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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

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Tag Archives: Jackie Chan

Monthly Roundup – March 2018

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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5 Headed Shark Attack, Action, Adventure, Airport, Al Capone, Alex Hannant, All the Money in the World, And Then Came Lola, Animation, Anthony Bushell, Archery, Ashleigh Sumner, Barack Obama, Biography, Bob Logan, Braven, Brian Keith, Cenobites, Charlie Bean, Chokeslam, Chris Bruno, Chris Marquette, Christopher Plummer, Comedy, Crime, Damon Carney, Dave Franco, David Bruckner, Deepika Kumari, Documentary, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, Ellen Seidler, Elsa Lanchester, Fantasy, Father/son relationships, Film noir, Foreign policy, Gangster Land, Garret Dillahunt, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Ghosts, Greg Barker, Hellraiser: Judgment, Heritage Falls, High school reunion, Hiking trip, Horror, Hugh Grant, India, Jackie Chan, Jake Kasdan, Japan, Jason Momoa, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Kevin Hart, Kidnapping, Ladies First, LGBTQ+, Lilli Palmer, Lin Oeding, Logan Huffman, Luke Rivett, Matt Jones, Megan Siler, Michael Barrett, Michelle Williams, Monster, Murder, Nico De Leon, Oasis, Paddington 2, Passport to Destiny, Paul Fisher, Paul King, Puerto Rico, Rafe Spall, Ray McCarey, Ready Player One, Reginald Beck, Relationships, Reviews, Rex Harrison, Ridley Scott, Robert Cuffley, Sci-fi, Sean Faris, Sequel, Shea Sizemore, Something Real and Good, Steven Spielberg, Sweden, SyFy, The Forest, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, The Long Dark Hall, The Ritual, Thriller, Timothy Woodward Jr, Tye Sheridan, Uraaz Bahi, Video game, Virtual reality, World War II, Wrestling

The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017) / D: Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan / 101m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Olivia Munn

Rating: 6/10 – when you’re the despised son (Franco) of an evil warlord (Theroux), there’s only one thing you can do: vow to defeat him with the aid of your ninja friends; after a superhero mash-up and a solo Batman outing, The LEGO Ninjago Movie brings us ninjas, but in the process forgets to provide viewers with much in the way of story, though the visual  innovation is still there, as is (mostly) the humour, making this something that is only just more of a hit than a miss.

Braven (2018) / D: Lin Oeding / 94m

Cast: Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sala Baker, Teach Grant, Sasha Rossof

Rating: 4/10 – a trip for Joe Braven (Momoa) and his father (Lang) to their family cabin located in the Canadian wilderness sees them fighting for their lives when drug runners come to claim a shipment that has been hidden in the cabin; an unsophisticated action thriller, Braven has an earnestness to it that sees it through some of its more absurdist moments, but its Nineties vibe works against it too often for comfort, and despite the occasional effort, Dillahunt remains an unconvincing villain.

Passport to Destiny (1944) / D: Ray McCarey / 61m

Cast: Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lenore Aubert, Lionel Royce, Fritz Feld, Joseph Vitale, Gavin Muir, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 6/10 – in World War II, a cleaning woman, Ella Muggins (Lanchester), who believes herself to be protected from harm thanks to a magical glass eye, determines to travel to Berlin and kill Hitler; a whimsical comic fantasy that somehow manages to have its heroine save a German officer (Oliver) and his girlfriend, Passport to Destiny is an uneven yet enjoyable product of its time, with a terrific central performance by Lanchester, and a winning sense of its own absurdity.

Hellraiser: Judgment (2018) / D: Gary J. Tunnicliffe / 81m

Cast: Damon Carney, Randy Wayne, Alexandra Harris, Paul T. Taylor, Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Helena Grace Donald, Heather Langenkamp

Rating: 3/10 – the hunt for a serial killer finds its lead detective (Carney) coming face to face with the Cenobites – still led by Pinhead (Taylor) – but the solution to the case isn’t as obvious as it seems; the tenth movie in the series, Hellraiser: Judgment at least tries to offer something new in terms of the Cenobites’ involvement, but in the end it can’t escape the fact that Pinhead et al are no longer frightening, the franchise’s penchant for sado-masochistic violence has lost any impact it may once have had, and as with every entry since Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), it fails to introduce one single character for the viewer to care about.

