Blood Money

I read a lot of the past reviews and yes there are areas in this movie that are at times confusing and yes we can not clearly understand every word our hero is saying and heck yes some of the special effects are very badly done. The plot was not exactly clear either. However that all being said, I must say that when I sat down to watch this I wasn't expecting an academy award winning, Oscar taking movie, no I was simply expecting the old style martial arts movies from the old days,and yes, even a Bruce Lee style movie, and for me that is exactly what I got. I have yet to sit down to a martial arts movie and expect an Oscar, no I expect great fight scenes and this movie has that for sure. We don't get a choppy fight scene where the screen cuts from one angle to another after every punch to hide the fact that the stunt person is actually doing it, no this movie lets you see a continuous flow of action during the fights and not close up on the face or arm or leg but on the whole body in motion. The main actor here might not have been a Bruce Lee cause there will never be another Bruce but as far as his fighting style on screen he would make Bruce proud. Visual physical poetry in motion. It's true I give this movie a 5 which is good, and thats just because of the great fight scenes.

When you see a tag-line like the star is the next Bruce Lee that does make you want to watch Blood Money. Now I know that tag-lines can be wildly exaggerated. Zheng Liu really does have very impressive martial arts skills, but I couldn't properly enjoy them with such lifeless choreography and choppy editing. And really Blood Money is really a disaster that has only Liu's martial arts skills as its saving grace. Visually, it was very confused and tried to do way too much. With the different colour schemes, the constant rapidly-shifting location changes, choppy editing and fast camera work, it never came together and it had a very dizzying effect when watching. The soundtrack is monotonous and forgettable and the dialogue, further disadvantaged by some very stilted line delivery, is just dreadful with clumsy attempts to be cool and iconic. With the story, even with the IMDb summary(interestingly written by the director), I still don't have a bloody clue what was going on in the movie, it was not just formulaic and dull but had a stopping-and-restarting effect and had the feel of the beginning of the movie actually being the middle. The characters are undeveloped and just as incoherent, these characters just come and go with no explanation and when you sometimes don't entirely know who the heroes and villains are you know there's something wrong. In regard to the acting, Liu's martial arts skill are fine but his lead performance on the acting front is a total blank. Pitbull is out of place, Gordon Liu brings some dignity but his character seemed to come out suddenly from another movie so it jarred and in general there was a lot of painful overacting going on. Overall, a disaster. And the comparison to Bruce Lee is exaggerated and most likely a marketing ploy(apologies for the possible cynicism to whoever reads this), Liu is good and promising in his strengths but nowhere near as charismatic, and in regard to Lee's movies while they were somewhat silly at least I could tell what was happening and who was who, an effect I didn't get at all with Blood Money. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Advertised as 'the next Bruce Lee', Zheng Liu makes his acting debut in Blood Money as Zhou, an unnamed hit-man for hire that changes his morals to suit whoever is offering the biggest cheque. But when his family is murdered by a ruthless drug lord, his job becomes somewhat more personal as he sides with the Asian Triads and goes looking for sweet revenge.

That's about as explanatory as anybody could be in attempting to synopsise this utterly plot less endeavour. Each formulaic scene plays out in the same fashion: rival drug gangs sit down for a meeting, tempers flare, shots are fired and any number of expendable baddies are removed from play, only to have an almost identical character take their place within mere minutes. Deaths, or at least death threats, are omnipresent, with the barrel of a gun often enjoying more screen time than the man holding it.

Those who disapprove of rapper Pitbull's glorified, self-indulgent music are not likely to enjoy his glorified, self-indulgent performance, but not all the blame rests with the hip-hop megastar.

The 'so-bad-it's-good' overacting and sketchy line delivery becomes very tired very quickly to the point that even the respected Gordon Liu, best known by Western audiences as Pai Mei from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, can't salvage an out-of-place role as Zhou's Shaolin monk mentor.

Often, the lone saving grace of films like this one is the action, but not so here. Being a martial artist first and an actor second, Liu's physical skill is apparent, but his fight sequences are shot and choreographed so poorly that they make Sonny's infamous miss on Carlo Rizzi look like a send-off offence.

In case the point hasn't been made clearly enough already, there are no redeemable qualities to draw from Blood Money, which is at best an embarrassing excuse for an action thriller and at worst an unmitigated disaster of a film.

*There's nothing I love more than a bit of feedback, good or bad. So drop me a line on jnatsis@iprimus.com.au and let me know what you thought of my review. If you're looking for a writer for your movie website or other publication, I'd also love to hear from you.*

Don't get excited like I did and mistake this for some kick-ass Hong Kong actioner. It's actually an Australian cheapie which just so happens to be shot in Hong Kong. It stars the unknown actor Zheng Liu as a fighter who gets involved in a battle against the usual drug runners. I know little about Liu, except that he trained at the real-life Shaolin Temple, but his acting is woefully bad and any martial talents he possesses are hidden by poor choreography which all too often employs the unwanted shaky-cam. The plot is cookie cutter stuff, Gordon Liu's cameo is wasted, and the CGI explosions take bad FX to the next level. It's pretty tiresome, if I'm honest.

I got this movie at full price, 20$ new, which is something i rarely do. I took this one cause it had a french track on it, kudos to them for making it, as the other 2 movies i hesitated with didn't had it... I just hate English dubs, and those other movies where Asian. I can stand french dubs cause i was raised watching those, but English dubs... no. So i got to watch them in cantonese with subtitles and well... anyway.

So i got this one and well... let me say that its a very sloppy movie. The story is hard to follow, as some pointed out, there is not much explaining who is who and does what, its one of those movie that could had use a voice over with a freeze frame on the major players explaining who they where.

Then the special effects... I'm sorry but computer blood and fire explosions that seem like they where made by an university student for a movie project... no thanks... Damn they are bad.

Martial Arts? Well the only saving grace of this movie... some are actually well done and pretty good, but sadly sometimes it got to be stained by that usual wired crap that its just screaming obvious in your face.

In the end, a very forgettable movie that i should had got for 5$ in the bargain bin, not at full retail price...