Fighting Fish

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.

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.

The movie is time well spend if you are a martial arts fan. The fighting scene's were great. Very good choreography! All these guys are just complaining about nothing. This is an average martial arts movie and should be rated as a martial arts movie. All and all for a dutch production this is an excellent martial arts movie, even if the story could be a little bit more original. The actors Kim ho Kim and Ron Smoorenburg really outdone themselves in the fighting scene at the hospital. This movie is a real demonstration of great martial arts skills. In short the story is about a young Chinese guy from Hong Kong, who goes to Holland to take revenge on those who killed his brother. While he's trying to find out who's responsible for his brothers death he meets a dutch girl and falls in love with her. This isn't being taken well by the people around him. They think it's against tradition. on his search for the killer he gets help from his old friends or are they foes...

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".

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.