Chek dou

I hadn't heard about the 2015 movie "Helios" (aka "Chek dou") before sitting down to watch it in 2021. And let me just say right away that this was definitely an enjoyable movie.

Now, normally I am not one overly keen on crime movies, but I will admit that writers Dean Kole, Lok Man Leung, Kim-Ching Luk and Robert Stein definitely managed to put together an interesting storyline here, and it was one that proved entertaining and captivating from the beginning and right up to the end.

"Helios" has the type of story that grabs the audience in an iron grip and doesn't let you go before the end credits starts rolling. And although running close to two hours, the movie didn't feel prolonged or slow. There was a great pacing to the storyline, and there was always something happening to further the story and keep the audience enthralled. So thumbs up to directors Lok Man Leung and Kim-Ching Luk for that achievement. Plus, the storyline is not a linear one, there are some nice plot turns and twists along the way, which makes for a non-predictable movie.

If you are a fan of Asian cinema, then you will find yourself in for a treat here, given the casted performers, with the likes of Shawn Yue, Jacky Cheung, Nick Cheung and Jin-hee Ji.

Visually then "Helios" was a good movie, because it often felt like you were right there in the movie, amidst the chaos, gunfights and drama. Definitely a good appeal to the movie. And the action sequences are nicely choreographed and executed in a very realistic and believable manner.

My rating of the 2015 movie "Helios" lands on a seven out of ten stars. For an action crime movie then "Helios" definitely proved to be enjoyable and entertaining. And it is a movie that I can warmly recommend you sitting down to watch if you have the chance and if you enjoy crime movies.

From the writers-directors of Cold War, multiply their previous budget by a few times, with a cast of who's who from Korea, China and Hong Kong, come Helios, the most logic defying film I have seen this year.

Synopsis - A portable nuclear device, DC8, has been stolen from South Korea by a ruthless criminal (Chang Chen) and his accomplice (Janice Man). As the weapon will change hands in Hong Kong, Lee (Nick Cheung) from the territory's Counter Terrorism Response Unit sets up a task force, which includes police officer Fan (Shawn Yue), to deal with the crisis. He enlists physics professor Siu (Jacky Cheung) as an adviser and has to work with South Korean weapon experts Choi (Ji Jin Hee) and Pok (Choi Si Won). Despite their efforts, the elusive criminal mastermind, Helios, is always a step ahead of Lee.

Review - The whole movie is based on a MacGuffin which at first I thought is a weapon, but later on it becomes a criminal mastermind. The actors talk and talk non-stop in such an overly serious tone and wear one single frowning/brooding/angry/nondescript expression throughout. There is so much lambo humbo mambo jumbo spewing out which might as well be nonsense to me. First rule of the thumb is show me, don't tell me. For example, everybody keeps proclaiming the power of the bomb but I just couldn't feel the danger. At one time I even turned to my wife and said "I seriously hope Hong Kong gets entirely destroyed". Then right at the end of the movie somebody has the bright idea to put title cards to show the statistics of the what if disaster if the bomb did explode. That made me feel so dumb and when I watch a movie that is one feeling I never want to have.

Second rule for me is I never want to see the strings. If I see the strings of the puppeteer, the game is over. I frigging see the strings everywhere. I give one example - the filmmakers feel a need to humanize Chang Chen's villain that they write the Macau scene. IMHO the entire Macau episode is one long and useless scene. If you take that redundant scene out, I have a feeling the film would have tightened up more.

There is nothing new here. The action scenes, the story idea, I have seen before in better lesser films. Nothing here coalesce in any meaningful way. The plot is unnecessarily convoluted when it should be immediate. There are just too many players here. Other than the nationalities I mentioned, there are Turkish, Sikh, Caucasians and they even parachute in Americans and Anglo Saxsons, verbally. Every character acts and looks like they are double-crossers or triple-crossers. I couldn't care for anyone and I didn't mind if all the idiots die. After awhile we already knew who Helios is way before the fella was revealed. Damn hate seeing the puppeteers' strings, heck I think they are more like ropes than strings.

As if one movie is not enough, the movie ends on a contrived cliffhanger note that screams in your face that this is just the first act of a longer film. We would be dumbasses if we even buy tickets for the sequel. The only consolation is that we had free passes to the movie. God forbid I pay for this rubbish. But if the filmmakers make the sequel to Cold War, that would be a different story.

I gave 2 stars just for the firefighting scenes, if without considering this very small and unimportant part, then it should get only 1 star or even less. Again, a lousy screenplay with terrible and awkward dialog, the conversation between every two persons or three persons were so awkward and illogical, especially when the guy who played the high ranking official from China tried to deliver his bullshitting national security crap, the guy just turned into an obnoxious moron, the logic of his reasoning about holding the nuclear weaponry in Hong Kong, then got excuse to discuss and negotiate this situation was just absurd and ridiculous, even a low I.Q. moron would think it was stupid.

At the very beginning of the movie, we saw a crashed airplane, then we saw a young woman from China visited the crashing site. It was a night scene, yet this female moron still unbelievably wore dark sunglasses! As soon as this scene appeared on the screen, my immediate thought was: "WTF?!" And from then on, ridiculous scene after scene accompanied with the stupidest and the most awkward dialog kept coming up.

The actor who played the so-called "Helios" was definitely a terrible wrong cast, a skinny guy looked like a junkie without showing any believable cunning abilities to be a well-known international weaponry smuggler. Then there was his bodyguard, another "WTF?!" casting again. Casting pretty and sexy flesh and meat to play a dangerous, murderous role, even it may be necessary, this young woman was absolutely inserted just for the eye-candy to boost the box office, but it's still a very formulaic and stupid appendix role.

The guy who played the highest Hong Kong police officer was another wrong choice for such important role, the guy with a botox cosmetic face and a sissy hairdo only gave the viewers another unconvincing, much too light weighted lamer impression.

The professor was unfortunately given terrible dialog to almost every occasion, and his formulaic image of a bookworm nerd was a funny bow tie!

Two handsome Korean male actors were good; at least the plastic cosmetic jobs were great. :)

I went to see Helios with no preconceived idea of the critics response and fearing the worse but I was pleasantly surprised and had a good thrill thanks to a few decent action scenes and I felt entertained throughout, which I cannot say about Cold War, one of the film makers previous effort. The cast was good and I loved the way each country was presenting itself in a very good light but different from one another. Modern movie clichés if you like...Anyway,it had the style one associates with the directors but again, unlike Cold War, it actually looked like HK and made it an OTT version of the city which suited the movie ambitious concept(some may say pretentious). At times walking the fine line between slick and cheesy, it got me involved and I will go and see the sequel.

A good actioner with enough pizzaz to satisfy fans of Asian commercial movies.

Yes the movie and its "story" is all over the place - but the action this delivers (sporadically but sufficient) makes up for that. You may also feel that the ending is a letdown, but hopefully this all will not take away the fun you can have with this. And I use fun lightly here, since this is a serious matter we are talking about (terrorism and all that).

It could have been shorter and I'm not sure if there will be a sequel in the future. Maybe that would change the view for some, maybe if there wouldn't be one it would change their view on this also. For now we can only judge what we have in front of us and it's a decent effort in the thriller/terror genre