THE PROFESSIONAL) sums up Luc Besson pretty good, doesn’t it? He’s creepy about young women. Also, he’s really good at putting them in cool, stylish action roles. His latest in that vein, ANNA, came out this summer with little fanfare (or box office), at least partly because Besson had recently been accused of rape. Maybe it deserved to fail. But for whatever it’s worth it’s a solid movie full of what he does well.
It actually has alot in common with ATOMIC BLONDE. A beautiful bisexual spy (well, assassin in this case) double and triple crosses her way through end-of-the-Cold-War European intrigue with a twisty plot and a couple of long, impressive fight sequences. Charlize and her action and David Leitch’s intoxicating colors and music are more my speed, but ANNA has the advantage of being real complicated without being hard to follow. It’s a satisfying tale. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: assassins, Cillian Murphy, Helen Mirren, KGB, Luc Besson, Luke Evans, models, Olivier Megaton, Sasha Luss
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Monday, November 4th, 2019
I love THE TERMINATOR, but I love TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. To me it’s one of the all time greats of sequels, summer event movies, action movies, movies in general. It came into the world at the right time to knock me on my ass, and has only grown with me. We’d never seen a movie like it; the technology had not existed for a character to do the things that the liquid metal T-1000 did, and no woman, not even Ripley in James Cameron’s own ALIENS, had returned to the screen as thoroughly transformed into an indelible badass as Sarah Connor.
At the time it seemed like the biggest, loudest, most over-the-top and technologically advanced action spectacle we’d ever seen. Now there’s a certain quaintness and groundedness to it. The then-show-stopping computer effects are only for a little bit of morphing – now we notice the huge amount of real stunts involving a semi-truck, motorcycles, a helicopter and various pyrotechnics that would never be so real in a modern movie. And the story is built on characters and emotions in a way that’s much more resonant to me than most subsequent movies of this type. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billy Ray, David S. Goyer, Gabriel Luna, James Cameron, Josh Friedman, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Tim Miller
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 118 Comments »
Monday, October 21st, 2019
Let me try to explain this in pizza terms. You know how every once in a while you might get a pizza, and it’s not of the highest possible quality? They got all the ingredients there, but maybe the proportions are a little off, or it was cooked too much or too little or something, so it’s not the greatest, but at the same time it has crust and sauce and cheese and toppings and those ingredients together are always gonna taste pretty good? THE SEVENTH CURSE is like that. It’s kind of too gooey and falling apart but it has pineapple, fake ham and jalapenos, and that’s pretty much my favorite toppings. (I’ve come to prefer Mama Lil’s Peppers*, but this one needed more spice.)
It’s a supernatural action adventure with Chow Yun Fat playing the pipe-smoking occult expert Wisely (called Wesley on the subtitles of the DVD I rented), a character from a series of 156(!) novels. In this one he’s kind of a supporting character because it’s based on another book series centered on his colleague Dr. Yuen, here played by Chin Siu-ho (TAI CHI MASTER, FIST OF LEGEND). The books are by Ni Kuang, who in between writing enough novels to make Stephen King look like a lazy no good piece of shit also found the time to bang out screenplays for DIRTY HO, THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, HEROES OF THE EAST, THE 8 DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER, and literally hundreds of other movies.
He didn’t write this one (that was Wong Jing [MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG] and Yuen Gai-chi [DRUNKEN MASTER II]), but would you believe he hosts it? It opens with him, playing himself, surrounded by women and talking to the camera.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chin Siu Ho, Chow Yun Fat, Dick Wei, Elvis Tsui, Lam Nai-Choi, Ni Kuang, Wisely, Wong Jing, Yuen Bun, Yuen Gai-chi
Posted in Action, Horror, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Thursday, September 26th, 2019
“I make the impossible possible. Takami Tsurugi. Remember that if you want to live long.”
The thrilling conclusion to Sonny Chiba’s STREET FIGHTER trilogy is called THE STREET FIGHTER’S LAST REVENGE, but it doesn’t really feel like a finale. It feels more like another in what should be an endless series of adventures. Though released in 1974, the same year as the other two, Chiba’s black-clad anti-hero-for-hire Tsurugi seems to have evolved his operation. After taking a recruitment call he rotates the phone attached to his wall, opening a secret door to a room full of uniforms, wigs and latex masks. He’s a fuckin master of disguise now!
His mission is to retrieve Go Owada (Akira Shioji, who played a different character in the first movie) from the midst of a violent worker strike at a chemical plant. Tsurugi impersonates a member of the riot squad and breaks ranks to bust through the window, go in and beat the shit out of everybody, steal a specified black mah jong case, arrest Owada, steal a police car and bring him to the mobsters who hired him.
But they pay him with a briefcase full of shredded newspaper, which was not the deal in my opinion, so he fights them and they’re enemies now. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akira Shioji, Fuyuki Murakami, Reiko Ike, Sonny Chiba, Sue Shiomi
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 9 Comments »
