SPL: Kill Zone

Definitely nihilistic and gritty Sha Po Lang is a good mix of cop drama and action film. I thought the direction was was quite nice although it seemed inconsistent, sometimes wandering into "art film" territory. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't know that it worked 100%. Overall I thought the movie was 'alright'. The plot was seriously stretched thin, you don't really get into the characters or care much for them; Audience members laughed at scenes that were supposed to be touching or sad but every criticism I could lay at the movies feet is fairly much washed away by the fight scenes.

Donnie yen did a spectacular job with the choreography and MMA fans will be glad to know there is an energetic mix of all types of fighting styles including Jiu Jitsu complete with take downs and arm-bars. One of the main fight sequences is the most spectacular upon first viewing and then more-so on reflection as you find out that Donnie Yen and Wu Jing had no rehearsal and no direction; simply, they were told to "go for it". To this point, the baton that yen wields in this fight scene was replaced three times as it was broken on Wu Jing's head while filming.

Sammo is fantastic and I still marvel at how he moves at his age. I've always been a fan of Donnie Yen and this is definitely a great fighting film for him. Wu Jing is a relative unknown but trained in the same opera company as Jacky Chan and Sammo Hung,being taught by Wo Ping. during the Q&A, Wu Jing said his next film will likely be a prequel to Sha Po Lang.

I took a photo of the stage assembly and thought I would include it here if anyone wants to see it. They were exceptional and patient at answering questions. even the slightly embarrassing ones.

http://virtuafighter.ca/downloads/SPL01.jpg

left to right: Translator for Wilson Yip, Wilson yip, Announcer guy, Sammo hung, Wu Jing, translator for Wu Jing.

This is a low budget movie about good intentioned cops taking the law into their own hands to take out the bad guys. With some kung-fu fighting mixed in. When it came to the cops trying to frame and wipe out the bad guys, it just wasn't all that interesting. Nor was it all that entertaining to watch. In another words it just wasn't one of the great Hong Kong crime syndicate movie or anything like that. So I just wanted to get to the fight scenes. Which is very very few in this movie. There is two main things that stands out about this movie. The first, is the fight between Donnie Yen and Wu Jing. The second is the ending, which I just didn't expect. Besides that this is a watchable flick, but not really a stand out movie.

6/10

Set to retire due to a terminal brain tumor, detective Simon Yam knows there's only one way for him and his loyal squad to deal with triad kingpin Sammo Hung and his troops: force on force. But no matter how hard they press - and they press HARD - Sammo presses back harder, and usually after he walks free when it becomes apparent Simon and his boys have violated every police procedure and human right imaginable in an effort to secure an apprehension.

When a mentally deficient A/V geek arrives at the station with a video showing Sammo teeing off on the head of Simon's undercover operative and one of his henchman finalizing the deal with a bullet to the head, Simon and his crew first beat the henchman to within an inch of his life, sending him flying off a high-rise rooftop, and then hatch a plan to edit the tape and make Sammo appear to be the killer. Of course, there's always a backup tape, and the vicious crime kingpin again walks free, this time with a master plan to wipe out Simon's unit for good.

Into this raging carnival of payback is transferred Simon's replacement Donnie, a not-quite- by-the-book hot shot whose initial protestations to the group's dark pragmatism and exclusionary procedures are rescinded after he helplessly watches one of them get slit up a treat by Sammo's snickering, psychotic blade-for-hire Jacky Wu Jing (who's hardly the "newcomer" he's being touted as by both the opening credits and the internet gossip cycle). That these two will later settle up accounts in a ferocious bout of hand-to-hand combat in the alley leading to Sammo's club is a foregone conclusion: that the fight is one of the most beautifully constructed, relentlessly exhilarating setpieces of martial arts choreography in the history of Hong Kong cinema, one that practically INVENTS new ways of kicking ass, comes as a breath of minty freshness in this era of assembly line romances and computer-assisted Jackie Chan in silly helmets.

