Zona de Muerte

When I found the film was having its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, I made it first priority to go see it. I saw it with a friend at an Industry screening in rush line. Donnie versus Sammo, can it get any better than that?

The story of the film, to make it simple, Simon Yam is the retiring determined bad-good cop, Donnie is the new good-good cop replacing him and Sammo is the mob boss. The film takes place during father's day and every character in the film is either a son or a father. Everyone is dealing with some form of father and son relationship; Sammo's character is expecting a child, Simon Yam has an adopted daughter of whose real parents were killed by men sent from Sammo, Donnie's character defies his father's wishes to become a policeman and so forth. The theme serves to add a emotional element that connects all the characters in the film. None of the characters are extreme good or extreme evil, everybody is shades of grey on different levels. There seems to be a very heavy Infernal Affairs influence here coupled with the bleak colours and dark settings. However, the film does not take itself as seriously as the IA trilogy. There are many moments of humor and it works well to break the tension of the film in the beginning to middle. The humor leaves at the middle to the finale at the end when things start to get serious; which helps engage the audience and assures them the film does not take itself any more seriously but to engage you for the duration of the movie to entertain you.

The film is shot very stylishly. Combined with the duration of the film (the film clocks in to about 97 minutes), I can imagine the meanest western critic would say this film is pretentious, trading too much style for not enough storytelling in such a short time. (Yes I already see that coming, aren't I pretty?) I would d say that would be the wrong way to look at it, because he would be forgetting the fact that this a modern day kung fu film, which has always been a very hard genre to do. In the modern day setting, it basically means you're more grounded and limited by the realms of reality, which means no obvious wirework and more realistic choreography, which you need expert talent to pull off. When you're in ancient times, you can get away with stuff, not in modern day. The story lines for modern day martial arts films have not been very impressive either in the past. It's it's own ballgame in my opinion. Only recent one I can think of is Danny the Dog/Unleashed, an old example being Jackie Chan's Police Story series (and I don't count the unevenly New Police Story).

And now, the thing you've been waiting for,.... the action! Donnie Yen commented that this was the pinnacle of his career with SPL. When you see the film, you can see what he's talking about. You know that thing when you hear reading about kung fu movies sometimes when Bruce Lee moves too fast for the camera and they ask him to slow down so people can see what's going on? I don't think much of that was going on here in SPL. The fights were lightning fast and brutal. Every move was checkmate and everyone's going for the throat. The fights are not many, but they are cruelly intense. The fight with Wu Jing and Donnie Yen in the alleyway was spectacular, I think they were rolling camera and just going at it full speed. I guess it seemed natural to do a weapon fight (baton vs. a short Japanese knife) because Wu Jing has a more graceful swift strength as to Donnie's hard and solid's. The finale with Sammo and Donnie was my favorite. Sammo is a fifty-year old two hundred pound fat man and he moves like he never aged at all. He keeps up every second with Donnie. No one had to slow anything down for him, nor nothing was undercranked or wired. Wrestling seemed to be a very natural choice for this fight, given the circumstances; Donnie and Sammo are hard, solid strength types and it added a new visual element compared to Donnie's In The Line of Duty and Tiger Cage days. This fight was so intense it made me forget what the plot of the story was about, I forgot why Donnie was fighting Sammo plotwise and just purely experienced the cinematics of the fight. You'll see what I mean when you see the film.

Yes, SPL succeeds in what it does. With more martial arts films coming out internationally (such as Ong Bak), as Donnie has been quoted as saying repetitively, Hong Kong has deteriorated in its quality of kung fu film, despite the fact that Hong Kong choreography has now become international. SPL sets the standard again and reminds the world that we still have a few things up our sleeves and that this is the Hong Kong brand of action choreography. So yes, martial arts fans, you'll definitely dig it. It's on your must-see list for sure.

The concept of joss should be familiar to many followers of Hong Kong's antics. Used profusely in James Clavell novels (Tai Pan, Noble House et al), joss relates notions of life's fickle randomness, as events remain at the mercy of capricious gods. Whatever those will, happens. Joss. Looking for a reason may be nothing more than a solid waste of time.

Although no longer in vogue as a word, joss still holds sway over things HK. To wit, this spat of top-shelf action flicks that came out of nowhere following months and perhaps years of utter dreariness.

