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Posts Tagged ‘Colin Salmon’

Nobody 2

Wednesday, August 20th, 2025

I think NOBODY (2021) is a minor action classic of the 2020s, and honestly kind of a miracle in how well it accomplished its task of turning the most unlikely actor – Bob Odenkirk, “Concert Nerd,” WAYNE’S WORLD 2 – into a credible action star. It’s a good enough story and gimmick that he might’ve gotten away with okay action scenes, but he trained like a motherfucker to do actual great ones. The only former SNL writer or DR. DOLITTLE 2 voice actor to do so to date. There’s nothing quite like it.

NOBODY 2 is merely a fun sequel to that. But that’s okay.

It’s notable as the Hollywood debut of one of my favorite working directors, Timo THE NIGHT COMES FOR US Tjahjanto, and though it’s a for-hire work that can’t compete with the impact of his bloody Indonesian epics, it shows his sensibilities for hectic combat and imaginative gore fused with a genuine care for his characters. Crafted to zip by in 89 minutes means it lacks his usual scope, and there’s also none of his John Woo-esque melodrama. In fact it leans even a little more comedy than the first NOBODY, and maybe that tonal difference is why none of the action scenes thrilled me as much as the bus scene in the first one. But they’re good scenes, and grounded in simple story and character ideas that really work for me. (read the rest of this shit…)

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023

While Ronny Yu was promoting FEARLESS, he talked up his next movie: a live action adaptation of the 2000 anime BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. So, a Hong Kong director in Hollywood remaking a Japanese movie originally made mostly in English because many of the characters were American. When Yu mentioned it while talking to Martial Arts Entertainment the interviewer asked if it was “sort of a wuxia movie.”

“Maybe. Sort of. You’re right!” Yu said. “It’s sort of cross-cultural, because the whole thing takes place in a U.S. Army base in Japan. Yeah. It’s like a cross-cultural wuxia.”

Alas, it was not to be… exactly. Instead of Yu it was made by French director Chris Nahon, known for helming one of Jet Li’s English language films, KISS OF THE DRAGON (2001). Yu was credited as a producer, but I’ve found no evidence of him staying on during filming in, say, a George Lucas or Steven Spielberg capacity. I suspect he left but got the credit because he’d done so much of the pre-production that Nahon built off of. Yu is not mentioned or shown in a 20 minute making-of featurette on the DVD and blu-ray, but I think it’s reasonable to assume Nahon kept a decent amount of what he put into place, since the sole credited writer Chris Chow and the cinematographer Hang-Sang Poon are both holdovers from FEARLESS. Yu was also still reported as director when Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, credited as Gianna, was cast as the main character, Saya. (read the rest of this shit…)