Iceman

Judging from the cover I thought this was a period piece Martial Arts movie. But it does play in the modern times (that's in the 21st century). It might be convoluted and not good in its appeal to tell a story, but it does have Donnie Yen in it. And while he has done some way better movies (just the IP Man trilogy alone, but many more of course), he's always a pleasure to watch (fight).

Sometimes the comedy does work, though it's very plain to put it mildly. But while this isn't a masterpiece by any means, there have been worse movies. And I've seen a couple of them too. So this is entertaining to a degree, but if you don't watch too many movies, you may wanna skip this

Most negative reviews of the movie you can find on Internet are right. I don't know if it was the director or the writers but a lot in the story is downright terrible and makes absolutely no sense. The filmmakers took almost no time building up momentum for key scenes in the story and properly explaining the logic behind the characters' origins and motives and just jumps right away into the essential parts taken from the original 1989 movie ICEMAN COMETH.

The result is a hugely unfitting film with lots of nonsense humor (many "wtf moments from Wang Baoqiang, Yu Kang, and even Donnie Yen himself), incoherent acting performances, and obvious story loops. Unlike the original movie, the filmmakers also couldn't balance seriousness and comedy at all. Watching everything is like watching several types of movie genres rolled into one. It gets to the point where one would scratch the head thinking what the hell director Law Wing Cheong wanted to achieve and whether he lost it somewhere along the process of making the movie. Because the overall narrative is so confusing.

That being said, I think Donnie's action choreography is the saving grace. I especially enjoy the nightclub fight scene and the action finale on the bridge, which features creative ideas -- the concept behind Donnie's action direction forsakes the usual HK style exchanges of punches, kicks, blocks< because it's mostly situational and seeks dramatic tension -- wirework, and decent-looking CGI. All scenes, including the brief action sprinkles scenes, are shot and edited exceptionally well. And something that surprises me: It has the same sound design from SPL, FLASH POINT, and IP MAN quadrilogy giving the impact of the hits and blocks an edgier/meaty feel to it. However, unfortunately, they aren't in great numbers and, beside the ones I mentioned, they aren't lengthy either so what's present aren't enough to hold the whole movie.

Overall, it's yet another good example of bad remakes, and ending up as one of Donnie Yen's worst movies in recent years -- easily making SPECIAL ID look much better in comparison -- and ever (it's up there with CIRCUS KIDS and IRON MONKEY 2). This review has now given me little hope for the sequel being good in its' entirety, although I'm sure the action will be good. The bad reputation is very spot on!

ICEMAN is Donnie Yen's much-lauded remake of the Yuen Biao-starring '80s martial arts classic, THE ICEMAN COMETH. It sees Ming bodyguard Yen and a couple of his foes frozen in time and transported to the present day, where they continue their battle to the death while coming to terms with modern-day society.

I thought the original film was pretty good, with the reliable Yuen Wah as the villain and some great action, although it's not a favourite of mine. However, it's far, far better than this unfocused and messy comedy which sees Yen at his very worst. It's similar to THE EMPEROR AND THE WHITE SNAKE in that all of the action is augmented with endless wirework and dodgy CGI which makes for a very boring viewing experience overall. My favourite Yen films are the realistic ones like IP MAN and FLASH POINT, not the stupid CGI fantasy on offer here.

ICEMAN is overlong and overly pointless, with lots of random scenes that don't go anywhere. It's also offensive, with gross-out lowbrow comedy seemingly shoehorned in at random, and ethnic stereotypes cast throughout as the villains. Yen is on autopilot, as is Simon Yam, but the rest of the cast are plain awful. Particularly Huang Shengyi (THE EMPEROR AND THE WHITE SNAKE); I really can't understand how she keeps getting work as an actress.

Normally I am not overly keen on remakes or re-visiting of old movies. I mean, why meddle with something that had already been made? But I will say that this 2014 version of "Iceman" (aka "Bing feng: Chong sheng zhi men") was actually an entertaining and enjoyable remake and one well worthy of the older movie.

And it is because of the good special effects and CGI effects in the movie. Plus the dazzling martial arts performance from Donnie Yen, which always spices up a movie. Those two things put together make for a very enjoyable remake.

The story in "Iceman" is about an Imperial guard in the Ming Dynasty who was frozen solid during an epic battle. Then 400 years later he and his nemesis are brought back to life in modern day Hong Kong, which makes for a clash of cultures, traditions and customs.

"Iceman" is a very fast paced movie, as most Donnie Yen movies tend to be. And it is enjoyable from start to end.

The cast in "Iceman" was good, and people were doing good jobs with their respective roles and characters. Donnie Yen did, of course, steal the scene with his performances. But it was also nice to see Simon Yam and Wang Bao-Qiang in the movie.

There is also elements of comedy thrown into the movie, making it a combination of action and comedy. However, it is not done to the extend where the comedy is too much. This is, of course, a matter of preference if you enjoy a mix of comedy and action. I did enjoy it, especially because the comedy was done with moderation.

