Zhui bu

This Japanese and Chinese collaboration of a John Woo directed movie turned out to be one of the least interesting of John Woo's career. And here I am only thinking about his work in Asian cinema.

The story portrayed in this movie was straightforward, but it was so straightforward that it offered no surprises, no twists, no nothing. So you just basically sit back in the seat and strap yourself in for the ride. Except you need not worry about the straps, because the ride here was plain and downright boring.

The action sequences were adequate, although hardly outstanding in comparison to many other Asian movies.

It was gutwretching to listen to the dialogue performed in English, because it was abysmally poorly delivered.

This movie came and went without leaving any lasting impression. Heck, it hardly even left a dent.

I love Asian movies, but this movie is not one that I ever plan to return to watch a second time.

What stood out for me in this film was the excellent cinematography by Takuro Ishizaka, and the main reason I scored this film as high as I did.

Next plus was the good choreography for the action scenes, especially the last 20 mins of the film.

The story itself (although we've seen it before) wasn't bad, but wasn't written well into a screenplay. Although the pace wasn't slow, the 106 min length felt longer with the long dragged out scenes and cheesy prolonged slow-mo parts. This film needed to be edited down to a max 80 mins.

Most of the subtitles didn't make any sense, but I'm guessing some 3rd party translator messed those up, so I wont consider that in my rating, but it did make the sub-par acting from most of the cast look very amateurish, as I didn't get to fully immerse myself in each character.

Then there's John Woo's directing, which at times felt like it was his early amateur work, and at other times felt like some grade 8 drama student put it together. He failed to direct his actors properly, as some performed certain scenes so badly, the director should have called a re-shoot. Clearly not his best work in the directing, writing and editing departments.

Throughout the entire film, I had already decided to give this film a 4 or 5/10, but the last 20 mins of fast paced action, plot twists and good choreography redeemed the score to a slightly better 6/10. Had the writing been tighter with less 'cheese', it could have been a 7 or 8/10

This movie is very well filmed, the light is beautiful and characters are very well put in it. Action scenes are John style and very well filmed .. The greatest surprise what the funny dialogues.. I couldn't stop laughing all along the movie! It is so obvious, so predictable that It became hilarious 😂. Watch it with this funny angle and you won't be disappointed! The main character, the cop, won't give a smile during the 1h45 except at the very last and final scene when it pause on his face with a ... .. smile 😁.. so predictable, so funny, so cheesy. This movie is available on Amazon prime go watch it.

I'm not a 100% sure John Woo fully directed this mess. Everyone was hoping for a return of the action master, instead we get a slow, boring and ridiculous movie that is all over the place. It takes plots lines from The Fugitive, Hard Target, and Max Payne! He'd been planing a wave runner chase since Hard Target, we finally get it, and it's a dud. Looks like a movie that was filmed for the Hallmark channel.

If you are watching it for good story and acting, you will be disappointed. But the action scenes are good and keep you entertained. Also, the movie was shoot in Japan and it looked beautiful. Decent movie and watchable. 6 stars from me.