Fighting Fish

A really great Martial Arts movie. Especially concerning the budget.. I really don't get it why so many people on here are SO negative about this movie. Looks a lot like a 70's classic (in the Bruce Lee style), so what do they expect..The Matrix ?!?...

It's mostly the fighting scenes that REALLY stand out here. NOT the storyline. So you know.

It's a great movie if you love M.A. if you don't you won't like it at all. I don't like horror movies so no matter HOW good such a film is, I won't like it. It's the same with this one here. Either you like it or you hate it. It's purely based on personal taste. And I love it!!! ;-)

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.

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 very enjoyable film overall, as it is very different from the ones we normally see in Dutch cinema.

In the Netherlands, it's very difficult to get a project off the ground that is different. That is why it is very brave that this young film maker has tried to make a different film, knowing that he would not be comforted by the very rude critics in this small, filmwise totally insignificant little country.

Hopefully he gets the chance to do something abroad, because the visual style and beautiful musical score of this effort give me reason to believe that this mr.Aattache has a good feeling for making a low budget film look nice. My friends and I were happy to see that the Fighting Fish DVD was also very informative: more than 114 minutes of Bonus material!

Lets hope this is the start of more action films from the Netherlands, much better than the utter crap they usually produce, like "Costa", "Feestje" or more recently, "Ellis in Glamourland".