"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Kefi Abrikh’

Furies

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…)

The Princess

Wednesday, July 6th, 2022

THE PRINCESS is a new straight-to-Hulu movie with a simple concept. At its center is a Disney-type story of a medieval princess who wants to find her own destiny and not be forced to marry somebody for political reasons, but it’s done as a violent martial arts movie with a DIE HARD type premise. The Princess (Joey King, WHITE HOUSE DOWN) wakes up, having been drugged, in a Rapunzel type tower. She doesn’t have long hair, but she does know how to fight, so she battles to the death with the guys guarding her and sneaks around the castle picking off enemies McClane/Ryback style while plotting how to save her family, who she sees threatened at swordpoint in the plaza below.

In flashbacks we learn that due to a lack of male heirs The King (Ed Stoppard, JUDY) was gonna let this motherfucker Julius (Dominic Cooper, WARCRAFT) marry the young princess. She almost went through with it “for the good of the kingdom” or whatever, but backed out at the last minute, and now this hostage situation is how Julius plans to change her mind. Great guy. (read the rest of this shit…)

Furie

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…)