The Final Year (2017) / D: Greg Barker / 89m

With: Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power, John Kerry, Barack Obama

Rating: 7/10 – a look at the final year of Barack Obama’s second term as President of the United States focuses on his foreign policy team and their diplomatic efforts on the global stage; featuring contributions from some of the key players, The Final Year is an interesting if not fully realised documentary that never asks (or finds an answer for) the fundamental question of why Obama’s administration chose to concentrate so much on foreign policy in its last days, something that keeps all the good work that was achieved somewhat in isolation from the viewer.

And Then Came Lola (2009) / D: Ellen Seidler, Megan Siler / 71m

Cast: Ashleigh Sumner, Jill Bennett, Cathy DeBuono, Jessica Graham, Angelyna Martinez, Candy Tolentino, Linda Ignazi

Rating: 4/10 – in a series of Groundhog Day-style episodes, the undisciplined Lola (Sumner) is required to rush a set of photographs to her interior designer girlfriend, Casey (Bennett), so she can seal the deal at a job interview – but she has varying degrees of success; an LGBTQ+ comedy that stops the action every so often to allow its female cast to make out with each other, And Then Came Lola doesn’t put enough spins on its central conceit, and doesn’t make you care enough if Lola comes through or not.

The Ritual (2017) / D: David Bruckner / 94m

Cast: Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, Robert James-Collier, Sam Troughton, Paul Reid, Maria Erwolter

Rating: 7/10 – following the tragic death of one of their friends, four men embark on a memorial hiking trip in Sweden, but when one of them is injured, taking a short cut through a forest puts all their lives in jeopardy; a creature feature with a nasty edge to it and above average performances for a horror movie, The Ritual employs mystery as well as terror as it creates a growing sense of dread before it runs out of narrative steam and tries to give its monster a back story that brings the tension up short and leads to a not entirely credible denouement.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) / D: Jake Kasdan / 119m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner

Rating: 7/10 – four teenagers find themselves transported into a video game called Jumanji, where, transformed into avatars, they are charged with thwarting the dastardly plans of the game’s chief villain (Cannavale); a reboot more than a sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has the benefit of well-drawn, likeable characters, winning performances from Johnson, Hart, Black and Gillan, and confident direction from Kasdan, all things that serve to distract from the uninspired game levels and the predictable nature of its main storyline.

Paddington 2 (2017) / D: Paul King / 103m

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ben Miller, Jessica Hynes, Noah Taylor, Joanna Lumley

Rating: 9/10 – the theft of a unique pop-up book sees Paddington (Whishaw) end up in jail while the Brown family do their best to track down the real thief, Phoenix Buchanan (Grant); an absolute joy, Paddington 2 is just so unexpectedly good that even just thinking about it is likely to put a smile on your face, something that’s all too rare these days, and which is thanks to an inspired script by director King and Simon Farnaby, terrific performances from all concerned, and buckets of perfectly judged humour.

Gangster Land (2017) / D: Timothy Woodward Jr / 113m

Original title: In the Absence of Good Men

Cast: Sean Faris, Milo Gibson, Jason Patric, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Peter Facinelli, Mark Rolston, Michael Paré

Rating: 4/10 – the rise of boxer Jack McGurn (Faris) from potential champion to right-hand man to Al Capone (Gibson), and his involvement in Capone’s feud with ‘Bugs’ Moran (Facinelli); a biopic that’s hampered by lacklustre performances and a leaden script, Gangster Land wants to be thought of as classy but budgetary constraints mean otherwise, and Woodward Jr’s direction doesn’t inject many scenes with the necessary energy to maintain the viewer’s interest, something that leaves the movie feeling moribund for long stretches.

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) / D: Trish Sie / 93m

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hailee Steinfeld, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, Matt Lanter, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, DJ Khaled

Rating: 4/10 – the Borden Bellas are back for one last reunion before they all go their separate ways, taking part in a European tour and competing for the chance to open for DJ Khaled; a threequel that adds nothing new to the mix (even if you include Lithgow as Wilson’s scoundrel father), and which is as empty-headed as you’d expect, Pitch Perfect 3 isn’t even well thought out enough to justify its existence and trades on old glories in the hope that the audience won’t notice that’s what they are.

Something Real and Good (2013) / D: Luke Rivett / 81m

Cast: Matt Jones, Alex Hannant, Colton Castaneda, Marla Stone

Rating: 4/10 – he (Jones) meets her (Hannant) in an airport lounge, and over the next twenty-four hours, get to know each other, flirt, have fun, and stay in a hotel together due to their flight being cancelled; the slightness of the story – boy meets girl, they talk and talk and talk and talk – is further undermined by the cod-philosophising and trite observations on life and relationships that they come out with, leaving Something Real and Good as a title that’s a little over-optimistic, though if it achieves anything, it’ll be to stop people from striking up random conversations with strangers in airports – and that’s now a good thing.

