Kuen san

Watching today, almost 20 years after its release, Andrew Lau's Avenging Fist looks kind-of dated in its CGI and childish approach to what was - an unofficial film adaptation of the popular fight game, Tekken. From its opening scene, showing the handsome Lee Hom Wang and Chin Kar Lok flying through a Bladerunner-esque city before annoying crowds of people in its neon-lit streets like 12 year old's - you get the impression that this is going to be one of those Hong Kong films that just tries to hard and ignores the real talent of its stars, opting to saturate the screen with so much visual effects, it spoils your viewing pleasure!

Wang plays Nova, Yuen Biao's son who is trying to get his hand's on the Power Glove. He likes to take part in a fighting tournament where most of the fighters have some kind of superhero like ability. One such fighter is a very miscast Stephen Fung, who looks like he would break if the wind picked-up. He just looks so out-of-place...

Andrew Lau was completely the wrong choice for this project. While Wong Jing couldn't get the official rights from Namco to make it Tekken, he does his own thing much like with the super-fun Future Cops which rips off Streetfighter 2. I think if Wong had taken the reigns here himself, bringing the same amount of nonsensical comedy to Avenging Fist, it wouldn't have been such a mess and a much better film. Lau takes it down many roads, most of which are too heavy in drama or soppy romance, with the comedy falling flat when it comes about, such as a silly disco-dance-fight-off, or its childish adult stars who only got cast because they look pretty. There should have been so much more to love here!

Even fight director, Corey Yuen Kwai's choreography is pretty lame for the most of the time, offering overly-glorified wire-work (much like that in Romeo Must Die), blended with CGI that detracts from what's on offer. I was so excited when I first heard about this as it had the big-screen return of Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao together for the first time in years - and while they are the highlight of the film (with the fantastic Biao actually being the most interesting character of the whole thing), its just not enough to make Avenging Fist as good as it should be.

Roy Cheung plays Combat 21, leader of an underground movement known as the Red Dragons who also want the Power Glove. He has kidnapped and controlled Biao as a mask wearing killer, who he sends after his own family, where he soon bumps into fat detective, Sammo Hung (who turns out to be Ekin Cheng in his younger-days-flashback), but instead of a long-awaited kung-fu showdown, Biao throws a bomb and escapes. Hung had just come off his success of Martial Law in the the States, but the following 5 years of his career would deliver a host of failures that many thought was the end of the legends finest work. Biao wasn't doing too well either in this period, and its more the pity that this film couldn't have been any better in helping put such amazing stars forward again to the new, younger generation who this was clearly aimed at...

They say it was one and a half years in the making, but I'm guessing a week of that was spent on the action. Over-stylised, over-talky, overly-romantic - Avenging Fist is a massive failure at bringing Tekken to life for the right reasons, and hits below the belt in the action department which is unfortunate. The last 20 minutes is the best of the film, including where Biao gets to show some decent moves!

Overall: All but for the legends, the rest of the cast are dreadful. Avenging Fist is worth the watch once, but only to see what-could-have-been...

This is such a lousy movie man. Not worth watching it at all in my opinion. When i was in Honh Kong this Christmas i thought it would have been cool and awesome but it was off very fast. The rating there were bad and i thought no way. I was disappointed when it was off that fast and really want to watch it one day. Then just yesterday Feburary 2, 2002 my sister brought it on dvd and i was so surprised that is out so fast. I watch it and it bore me to death for the whole hour and a half. No bright spot in this movie at all in my mind and no wonder it was off the theatre so damn fast and the rating was right on. Out of 10 in my opinion i rated it 2.5 and a D- movie. Not worth paying to watch it but renting it is fine to me. Is a science fiction type movie and the action sucks like crap. No acting, plot and it make no sense. I hated the movie the one but this is even worse cause at least Jet Li can fight. The only thing is a bright spot at least it has a pretty girl to watch in Gigi Leung. That's it.

"The Avenging Fist" is one of the many HK Special Effect movies to come out over the last few years. It stands out on its own points, though - like the fact that it takes place in the future as opposed to the present or past - which means that there's characters jumping around on flying cars and through neon lights.