As if Dragon Squad wasn't good enough a couple weeks back, here comes SPL, or Saat Po Lang, which literally (should, if this reviewer's language skills are any good) mean "kill the bent wolf". That particular translation does make sense in light of the film's plot, as does the Film Board's decision to waltz with danger and place a category III rating on another movie not far behind Election on the release schedule. This dalliance has us totally in thrall, for HK's censors have historically proved themselves to be timid scaredy-cats with the utmost adverse reaction to anything remotely good. And while SPL may not be the next Natural Born Killers or Bad Lieutenant, it does earn its three I's with more aplomb than a few lesser projects, and contains more than enough gratuitous bloodshed to sate action pundits.

Just like Dragon Squad, so doesn't SPL shy away from all the things that have traditionally made HK an excellent source of frenetic action nutrients. However, while DS put itself in a somewhat-comedic, hyper-realistic version of the city, SPL takes place firmly in a Gothamite rendition of HK, brooding and awash with menace. Wilson Yip (Bullets Over Summer, White Dragon) and his posse provide just the right quotients of each ingredient, resulting in an atmosphere perfectly adjusted to its purpose. You can't avoid liking the HK seen here, with its Streets of Fire/Young and Dangerous-like roaming gangs, dark, desolate cityscapes and hapless police force.

What the cops are so prostate before is Wong Po, master criminal and ruthless sadist cum family man, done by a delectable Sammo Hung. Sammo's always been good as a villain, and this Kingpin-esquire meanie's no exception. Wong Po combines the usual crazed bad guy with a loving husband, and of course possesses relentless martial arts skills. These are deployed against the movie's main protagonists, the good-but-shadowy police types everybody loves so much. They're headed by Chung (Simon Yam AGAIN), who's got it in for Wong Po after a family of witnesses under his protection got wasted on the criminal's bequest.

But Chung's naturally about to retire in order to care for his goddaughter (sole survivor of said family), so the stage is set for new captain Inspector Ma, another fighting machine in the form of ever-likable Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey, Hero, Seven Swords) to come in and join the fray. Others include abrasive, skeptic cop Ah Wah (Liu Kai Chi, pretty much in every HK movie over the last few years) and a nameless, lunatic killer employed by Wong Po (martial arts expert Wu Jing).

Save for a few minor pseudo-surprises, SPL follows a normative mold as far as story goes, but succeeds mostly in terms of its superb pace and impressive mood-setting elements. The comic book characters fit their respective personalities, can take a whole lot of damage, and have this knack for seeming serious, like they're in a real crime story rather than fiction. Gunplay, hack 'n' slash and fighting have all found a spot for themselves herein, and none overpowers the other, so that's all good, too.

Likewise, Yip managed to add quizzical surrealism to the mix by telling us the movie takes place 1994-1997. Sure, the old colonial flag of HK is seen briefly, and cop badges read Royal Police, but beyond that, it's obviously the now, not ten years ago. Cars, clothes, and buildings are all contemporary. To some, this may be ridiculous. To others, it's a useful storytelling conceit, in synch with the story's overall fairy tale, fantasy mindset.

Additional assets in SPL's collection number generally strong supporting characters (Chung's crew and Wong Po's insane-clown head minion), a gorgeous soundtrack, and this perturbing ability to fuse components from action epics like Cobra and The Punisher with gangland hysteria a la Goodfellas or Scarface (just listen to the violins as they play in the background).

Perhaps nostalgia and time won't be as kind to SPL as they were to the films that inspired it, but one can't hide from acknowledging we have before us another substantial action entry in a year that, for ten months out of twelve, was nigh on arid in the adrenaline department, and that's not even mentioning the years preceding.

Archetypal tormented cops, obsessive villains, a city teeming with unrestrained violence and props so destructible they must have cost more than hiring Simon Yam and Sammo, who have been so prolific recently we have to wonder when they get any time off.

In short, and acronyms aside, go watch it.