Ladies First (2017) / D: Uraaz Bahi / 39m

With: Deepika Kumari, Geeta Devi, Shiv Narayan Mahto, Dharmendra Tiwari

Rating: 8/10 – the story of Deepika Kumari, at one time the number one archer in the world, and her efforts to obtain Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016; a sobering documentary that for a while feels like it’s going to be a standard tale of triumph over adversity (here, relating to Indian culture and gender equality), Ladies First offers a much deeper examination of success and failure than might be expected, and shows that in India, as in many other countries, there are precious few opportunities for women to be anything more than wives and mothers.

Heritage Falls (2016) / D: Shea Sizemore / 88m

Cast: David Keith, Coby Ryan McLaughlin, Keean Johnson, Sydney Penny, Nancy Stafford, Devon Ogden

Rating: 4/10 – three generations of males head off for a bonding weekend designed to overcome the divisions that are keeping them distant or apart from each other; a mixed bag of drama and lightweight comedy, Heritage Falls wants to say something sincere and relevant about father-son relationships, but falls way short in its ambitions thanks to a script that can’t provide even one of its protagonists with a convincing argument for their position, a bland visual style, and even blander direction from Sizemore, making this a turgid exercise in emotional dysfunction.

The Long Dark Hall (1951) / D: Anthony Bushell, Reginald Beck / 86m

Cast: Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer, Denis O’Dea, Reginald Huntley, Anthony Dawson, Brenda de Banzie, Eric Pohlmann

Rating: 7/10 – when an actress is murdered in the room she rents, suspicion falls on her lover, married man Arthur Groome (Harrison), but even though he goes on trial at the Old Bailey, his wife, Mary (Palmer), stands by him; an early UK attempt at film noir, The Long Dark Hall has its fair share of tension, particularly in a scene at the Groome home where Mary is alone with the real killer (Dawson), but Harrison doesn’t seem fully committed (it wasn’t one of his favourite projects), and the screenplay lurches too often into uncomfortable melodrama, though overall this has an air of fatalism that keeps it intriguing for viewers who are used to their crime thrillers being a little more straightforward.

Ready Player One (2018) / D: Steven Spielberg / 140m

Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen

Rating: 7/10 – in 2045, people have become obsessed with a virtual reality game called Oasis where anything can happen, but when its creator (Rylance) reveals there’s a hidden prize within the game, one that will give overall control of the game and its licence to the winner, it’s up to a small group of gamers led by Parzifal (Sheridan) to stop a rival corporation from winning; an elaborate sci-fi fantasy that provides a nostalgia overload for fans of Eighties pop culture in particular, Ready Player One has plenty of visual pizzazz, but soon runs out of steam in the story department, and offers way too much exposition in lieu of a proper script, a situation it tries to overcome by being dazzling if empty-headed, but which in the hands of Steven Spielberg still manages to be very entertaining indeed – if you don’t give it too much thought.

The Temple (2017) / D: Michael Barrett / 78m

Cast: Logan Huffman, Natalia Warner, Brandon Sklenar, Naoto Takenaka, Asahi Uchida

Rating: 4/10 – three American tourists – best friends Chris (Huffman) and Kate (Warner), and Kate’s boyfriend, James (Sklenar) – are travelling in Japan when they hear about an abandoned temple and decide to go there, little knowing what will happen to them once they get there; even with its post-visit framing device designed to add further mystery to events, The Temple is a chore to sit through thanks to its being yet another horror movie where people behave stupidly so that a number of uninspired “shocks” can be trotted out, along with dreary dialogue and the (actually) terrible realisation that movie makers still think that by plundering legends and myths from other countries then their movies will be much more original and scary… and that’s simply not true.

Chokeslam (2016) / D: Robert Cuffley / 102m

Cast: Chris Marquette, Amanda Crew, Michael Eklund, Niall Matter, Gwynyth Walsh, Mick Foley

Rating: 5/10 – a 10-year high school reunion gives deli owner Corey (Marquette) the chance to reconnect with the girl he loved, Sheena (Crew), who is now a famous female wrestler; a lightweight romantic comedy that pokes moderate fun at the world of wrestling, Chokeslam is innocuous where it should be daring, and bland when it should be heartwarming, making it a movie that’s populated almost entirely by stock characters dealing with stock situations and problems, and which, unsurprisingly, provides them with entirely stock solutions.

