Abduction

An unusual mix of martial arts style action and alien sci-fi. Doesn't really work. Strictly for b-movie fans only and watchable if you accept that from the start.

I really like Scott Adkins and watch pretty much all his movies. Abduction kinda passed under the radar as one of those obscure movies. No direct to DVD release in video stores, no VOD release on Xbox (where i check for the VOD movies personally). There was just a few DVD on ebay i kinda just came across in a random "Scott Adkins" search. Managed to get one for rather cheap and so i was able to saw it.

The martial arts there was were pretty good. Not a "ton" of it but enough to keep me entertained enough. The story tough was really not my kind of cup. I don't mind an alien story at all but this one is a bit confusing and purposely made so you don't get to know much on the aliens, who they are, how their power operate or whatever. Also Aliens just don't blend well with Martial Arts.

I kinda get why this movie didn't get a big release. I am not into Scott's shoes so i have no idea if he took it because he taught it sounded cool or because he needed work, but this clearly won't make his best movies list. That being said the movie is far from being "bad". Its competent on every level and like i said the fights are well shot and fun, but the budget was probably very low, they couldn't made much of what they had in mind. For instance the "Alien World" exterior shot looked very cool but we see it for a VERY short ammount of time. Most of the movie happen in vietnam regular locations or barns...

But even with the negative, i can't say i was bored really or waited for it to finally end or anything, its just one of those movies i watched and when it finish i was like "ok... well, spent time, won't probably watch it again but was decent enough".

I gave this movie a 7. It had some good fight sequences and the overall production values were good. Looking at the executive producer and financing list I don't think its really aimed at a western audience but rather chinese and vietnamese audiences. Its sort of a hash of eastern mysticism/scifi/martial arts. So I can understand some of the low scores although they are not really warranted - nothing in this movie was a "2" and if you want to see a 2 score movie I can point the way to plenty.

Anyways it has a discernable plot, it flows forward with no obvious continuity errors, has a reasonable budget for cgi and special effects, and has some good martial arts sequences. Its not going to win any awards but if you like an action movie with a touch of scifi to it and have exhausted all the tier 1 and 2 level movies then this is an ok stop.

I gave this a 4 based solely on the fight scenes. Other than that this is just a mess. Directing sucked, acting sub par, story and ending was dumb. And how the hell could the guy speak no vietnamese whatsoever but had no problem understanding everyone who spoke it?

4.1

Let's face it, we don't expect much from these type of B-grade action flicks, but oddly enough I enjoyed the martial-arts-meets-sci-fi cross-genre. Sure the plot had issues (e.g. why the stutter? comedy? fail), and the screenplay was amateurish writing to go with the sub-par directing, but the fight choreography and story premise was enjoyable and thus a 6/10 from me.