The sequence is rivaled in short order when Donnie finally takes on the Big Man himself, virtually trashing Sammo's opulent nightclub in the process just moments after Simon's abortive last attempt to kill his archenemy buys him a series of gaping stab wounds and a Great Big Knife through his hand.

But the film isn't just about combat, phenomenal though it is; it's about consequences, and the dark decisions of the soul that, in Hong Kong movies at least, routinely resulted in cataclysm in film after film of the golden era of the 80's and 90's. The kind of movie that used to be worthy of the title Heroic Bloodshed, and a textbook exercise in escalating nihilism. No one escapes fate in SPL, not that they try very hard: combatants on both sides of the battle have tunnel vision and live only to see the other side pushing up the daisies, their own deaths often appearing as surprising to them as they are to us.

SPL feels like the movie its director, Wilson Yip, wanted to make in the mid-1990's, back when folks like Danny Lee knew the value of a hammer and a phone book in extracting confessions, so it doesn't surprise that the film is set in 1997 (a fact seemingly lost on the majority of the audience at the Toronto Film Festival where this debuted): how else to justify the "shoot-first-f***-the-questions" cocaine bust flashbacked as newly arrived Donnie quietly acquaints himself with the vacant desks of his new charges, or the sight of weary veteran Liu Kai-chi slapping around a mental retardate and trashing the poor boy's pad?

Not that the film is all bleakness. With the exception of Jacky's smirky, nutjob assassin, all the primary leads are given small vignettes that show they're firing on more than one cylinder: Simon becomes godfather to a little girl whose parents, witnesses to Sammo's dirty dealings, were killed by Jacky. Liu Kai-chi discovers the fate of his estranged father just moments before fate points his way; Donnie secretly plays video games with a mentally challenged ex-thief he clocked a little too hard; and Sammo interrupts several tense moments AND his climactic Donnie-brook to take calls from his wife, who after several failed pregnancies has finally given him a child, albeit one who will figure prominently in one of the most brutal twist endings of all time. There's more authentic characterization on display here than in any five Hong Kong action thrillers of the past few years (barring the gorgeously grim procedural of Johnny To) - not for nothing is the film set on Father's Day - a fact not lost on the likes of Yip and Yen, who must have known respective talents such as theirs, coupled with an Asian cinephile's dream cast, could only result in something truly memorable.

With little argument, this is Yip's most refined, tightly-wound effort to date, a lean, dark, unsparing bastard of a movie that melds the satiny luster of 2002, with which it shares art director Jeff Mak, with the sinewy, stripped-down plotting of BIO-ZOMBIE (minus the comedy, of course). Easily one of the best, if not THE best Hong Kong picture of 2005 so far, and I doubt the rest of the year will produce anything its equal.

This is some of the best fight choreography I have ever seen in 25+ years of watching martial arts films. The action was so exciting the entire crowd I was with in the theater were howling with delight. Sadly it is so rare nowadays to see a martial arts film where real martial artists are fighting instead of pop stars on wires, and it makes such a huge difference because Donnie, Sammo and Jacky Wu were simply incredible. My only complaint with the action was that there was not enough of it. Donnie Yen has finally joined the ranks of great fight choreographers with S.P.L.

As good as the action was though, the story fell flat for me and put the film into the "Very Good" category when it could have been "Great". They tried for an "Infernal Affairs" style police thriller and didn't nearly hit the mark. While Simon Yam and Sammo Hung were both great in their parts, the other acting was just functional and the story had way too much overdone melodramatic content that seemed very forced. The emotional arc of the picture was pretty much set up right at the beginning and would have been sufficient, but they had to keep laying on the unrealistic drama and it did slightly take away from my enjoyment of the film. Another criticism with the story was that it seemed like parts may have been cut from the film, because some pieces of the story that earlier had seemed pretty insignificant became a big deal towards the end of the film and it felt like it came out of nowhere, like we weren't told everything.

Having said that though, my negative criticism about the story should not stop you at all from seeing this film. I didn't go into S.P.L. expecting The Godfather, I just wanted to see some incredible martial arts action and I got it. I cannot wait to see what Donnie will do next.

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!