All the Money in the World (2017) / D: Ridley Scott / 132m

Cast: Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton, Charlie Plummer, Marco Leonardi, Giuseppe Bonifati

Rating: 8/10 – a recreation of the kidnapping in 1973 of John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer), and the subsequent attempts by his mother, Gail (Williams), to persuade his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom, something the then world’s richest man refuses to do; Scott’s best movie in years, All the Money in the World is a taut, compelling thriller that tells its story with ruthless expediency and features yet another commanding performance from Williams, something that takes the spotlight away from the presence of Christopher Plummer (who’s good but not great), and which serves as a reminder that money isn’t the central concern here, but a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017) / D: Nico De Leon / 98m

Cast: Chris Bruno, Nikki Howard, Lindsay Sawyer, Jeffrey Holsman, Chris Costanzo, Amaanda Méndez, Ian Daryk, Jorge Navarro, Lorna Hernandez, Michelle Cortès, Nicholas Nene

Rating: 3/10 – a four-headed shark terrorises the waters off Palomino Island in Puerto Rico before mutating into a five-headed shark, and being hunted by both the island’s police force, and a team of marine biologists from a local aquarium; operating at the bargain bucket end of the movie business, 5 Headed Shark Attack, SyFy’s latest cheaply made farrago, references Sharknado (2013) early on (as if it’s being clever), and then does it’s absolute best to make its audience cringe and wince and wish they’d never started watching in the first place, something the awful screenplay, dialogue, acting, special effects and direction all manage without even trying.

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Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (1978)

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Comedy, Drama, Hong Kong, Hwang Jang Lee, Jackie Chan, Martial arts, Review, Se ying diu sau, Thriller, Yuen Siu Tin, Yuen Woo-Ping

Original title: Se ying diu sau

D: Yuen Woo-Ping / 98m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu Tin, Hwang Jang Lee, Dean Shek, Roy Horan, Fung Hark-On, Chen Yao Lin, Chen Tien Lung, Chiu Chi Ling, Gam Yam, Hsu Hsia

The movie that really kickstarted Jackie Chan’s career, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is a compendium of established martial arts stylings with added humour that remains as fresh today as it was forty years ago. Which, on the face of it, seems unlikely, as the story is so conventional that the average viewer could work out what’s going to happen even if they’ve never seen a Hong Kong martial arts movie before. There are two rival clans, one that uses the Eagle Claw style of fighting, and one that uses the Snake style. The leader of the Eagle Claw clan, Lord Sheng Kuan (Hwang), has sworn to kill each and every member of the Snake clan, and is on the trail of one of the last surviving masters of said clan, Pai Cheng-Tien (Yuen). Fleeing Kuan, Pai ends up in a small town where he befriends Chien Fu (Chan), a janitor at a kung fu school who is mistreated by his masters. Pai teaches Chien how to defend himself using the Snake style of fighting, and Chien proves a fast learner… which proves to be a huge benefit when Kuan makes his presence known in the town.

The master and the pupil is a popular storyline in martial arts movies, and here it’s the source of much of the humour, as Pai uses a variety of (often) humiliating techniques to help Chien learn faster. The rival clans, necessarily good and bad, are another staple, and proud fighters squaring off against each other with determined faces is yet another, but though the movie provides enough familiarity to keep audiences reassured that they’ll have a good time, what it does so much more effectively is in depicting each individual fight scene in a way that makes each one seem fresh and unforced. With so many fight scenes crammed in to what is a relatively short running time, there’s the likelihood that they’ll all merge into one by the end, but the choreography is so expertly done, and so focused on showing the technique involved as well as the speed and the precision, that much of what is shown is breathtaking in both its simplicity and its impact (and it’s the only movie where you’ll see Jackie Chan kill someone with a groin strike). The only disappointment comes with the final showdown between Chien and Kuan, a sequence that suffers from some very choppy editing, and which lacks the flow of earlier encounters.

Away from the action there’s mileage to be had from Shek’s turn as the abusive Teacher Li, a character so rotten you wish for a better comeuppance than he receives (though he is part of a marvellous piece of physical slapstick with Chan that is one of the movie’s several highlights), and an equally enjoyable turn by Yuen (the director’s father) as the impish and badly be-wigged Grandmaster Pai. Hwang proves to be a smooth and likeable villain (for a change), even though his obsession with killing the Snake clan is a little genocidal, and the presence of Horan as a sword-wielding Russian masquerading as a priest adds an extra dimension to the fighting styles on show. But this is Chan’s breakthrough role, and the movie trains its focus on him at every turn, capturing every knowing smile and perplexed expression. You can argue that in his early movies Chan wasn’t really required to “act” because his physical presence and abilities were more important, but it’s clear that he’s aware of his limitations. This helps him give an enjoyable, spirited performance, and one that remains as entertaining now as it was then.

