Fighting Fish

This movie its story feels like a very lame excuse to bring some material arts fighting sequences to the big screen. You know how Star Wars fan films are always used as a lame excuse to do a lightsaber fight, well same goes for this movie, only it aren't lightsaber fights in this movie but its material arts instead. The movie really feels like a amateur movie at times.

All of the fight sequences were nicely choreographed, no doubt about that and its obvious that director Jamel Aattache has a passion for material arts movies but all of the fights in the movie felt simply pointless and they really came out of nowhere at times. It's good to watch as a material arts demonstration all but as a movie this movie is simply terrible. Because of this all the story never really flows well which makes the movie almost impossible to watch at times.

The story is extremely weak and simple and the romantic elements of the movie between Kim Ho Kim and Chantal Janzen simply don't work, because there is no chemistry between those two and their love seems very unlikely to happen.

The acting was also completely horrible. Kim Ho Kim doesn't have enough charisma as an actor for a role like this one. Chantal Janzen was simply terrible in her role and the person who decided to give Ron Smoorenburg so many lines should had also been fired. Ron Smoorenburg is a great material arts fighter but he simply isn't much good as an actor. It's also due to director Jamel Aattache that some of the acting was really lame at times, he simply isn't a very good actors-director.

The cinematography by Peter-Jan van der Burgh was good and gave the movie a very professional look at times. the city Rotterdam is a perfect background for movies, this one included. They really should make some more movies and series in this city. It's a great charismatic and atmospheric background for movies and series, not a great place to live in though.

Also the musical score by Yorick Goldewijk was very good and suited the movie perfectly.

But unfortunately some great cinematography and the good musical score aren't enough to conceal the movie its almost none-excising lame story. It makes "Fighting Fish" an absolutely horrible and pointless movie to watch. Probably the only ones who can still find some pleasure in this movie are persons who love material arts. It has some good material arts moments in it but as a movie this one is a complete failure that also suffers from a terrible amateur look at times.

3/10

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Wow, I just walked out of a screening of "Fighting Fish" because it truly is a horrible movie. This is the "first dutch martial arts movie", and if this is the best they can do, it should also be the last.

It's a story about an ex-triad member who comes to Rotterdam to avenge his brother. Trow in some power hungry son of a triad leader, a dutch girl (oooh, Chinese and dutch people don't mix, don't date her!), and a lot of people who never have acted in a movie before and voilá: "Fighting Fish".

Cheesy dialogs, horrible martial arts (why don't they pretend that they want to hit each other?), boring storyline. Only good thing about this movie is the location (Rotterdam), it was fun to see my own city in a Kung-Fu movie. If you don't live in Rotterdam (or never been there) you probably don't care (so one less reason to see this film).

I didn't expect anything good from this movie, Still it was extremely disappointing. Not recommended for anyone (even for lovers of bad martial arts films playing in Rotterdam). If you are so eager about seeing a martial arts film in Holland, see "Who am I" instead.

And if you're not a martial arts fan, this is such a crappy movie, it should be a cult hit. The dialog is beyond cliché, the sets are visibly cheap, and the Chinese main character speaks English with a Dutch accent! So, when I saw it for the first time, I had a great time. And I've seen it several times after and it's still funny. Thank god the director took himself so seriously. The original screenplay was less than 60 pages, because time is filled with long martial art scenes. And the classic ones, so no wires. There were plans to re-release it as a cult film, but eventually they just released it on DVD. Too bad, because it would have been great as an audience participation flick. Even the producer would have wanted it that way. But there's still that director who thinks to highly of this huge Dutch flop.

1. This movie has an horrible story, the Street Figher games have a better plot. 2. The dialogs are horrible, the few that are in the movie, because a great deal of the movie consists of fighting scenes. 3. The only positive point that I have given this movie 1 point is that the fighting scenes look very professional and realistic. The thing is that after a whole bunch of fights it becomes a little boring to watch... I is sad that this movie, completely recorded in Rotterdam, has only been two weeks in the Dutch Cinema. I thought i'll try to view it anyway, but I have lost two precious hours of my life watching Chantal Janzen acting in this horrible movie.

A lot of this movie was made before it came out, as it's the first martial arts film from the Netherlands. After watching there can be 2 conclusions made: 1. it will probably be the last M.A. film from the Netherlands as well and 2. there's a reason for that.

Let's look at the story first. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy has to 'do something' for honour of the family. Girl gets beaten up by gang. Older brother forbids the formerly 'bad guy' to stay in her life. In the end it all works out.

I know, booooriiiiiing. So let's look at what should have made this movie special. Should have, because this movie is everything but special. Now, these martial arts fighting scenes are so silly, the camera-work is so dull and the fights way too long... one can only wonder, 'what were they thinking'?

The movie got slammed both by the critics as well as the public, and there's a reason for that...

2/10.