This is not a movie which challenges the audience in any way. You can essentially just sit back and enjoy the ride. The story is very self-explanatory and there are no plot twists along the way. So just sit back and watch the movie.

If you enjoy Asian cinema, then "Iceman" is definitely worth a watch.

Let us begin by setting the record straight. We are big Donnie Yen fans. Even before he became a household name with 'Ip Man', we admired the kung fu star for his uniquely thrilling moves in 'SPL'. Still, even his most loyal fans will probably be wondering just why he has appeared in one bad movie after another in recent times. Indeed, his last good one was Peter Chan's 'Wu Xia' back in 2012; since then, 'Together', 'Special ID' and 'The Monkey King' have not only been bad movies, at least the first two have approached the point of being unwatchable, which is something we'd thought we'd never say about a Donnie Yen film.

'Iceman' could very well have been that turning point in Yen's string of duds. Its source material was Clarence Fok's 1989 martial arts fantasy 'The Iceman Cometh', an entertaining blend of action, comedy, romance and period drama starring Yuen Biao, Maggie Cheung and Yuen Wah. Its budget is an eye-popping HK$200 million dollars. And even before its release, there has been much hype about a climactic sequence set on Hong Kong's iconic Tsing Ma Bridge which cost an additional HK$50 million dollars to film because the authorities wouldn't give the filmmakers permission to do so on location. In essence, this Captain America of the East was supposed to be big-budget action blockbuster spectacle, weighty enough to warrant a two-parter release not unlike 'Red Cliff'.

Yet after all that hype, 'Iceman' is worse than 'The Monkey King' and almost as bad as 'Special ID'. Much of that has to do with the tonally incoherent plot by Lam Fung which manages to be overplotted and dramatically undernourished at the same time. Working upon the original's concept of a Ming Dynasty warrior who awakens 400 years later to find himself in modern-day Hong Kong and continue a feud that began as far back, Lam throws in multiple subplots criss-crossing present and past. There is Yen's search for a time-travelling Golden Wheel of Time that is operated by a key called the Linga. There is a corrupt Police Commissioner (Simon Yam) bent on recovering Yen and his fellow frozen guards to apparently sell them to the North Koreans. And last but not least, there is Yen's budding romance with a nightclub hostess (Eva Huang), who is caring for her sickly mother in an expensive old folks' home.

The combination of so many disparate parts makes for an extremely disjointed whole, and it doesn't help that director Law Wing Cheong seems entirely overwhelmed at maintaining some semblance of coherence. His storytelling lurches backwards and forwards across time with little narrative flow or momentum - and what makes it worse is just how tonally jarring the shifts are, from comedy to romance to period fantasy and then to surprisingly graphic action. Law also seems to have gone way out of his league from the Johnnie To-like rom-coms ('2 Become 1' and 'Hooked on You') and crime dramas ('Punished') to large-scale blockbuster territory - notwithstanding his little-seen 'The Wrath of Vajra' last year - and simply lost his footing even on the very basic level of staging a compelling enough sequence.

The same could be said of lead star and action director Donnie Yen. Even when everything else was a letdown, the very marquee name of Yen promised that at least the action would not disappoint; alas not even in that regard does 'Iceman' count for anything. Save for the much touted finale on the Tsing Ma bridge, the rest of the action sequences here seem almost like an afterthought, too reliant on the kind of unrealistic wirework that B-grade properties oft relied on. And when we finally end up on the bridge, Yen becomes too obsessed with making this a 3D movie by hurling all sorts of weaponry towards his audience that it just becomes too gimmicky to take seriously. It is scant compensation for the seemingly interminable one half hour wait, and ultimately disappointing because neither Wang Baoqiang nor Kang Yu as his nemeses are anywhere near close to being Yen's worthy on screen opponents.

There are occasional pleasures though, and these often occur at times when the movie simply refuses to take itself seriously. We're not denying that these slapstick moments will be utterly cringe-worthy to many, but hey we take what we can get. For instance, we laughed when Yen first bursts out of his cryogenic tomb and then releases his urine like a water cannon. Ditto for his favourite catchphrase literally translated as 'your mother's breasts' in Chinese. Or how about when Wang and Yu start learning words like 'chicken curry spaghetti' from a gang of Indian grifters after saving them from the cops? There are also other fish-out-of-water comedic moments that border or belong in cheese, but that's the only kind of entertainment you're going to get out of 'Iceman'.

If you're going to try to enjoy 'Iceman' therefore, it's important to set your expectations just right. Don't go in expecting the kind of popcorn blockbuster that 'Captain America' ever was, for Chinese cinema has yet to produce a modern-day superhero movie that didn't suck (think Benny Chan's 'City Under Siege'). Don't go in expecting the kind of good old-fashioned martial arts action Donnie Yen presented in 'Ip Man' or the kind of gritty MMA fighting in 'SPL' or 'Special ID', for there is nothing but a gimmicky 3D sequence right at the end that matters at all. And don't go in expecting this to be any better than Yen's recent batch of movies, for this is just one more in a bad streak that we hope will be frozen forever in time.