Rating: 8/10 – the debut feature of Yuen Woo-Ping, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow is a martial arts movie that overcomes its prosaic storyline and simple plotting to provide a hugely satisfying experience; with intricate, complex fight choreography and very basic (and amusing) sound effects to accompany every blow, this is Cat’s Claws above the majority of Hong Kong martial arts movies made at the time, and a bona fide classic of the genre.

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The Foreigner (2017)

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Authentic IRA, Bombing, Drama, Ireland, Jackie Chan, Literary adaptation, London, Martin Campbell, Pierce Brosnan, Review, Thriller

D: Martin Campbell / 113m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Orla Brady, Dermot Crowley, Rory Fleck Byrne, Charlie Murphy, Niall McNamee, Rufus Jones, Ray Fearon, Lia Williams, Michael McElhatton

At the beginning of The Foreigner we see Jackie Chan playing a role that we’ve not seen him play before: that of a concerned father. Already it’s a refreshing change, and though you might think he’s being a little over-protective of his teenage daughter, even he can’t foresee that when he drops her off a boutique clothes shop that she’s going to be the victim of a terrorist bom blast just moments later. But if Chan’s character, a Chinese Nuang chef called Ngoc Minh Quan, is stone-faced before, then he’s positively chiselled granite afterwards, as the London Metropolitan police investigation stalls quickly in its efforts to discover which dissident faction of the IRA carried out the bombing (they call themselves the “Authentic IRA”, as if the real IRA were somehow a bunch of phoneys). Quan learns enough from the police to enable him to go after Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Liam Hennessy (Brosnan), an ex-member of the original IRA brought into the Establishment but who still has ties to his once and fellow comrades. Is Hennessy the link that Quan needs to find the bombers? Will Quan be able to stay one step ahead of the police as he wages his own one-man war against Hennessy and his associates? And will anyone be able to answer the question, just how does one lone sixty-one year old Asian man that everyone’s on the lookout for, travel backwards and forwards between London and Ireland without racking up some serious air miles (oh yes, and being spotted)?

Adapted from Stephen Leather’s novel of the same name, The Foreigner is an action thriller that requires the usual suspension of disbelief at almost every turn, but which still manages, for the most part, to be entertaining. Chan is excellent value as the grieving yet violently focused Quan, a role he slips into with very little effort. It’s sometimes easy to write off stars such as Chan as not being “real” actors, but as Arnold Schwarzenegger showed in Maggie (2015), there will always be roles they can play that will surprise us. Chan’s melancholy, devastated presence is one that adds a layer of sympathy to the character that isn’t always considered a necessity in this kind of movie, but it’s a more than welcome change, and again, Chan is more than up to the task. So too is Brosnan, clearly relishing the chance to play an Irishman for a change and ramping up the character’s ambiguity; is he a good guy, or a bad guy, or just caught in the middle? Further down the cast list there are fine supporting turns from the likes of Crowley and Murphy (though her role is a little too similar to Polly Walker’s in Patriot Games (1992), and from the ever reliable McElhatton.

But while the performances are above average for a thick-ear thriller such as this, and director Martin Campbell does his best to keep things moving quickly enough so that the viewer won’t notice some of the more patent absurdities on display (again, just who is Quan’s remarkable travel agent?), the script by David Marconi either relies on too much exposition, or jumps from scene to scene disjointedly, making it difficult to keep track of what’s happening exactly, and why. That said, Campbell does know how to put together an effective action sequence, and though Chan isn’t as fast as he used to be, he still doesn’t have to rely on carefully chosen camera angles or rapid-fire editing to make himself look good. All in all, the movie is good in places, long-winded in others, but still well assembled enough to provide a couple of hours of harmless enjoyment – and sometimes that’s all you need.

Rating: 7/10 – Chan and Brosnan make for great adversaries, and Campbell is on solid form in the director’s chair, making The Foreigner an above average thriller with better ambitions than most; a bit of a throwback to thrillers from the Seventies (but with extra added millennial-style violence), this gives Chan his best role in years, and is an entertaining if occasionally cheesy action movie that doesn’t worry in the slightest about the things it gets irretrievably wrong.