Rating: * * * *

Despite what others may claim Sha Po Lang is not up there with the best HK movies of it's kind made during the golden period of the 1980s, when the likes of Jackie Chan, John Woo and Ringo Lam were in their pomp. In fact, there have been better cop films than SPL released in more recent times in the territory, Infernal Affairs and Running Out of Time to name just two. What SPL does do successfully is tap into the style and tone of the type of films that made Hong Kong action film popular with western audiences during the 80s and 90s. In SPL, the line between right and wrong, good guys and bad guys, is blurred to the point of it almost becoming invisible (often a feature in John Woo's output). The fact that the film's most likable(?) character is a brutal mobster shows how there is no black and white in the world of Sha Po Lang, just differing shades of grey. It's Sammo Hung's excellent performance as gangster Po, committed family man yet also a ruthless, violent crime boss, that is at the heart of the film. Against him all the traditionally good cop characters seem to have to sacrifice their innate sense of right in order to achieve what they see as justice being done; resulting in them becoming more like the man they're trying to bring down. It all leads to regret, violence, death and a shocking finale that should live long in viewers memories. As for the action sequences, they are well executed if a little too brief, but none of them would make it into a ten (or twenty!) best HK fight scenes list. Simply put, Sha Po Lang is a well put together police thriller with decent action and a satisfyingly bleak, film noir-esquire tone. It's well worth seeing and if it kick-starts a return to the classic action style of Hong Kong cinema, even better!

What do you get when you pair two martial arts legends against each other, throw in a dark, gripping, sadistic story and a boat-load of action? Well, that's simple: you get one of the best Hong Kong action flicks of recent memory. "SPL" brings it all back home and it does in violent fashion. Donnie Yen leads a cast that also includes Sammo Hung, Simon Yam and Wu Jing. I loved everything about this movie. I thought all the actors were great. I thought the story was good. The action was just brilliant! Donnie Yen's fight choreography is some of the best work he's ever done (check out the alley fight scene against Wu Jing). He mixes traditional kung fu with a little UFC grappling which I thought was pretty cool. Seeing Donnie and Sammo face off for the very first time was quite astonishing. Some of you may agree, some might not, but I think Donnie Yen is the most underrated action actors of them all. I love Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but they're like Van Damme and Seagal. They play the same character in every film. Donnie, on the other hand, is a much more versatile actor who's willing to play supporting roles or even villainous roles. It's really a shame that he can't get the Hollywood leading roles that often go to Jackie or Jet. But that could change soon. In the mean time, check this movie out! You'll love it.

.. when he called SPL the pinnacle of his martial arts choreography. It rocks. HARD. Not only are the fights are brutal, fast, and complex, but Donnie may have achieved the impossible: He made Brazillian ju-jitsu look exciting on film. Donnie's character repeatedly goes for takedowns, armbars, chokes, and all the moves that you might see in a UFC or Pride match (with Sammo countering attacks exactly how the big fighters do it in a real bout), while seamlessly combining them with the incredibly fast, complex punching and kicking exchanges you'd expect in a Hong Kong flick. Did I mention that the fights are bone-crunchingly brutal? There is a real nastiness to the punchups that should yield a great reaction from enthusiastic audiences. And then there is the spectacular Wu Jing vs Donnie Yen fight. It starts off very, very fast and complex, then at a certain point, the tempo changes and you suddenly realize that it's because they're just making it up ON THE SPOT and the damn thing becomes even more impressive. The long, unbroken takes should please fight purists, too.

The film itself also holds up. Director Wilson Yip really shows off his passion and skill in this film. It's an intense crime drama that doesn't have to pander to any teeny boppers, so he is free to finally let loose. The story is solid and Yip takes the opportunity to devise some great sequences. There's a scene that cuts between Donnie looking at photos of the policemen he's about to lead and footage of the same cops intensely doing their business that is pure cinema.. a scene that could have been plain on paper, but is made exciting purely through the director's vision - the way it's cut and scored and staged. In other words, there is a lot of obvious effort put into the drama. It isn't just some thrown together filler btwn fight scenes. This is a real film. Oh, and one comment about the audio: It's amazing. The music is superb and the sound effects are everything you could hope for in a kung fu film (ie, they accentuate every move and hit as you'd want them to). I hope the DVD has a great DD5.1 track and that you have the system to play it 'cause it'll make a big difference.

Complaints? I have only one: The fights should have been a little longer, but that's okay because they burn twice as bright as most.