The main focus of the story is that of Nova, an agressive young man who feels the need to fight (don't we all?) and is trying to get his hands on a "Power Glove" - not of the Nintendo variety - which increases the user's fighting ability considerably. Nova also has a father who disappeared during the development of the Power Glove, who left Nova records of a fighting style called, of all things, the "Avenging Fists."

After several events, Nova manages to obtain a power glove and proceeds to unleash serious adolescent justice upon faceless baddies. Of course, Nova can't do it all by himself - so a bartender/street fighter by the name of "Iron Surfer" comes into play.

Personally, I think the movie should've been about Iron Surfer (Stephen Fung). Not only does he look a lot more cool and intense than Nova, but he also doesn't have all of the family melodrama that's included in Nova's story. Iron Surfer's just a guy who wants to love a cute girl and beat the life out of anyone/thing that gets in his way... even a surprisingly well animated CG monster. Unfortunately, Iron Surfer just gets turned into a crutch for Nova to take on the main villain with.

Yuen Biao has a decent sized role in this movie, but I was wanting to see more of him. Perhaps there should be a prequel with him and Ekin Cheng (who has a cameo as a younger Sammo Hung) that better explains the origins of the prevalent power gloves/avenging fists... It's unlikely, though.

Regardless, this movie very well accomplishes the SFX action spectacular it set out to be. You could go without seeing it and sleep comfortably at night, but if you're a sucker for these kinds of movies, give it a thorough viewing. "The Avenging Fist" is just fine.

Take Demolition Man, Final Fantasy, The Matrix, Star Wars, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and put into a food blender. Mix well for an hour an a half, pour into container, put in the fridge for a little while, serve with icing sugar...

In watching this film, you easily can make comparisons with the five films listed above and more, as The Avenging Fist has taken many of the ideas off them and crammed them into this fast-and-furious, high adrenalin, backside-kicking thriller. Oh, and add in 'Tekken' for good measure as well, although the end credits explicitly state that this film was not based on Tekken and not endorsed by Namco.

Tekken, sorry, The Avenging Fist tells of Nova, a son of a police officer who was the master of the Avenging Fist, a series of martial arts moves that were highly lethal. Whilst at the police force, Nova's father was brainwashed by Combat 21, who steals the Power Glove that, to cut a long story short, gives him powers literally untapped by anyone else. Twenty years on, Nova learns of his father's fate, and he seeks to prevent Combat 21's world domination plans.

Ultimately, a film of this description is always going to be targeted at a younger audience, and inevitably a certain amount of cheesiness and unimaginative fantasy are both always going to appear. But, the film does go beyond that. Computer graphics reminiscent of The Matrix and Final Fantasy and choreographed martial arts of CTHD quality add immensely to the film. Also a little bit of subplot (yes it has some!) does go a long way too in the movie.

But one of interesting decisions in the film were the choice of leads, who are a young bunch, and yet were teamed up with veterans of the the martial arts genre. With the success of The Stormriders and the like, you might have expected Ekin Cheng to lead the cast. But all credit to Wang Leehom and Stephen Fung as they did an excellent performance. I would have loved to have seen more of Kristy Yang, though.

Ultimately, the young cast do equal the performances of the veterans, and despite all the criticism I seem to have written more about than I probably should have, it is a thoroughly enjoyable film. One for a good-spirited evening.

AVENGING FIST was supposed to be the live-action version of TEKKEN the video game, but apparently no one bothered to tell creator Wong Jing about that little thing called "copyright infringement". Hence the re-title, even though the whole movie is really one big mishmash of other, better sci-fi films, mostly lifting plot points and gimmicks directly from Lucas' STAR WARS films. (i.e. Young boy accepts fate, learns skill, faces brainwashed father. Sound familiar?)

Notable are the special effects, which are quite good. Some of the fights are not too bad, although they are heavily manipulated by CGI, up to a point where you can't say a single person in this movie actually knows kung fu.

Sammo Hung has a funny cameo, playing up his weight angle. A good looking film, but highly unfocused and too derirative for its own good.

4 out of 10.