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Skiptrace (2016)

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Bingbing Fan, China, Comedy, Con man, Crime, Drama, Drugs, Eric Tsang, Eve Torres, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Macau, Mongolia, Renny Harlin, Russia, The Matador, Thriller

skiptrace

Original title: Jue di tao wang

D: Renny Harlin / 107m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Bingbing Fan, Eric Tsang, Eve Torres, Winston Chao, Youn Junghoon, Shi Shi, Michael Wong, Kuo Pin Chao

Here’s a question for you: when did you last enjoy – really enjoy – a Jackie Chan movie? Was it Dragon Blade (2015)? Or Chinese Zodiac (2012) perhaps. Or was it even further back? The Karate Kid (2010) maybe. If it’s been even further back, don’t worry, it’s likely you’re not on your own.

Back in 2012, Chan told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that Chinese Zodiac was going to be his last action movie. He was getting too old, and he felt the world was “too violent”. And for a whole year it seemed that Chan was sticking to his word… and then he went and made Police Story: Lockdown (2013). So much for that, then. And now he’s back again with another action movie, Skiptrace, and this time, it’s… practically dead on arrival.

Let’s try another question: when did you last enjoy – really enjoy – a Renny Harlin movie? Was it The Legend of Hercules (2014) Or Devil’s Pass (2013)? Or something from the time when his name on a picture was reason enough to see it, say back in the Nineties. Unlike Chan, Harlin has never announced his “retirement” from action movies, and now he’s back with Skiptrace, and this time… well, you get the picture.

skiptrace-scene2

There are many, many, many movies that are made because somebody somewhere thought they would be a good idea. Movies like Skiptrace, which are made both for a domestic market (in this case, China and Hong Kong) and a wider, international market, show up each and every year. Some succeed in gaining that wider, international success the makers hope for – the Internal Affairs trilogy, for example – while the majority barely make an impact. In between are movies such as Skiptrace, with its bankable, internationally famous star; less bankable but still well-known co-star; even less bankable but still fairly well-known director-for-hire; country-hopping locations; uninspired action set-pieces; and a patience-testing script that has no intention of making any kind of sense at any point in the movie.

The plot, such as it is, has Chan’s dogged cop, Bennie Chan, still trying to avenge the death of his partner (Tsang) at the hands of criminal mastermind the Matador. Nine years have passed since that terrible event, and Bennie has spent the years since in trying to prove that high-profile businessman and philanthropist Victor Wong (Chao) is the Matador. Of course he’s been unsuccessful, and his latest attempt leads to the kind of property destruction that warrants his being told to take a month’s leave of absence. In the meantime, his deceased partner’s daughter, Samantha (Fan), has infiltrated Wong’s organisation in an attempt to find some evidence against him… but she’s drawn a blank too. It’s not until con man and gambler Connor Watts (Knoxville) turns up at a casino run by Wong and witnesses a murder that Bennie has a solid chance of bringing Wong to justice.

skiptrace-scene1

So far, so straightforward. But the script, already over-complicating things by having Bennie as Samantha’s guardian, introduces us to Connor by putting him in jeopardy in Russia thanks to an ill-advised relationship with a mobster’s daughter. A series of non-linear flashbacks to the previous twenty-four hours reveals Connor’s actions at the casino (including winning a large amount of money), his meeting Samantha, trying to avoid the Russian mobster’s goons (out to bring him back to Russia so he can be put in jeopardy), witnessing a murder in the process, and coming into possession of a mobile phone that will reveal the identity of the Matador. Too much already? Don’t worry, there’s more – much more.

What follows is a tortuous road movie that sees Bennie and Connor eventually learn to respect and admire each other, and which takes in such locations/developments as the Russian bowling alley where Connor finds himself in peril, a train that both men jump from as soon as they hear the ticket inspector approaching, buying the slowest vehicle in Mongolia without ensuring it has enough petrol to get them anywhere, an encounter with a group of Mongolian tribespeople (more of which later), a game of bluff and double bluff at the Chinese border that sees them arrested, their opportune “rescue” by the Russian mobster’s goons, a whitewater raft ride, and eventually, a zipline escape from Wong’s men.

There’s more still, but it’s all too tiring, a series of desperate attempts by the screenplay – step forward writers Jay Longino and BenDavid Grabinski, whose first collaboration this is – to keep viewers from nodding off or asking themselves why they’re still watching after the first half an hour. If the events listed in the previous paragraph sound exciting, don’t be fooled: even handled by Harlin, not exactly a slouch when it comes to action movies, those sequences lack energy and are shot through with the kind of slapstick humour that Chan’s movies are famous for. And it needs to be said: Chan is getting on. His decision to “retire” back in 2012 should have been followed through, because in Skiptrace you can see just how slow he’s become. The speed and intricacy of his past fight scenes are absent here, with blows and parries signposted well in advance and Chan being given more than enough time to get into position for each.

