Into the Sun

I've watched many Seagal movies and his latest ones in the past 4 years or so have really been downers. Although they were fun to watch because you could always get your kicks out of the cheap acting, unrealistic gun battles and pathetic plot. I rented this movies looking forward to laughing more than paying attention. However, I must say, I was quite surprised because this movie is definitely much better than the other ones he's released lately. It's not near a 10/10 because it's simply put a low budget film and the whole 22 year old girl and Seagal getting engaged was a bit disturbing. But yeah, other than that it was a much better movie this time around.

When the governor of Tokyo is killed in his campaign for election, the former CIA agent Travis Hunter (Steven Seagal) is assigned to find the responsible working together with the rookie FBI agent Sean (Matthew Davis). Travis was raised in Japan, has great connections with the underworld of the streets and is a master in sword and martial arts, trained by a former member of Yakuza. Travis discloses that there is a war between the old and traditional members of Yakuza and the new generation leaded by the deranged and sick Kuroda (Takao Osawa), who has associated to the Chinese Tong mobster Chen (Ken Low) in a powerful drug dealing business. When his fiancée Nayako (Kanako Yamaguchi) is brutally and cowardly murdered by one of Kuroda's men, the mission of Travis becomes a personal issue and he seeks revenge.

"Into the Sun" is the best of the recent works of Steven Seagal. The story is flawed, full of clichés, but also very entertaining. Steven Seagal does not have the same agility of his first movies, but the plot is well supported by magnificent landscapes, wonderful soundtrack and a great cast. I really have not understood why he alternates speaking in English or Japanese; there are some dialogs that the Japanese characters speak in Japanese and Travis speaks in English, in a complete mess. But in the end, I liked this film. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Operação Sol Nascente" ("Operation Rising Sun")

If you've been disappointed with some of Seagal's film of late, don't let that stop you from seeing this one. Some people just think Seagal's a joke and hate everything the guy does. But this movie is never boring, it's very violent (like his films back "in the day" were), and the direction by "mink" (huh?) keeps the film moving at a brisk pace. The authentic Asian locations help a lot too.

While far from perfect, this movie rocks: it pours on the blood, the fights, the moments of zen "calm" -- all the things one expects from a Seagal film. And this one delivers!

Seagal wrote and performs some of the music for the film too. It's great stuff: he's a decent singer and a fine guitarist.

Keep crankin' 'em out, Steve!

So it's well known that the movie takes place in the actual neighborhood where Seagal grew up and studied martial arts, and also that he speaks fluent Japanese, but why have Japanese terrorists that are always speaking English? Isn't it just a little off-putting that the American hero is constantly speaking Japanese but the Japanese and Chinese guys all speak broken English to each other? Of course Seagal would want to show off his Japanese, since he almost never gets a chance to do it in his movies, but if they're going to go for that authenticity, they should at least include it where it really belongs as well…

As far as a Seagal film, it's about average as far as the films he has been releasing for the last ten years or so, none of which have really been all that impressive. But I still get a great kick out of his movies, even when they're not good. If nothing else, I can even enjoy the cheesy acting and paper-thin plots, and if even those fail at least Steve is always good for smacking around some bad guys.

But in Into the Sun, other than a brief skirmish near the beginning, it's a good hour into the movie before anything happens. Before then, we get a tirelessly developing but uninteresting plot about the Chinese and Japanese versions of the Mafia and how they are developing a massive drug corporation, with Seagal entering the mix investigating the murder of a government official.

Worst of all, however, is that the movie spends so much time developing the totally unnecessary and unconvincing romantic story, in which 54-year-old Steve in his floor- length leather trench-coat falls deeply and madly in love with a tiny, dainty Japanese girl who can't be more than 22.

Needless to say, my favorite part was when he sheepishly explains to her, "You know, I've never had the best luck with women. In fact, you could probably say I haven't had any luck at all…"

What's that, he's a virgin? Is he asking her to go easy on him in the sack?

But stay tuned, at the end of the movie this impressive team of filmmakers utilize an unbelievably complex and difficult bit of cinematic trickery to make the wife disappear from Steve's grasp. I noticed this particular bit of movie magic because I did the exact same thing in a six-minute movie I made with a $250 video camera when I was taking an Intro to Film class at Fresno City College in 1998. They really spared no expense with this movie!

The other problem is the bad guys themselves. They are such tired clichés that it's impossible from frame one to take any of them seriously, particularly the leader of the Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia). He's your typical, b-movie villain – slicked back hair, fishnet t- shirt, arm always slung over the chair he's slouched in and a lot of guys standing around him that jump to attention and do things for him when he snaps his fingers. Yawn.

The guy is so unimaginative and so unimpressive that he makes the movie seem longer because I'm just waiting to see him get killed at the end. Evidently, however, they knew when they were making the movie that some serious ingredients were missing, so they tried to cover up the gaps with things like the sound effects that make it sound like whenever someone gets cut with a sword they spray out a fountain of blood all over the place. Nice.

In the movie's defense, it's true that Steve does look good for his age, although he has certainly lost the hardened appeal that he had in his earliest movies like Hard to Kill and Out For Justice. At least he looks a lot better than he looked in Urban Justice, but unfortunately that's not saying a lot.

The movie is a bit of a curiosity piece because Seagal wrote and performed a lot of the music on the soundtrack, and he actually sings the song during the closing credits. It's a little disturbing to listen to, but I recommend you wait and check it out because it's not disturbing because it's so bad, it's disturbing because it's actually pretty good. Too bad the rest of the movie isn't quite as pleasantly disappointing

Steven Seagal once again return to straight-to-video hokum as a high-level American operative who is lent out to Japan to investigate a Yakuza hit on a top Japanese government official. Is the new generation of Yakuza out for world domination since they seem to no longer be content with just the drug trade? Will Seagal be able to defeat them all on his own and most importantly will you care or bother to continue watching?

Sadly Seagal's career is pretty much DOA. I really enjoyed many of his older films (Above the Law, my personal favorite Hard to Kill, Marked for Death and Under Siege). But sadly his films of late (The Foreigner, Belly of the Beast and now Into the Sun) just don't cut the grade. Never the most energetic and kinetic action stars, Seagal of late seems to have slowed down further and at times appears to be way out of shape. The scripts represent the dartboard method of writing with tired combos that fall flat.