The Shanghai Job

Orlando Bloom portrays the head of a Shanghai security company specializing in protecting valuable art work being transported from country to country. After a priceless Van Gogh is stolen from his possession about a year before, he's given a second chance by a Shanghai museum to transport a most valuable and last of its kind vase. Of course, things will not go according to plan.

This film just came across to me as amateurish and non-believable with stilted dialogue as well. Numerous chases and martial arts scenes are very predictable. Also, could someone have gotten Bloom a band-aid for that bloody forehead gash he was sporting almost the entire movie?

Overall, can't recommend.

"The Shanghai Job" (aka "Ji Zhi zhui ji" and "S.M.A.R.T. Chase" was a movie that I hadn't even heard about prior to finding it by random luck here in 2019. I had no idea what it was about, but I still did decide to sit down and watch it.

Turns out that the movie was sort of a very bland mediocre movie. It wasn't particularly bad, nor was it outstandingly good either. It was entertaining enough for what it turned out to be, for sure. But the movie was just suffering from being generic and not really offering much of any twists or surprises to the audience.

The action sequences in the movie were actually good and the car chases as well. And this level of action was definitely helping to pump adrenaline into the movie and make it watchable.

As for the character, well they were bland and fairly non-distinct. They were lacking personalities and background. It never really felt like that there were much of any character growth of any sort throughout the movie, and you never really got to know them either.

Now, Orlando Bloom was actually fairly good in the movie, though he had some good help from the likes of Simon Yam and Xing Yu.

The movie was predictable, and you knew the outcome of the movie from the very beginning. But with that in mind, the movie still does provide mediocre entertainment and is watchable once.

This has Made in China all over it. From the loud and annoying cheesy score, action scenes, writing and acting. The only thing decent in the film was the beautiful scenery and the adequate directing. I couldn't get past Blooms' cheeseball bleached blonde hair that made him look more like a fruit cake than a tough guy. Bad choice of casting to begin with. And who names a character Ding-Dong anyway lol? There was so much cheese in this film it made me lack toes in toll her ants. ;p A generous 5/10 from me.

Considered amongst many film critics to be the very best at convincingly portraying a piece of very thin, soaking wet, tissue paper and possessing the emotional range of a balloon with a face drawn on it, Orlando Balloon has proven time and time again that you don't actually need to be able to act in order to be successfully mistaken for an actor.

In this latest offering he succeeds spectacularly in proving so again. The addition this time around of a mop of blonde hair and a selection of small cuts to his face and various 'hero' poses, all fail in adding any real depth to his standard facial expression or to this flop. It's dire.

Fortunately for all concerned, Orlando cannot confirm what his next role might be and it really isn't worth watching this movie to see for yourself why that is.

Mr. Bloom, I used to be your fan and liked some of your films, especially "Kingdom of Heaven", which gave certain impact to the depth of my emotion and the character you played also impressed me a lot. Your participations of all the films you've signed on never overlooked by me.

But this "The Shanghai Job" really forced me to call an end to pay any further attention to you, because this film only qualified for "straight to Wal-Mart B-movie DVD bin", not qualified for a generous wide release on the big screen. Please do not get involve with any film backed up by any Chinese production in the future. This film is just so pretentious and phony and so painful to watch, not just terrible.

Also, dying your hair into a blond only gave me such a pain to watch, it looked just so repellently unnatural. Your heavy South African English accent in this film also turned me off further. The story is so childishly ridiculous, the scenarios and the plots both laughable, the directing so mediocre, genetic and boring. All the supporting actors, some of them are veterans and reputed in mainland China or in Hong Kong, but they were also ridiculed and wasted by this ridiculous and childish screenplay. It's, like I've said before, so painful to watch.

This film is so bad and I really don't want to waste more words to review it, 'cause it's unworthy.