skiptrace-scene3

And then there’s the encounter with the Mongolian tribespeople. It’s a standard sequence to begin with, a misunderstanding leading to Connor and then Bennie squaring up against the tribe’s best fighters. The misunderstanding is resolved and the tribespeople take to the pair as if they were long-lost relatives. A feast ensues, and after a few too many drinks, Bennie begins to sing a song. A young woman joins him, and soon everyone is singing along as well, word perfect and in perfect harmony. The song is Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, and it’s possibly the most bizarre moment you’ll ever see, and hear, in a Jackie Chan movie. It’s also the best example of how haphazardly the script has been assembled, with sequences obviously arrived at and decided on before a plot was actually dreamt up.

Like so many of these productions, the editing is the worst aspect of all, leaving the movie looking like a cinematic patchwork, with shots truncated and poorly framed, and the performances (such as they are) suffering as a consequence. Chan is his usual amiable self, unstretched by the material, while Knoxville’s comic relief portrayal of Connor serves as a reminder that when a script is this bad the actor doesn’t have a way of countering it. Elsewhere, the supporting cast do what they can with their underwritten roles, with only ex-WWE wrestler Torres standing out thanks to her impressive physicality. Harlin is a bland presence in the director’s chair, his regular visual flair absent from the mix. It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who directed Die Hard 2 (1990) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). But then, it’s hard to think of anyone who could have made something even halfway decent from the material on offer.

Rating: 3/10 – not the finest moment in Chan’s career, Skiptrace is hard to sit through and barely acceptable as entertainment; with all the vitality of a contractual obligation, the movie crams in a surfeit of incidents that, ordinarily, would keep at least another two movies happy – but ultimately, it doesn’t have any idea of what to do with them.

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Battle Creek Brawl (1980)

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Chicago, Drama, Golden Harvest, Jackie Chan, José Ferrer, Kristine DeBell, Kung fu, Mako, Martial arts, Protection money, Review, Robert Clouse, Thirties

Battle Creek Brawl

aka The Big Brawl

D: Robert Clouse / 95m

Cast: Jackie Chan, José Ferrer, Kristine DeBell, Mako, Ron Max, David Sheiner, Rosalind Chao, H.B. Haggerty, Chao Li Chi

In Chicago in the 1930’s, restaurant owner Kwan (Chi) is being pressured into paying protection money to gangster Dominici (Ferrer). When he receives a visit from Dominici’s henchman Leggetti (Max) and some of his goons, Kwan is physically intimidated but doesn’t pay. As Leggetti leaves, Kwan’s son Jerry (Chan) – who has considerable martial arts prowess but has promised his father he won’t fight – intervenes and leaves the goons thoroughly embarrassed and beaten by using their own moves against them.

When Dominici hears about Jerry’s prowess he believes he’s found the fighter he needs for the upcoming Battle Creek Brawl, a street fighting contest held in Texas. Dominici needs Jerry to combat the fighter backed by rival gangster Morgan (Sheiner), but Jerry  refuses at first. This leads Dominici to have Jerry’s brother’s fiancee (Chao) kidnapped and held hostage. Jerry attempts to rescue her – aided by his martial arts mentor, Herbert (Mako) – but Dominici outsmarts him; they strike a bargain though, and Jerry agrees to take part in the brawl.

Morgan, meanwhile, has persuaded Leggetti to betray Dominici and ensure his fighter’s win by kidnapping Herbert. Having made it to the final round, and facing off against Morgan’s fighter, Kiss (Taggerty), Leggetti threatens Jerry with his mentor being hurt if he doesn’t lose the contest. The only thing Jerry can do is to stall until he can find a way of saving Herbert, and then defeating Kiss.

Battle Creek Brawl - scene

Chan’s first English language feature, Battle Creek Brawl is an enjoyable, free-wheeling martial arts movie that gives the diminutive star the chance to show off his athletic skills and flash the cheeky grin that’s stood him in such good stead for more than forty years. It’s a mainly lightweight distraction, unconcerned with providing any depth to the proceedings, and in many ways all the better for it. It’s a very likeable movie, made purely to entertain its target audience, and on that level it’s a complete success.

Chan’s acrobatics are given plenty of screen time, and as ever he’s a joy to watch, the sheer inventiveness and physical dexterity of his movements proving as entertaining as ever. His wonderfully expressive features and often amazing agility are placed to the fore as much as possible, and writer/director Clouse – with a few awkward exceptions – keeps the camera focused on Chan and leaves everyone else several places behind. The clever intricacy of the fight scenes, particularly the incredibly well choreographed bouts between Chan and Mako, raises the bar throughout, and if Chan’s adversaries are a little too eager to line up and take their punishment, well, that’s always going to be a drawback when working with US stuntmen – it’s a question of timing.

The movie takes place in a strange mix-world of Thirties Chicago and Seventies Texas, with only the costumes and the cars giving an indication that the brawl itself is taking place in the same time zone as the rest of the movie (keep an eye on the Texas backgrounds and you’ll see how jarring it can be). That said, the decision to make it a period piece in the first place makes no difference to the story or the action, but the apparent acceptance of Jerry’s inter-racial relationship with Nancy (DeBell) is a refreshing change (even if it does reinforce the lightweight nature of the script).

With the script’s refusal to add any real intensity to events, the performances are necessarily lacking in substance with even Ferrer struggling to add any appropriate menace to his role. He’s more like a cuddly uncle figure playing at being nasty but in as urbane a manner as possible. As his rival, Sheiner tries to add some threat to events but he’s not given enough screen time to succeed, while Max is given the chance to take on Chan, but with predictable results. DeBell is kept firmly in the background, and of the rest of the cast, only Haggerty as the dastardly Kiss, and Mako as Herbert make any real impression.

Clouse keeps the focus firmly on the fight scenes, and keeps the action moving in ever more exciting ways, and the camerawork by Robert C. Jessup – aided by editor George Grenville – is surprisingly precise and fluid in equal measure; there’s always something going on in the frame and some of it is as interesting to watch as what’s going on in the foreground, especially during the brawl itself, where there are plenty of “bits” that enrich the fights themselves. And to round things off there’s a rich, emphatic score courtesy of Lalo Schifrin that works so well with the material.

Rating: 8/10 – almost too flimsy in its construction and execution, Battle Creek Brawl is still simple yet effective, and a terrific introduction to Chan’s remarkable agility; with an innocence that borders on deliberate naïvete, the movie succeeds by having a great sense of humour and by not taking itself at all seriously – and by showcasing some tremendous fight scenes.

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Mini-Review: Chinese Zodiac (2012)

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Adventure, Animals, Bronze heads, Comedy, Jackie Chan, Martial arts, Oliver Platt, Qi Shu, Stolen artefacts, Stunts, Treasure hunting

Chinese Zodiac

Original title: Sap ji sang ciu

D: Jackie Chan / 109m

Cast: Jackie Chan, Xingtong Yao, Qi Shu, Oliver Platt, Fan Liao, Laura Weissbecker, Rosario Amedeo, Qingxiang Wang, Stephen Chang, Sang-woo Kwon, Alaa Safi, Caitlin Dechelle, Ken Lo

JC (Chan) and his team of mercenary treasure hunters are tasked with finding the twelve bronze heads that the animals of the Chinese Zodiac are made up of.  Originally plundered from the Summer Palace, the whereabouts of some of the heads are already known.  JC’s boss, Lawrence Morgan (Platt), wants him to locate and/or steal each one.  JC and his team travel from Hong Kong to France to Australia to Vanuatu in their efforts to find the heads; along the way they’re joined by antiquities expert Coco (Yao) and Parisian heiress Catherine (Weissbecker).  Unaware that Morgan has an ulterior motive for collecting the heads, JC finds each head in turn and then discovers he’s been tricked.  With time against him, JC has to save the last remaining head from being dropped into a live volcano.

kinopoisk.ru

If that last bit sounds a bit over the top, then you’d be right.  But then this is an action comedy devised, written, directed by and starring Jackie Chan, and made first and foremost for a Hong Kong Chinese audience.  Platt’s presence aside, this makes no concessions to international viewers, and is the usual mix of injury-defying stunts, intricate fight sequences, slapstick comedy, desperate mugging, chaste romancing, and has a storyline that barely serves as a hook for the action scenes; there’s even the standard outtakes included in the end credits (as well as a recap of Chan’s career).  If you like this sort of thing you’ll find plenty to keep you engrossed, and to be fair, Chan delivers the action goods even at 58.  With everyone involved clearly having fun, Chinese Zodiac is only interested in giving its audience a good time, and its far-fetched approach merely adds to that fun.  Chan has a steady hand on the tiller, the action is expertly choreographed, shot and edited, and the whole thing has a welcome, Saturday morning matinee feel to it.

Rating: 7/10 – an exhilarating thrill ride of a movie, Chinese Zodiac will attract fans of this type of thing probably more so than newbies; Chan is still an amazing physical performer, though, and thankfully, the positives easily outweigh the negatives.

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