Fighting Fish

Well, let's see, this film has some nice fight scenes, very original indeed. The art direction makes for some great images, especially the scenes where Kim Ho Kim fights with the three bad guys after he accused them of killing his brother looks much like a real Hong Kong setting. The music is also very good, it's very original and of a high quality level.

As far as the story goes, it's predictable and nothing special really... the acting is not great, and some dialog is really bad... but Jennifer the Jong is not all that bad.. They better use the fighters from this movie in a production with a better script.

I got the DVD for a few euro's, and it contains a lot of bonus material, a making of and documentary, and the short feature "Buren" which is from the same director. I think Buren is a very nice short film, which also has nice art direction, and a good performance by Esmeé de la Bretonière. All in all a rather nice DVD.

1. This movie has an horrible story, the Street Figher games have a better plot. 2. The dialogs are horrible, the few that are in the movie, because a great deal of the movie consists of fighting scenes. 3. The only positive point that I have given this movie 1 point is that the fighting scenes look very professional and realistic. The thing is that after a whole bunch of fights it becomes a little boring to watch... I is sad that this movie, completely recorded in Rotterdam, has only been two weeks in the Dutch Cinema. I thought i'll try to view it anyway, but I have lost two precious hours of my life watching Chantal Janzen acting in this horrible movie.

A lot of this movie was made before it came out, as it's the first martial arts film from the Netherlands. After watching there can be 2 conclusions made: 1. it will probably be the last M.A. film from the Netherlands as well and 2. there's a reason for that.

Let's look at the story first. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy has to 'do something' for honour of the family. Girl gets beaten up by gang. Older brother forbids the formerly 'bad guy' to stay in her life. In the end it all works out.

I know, booooriiiiiing. So let's look at what should have made this movie special. Should have, because this movie is everything but special. Now, these martial arts fighting scenes are so silly, the camera-work is so dull and the fights way too long... one can only wonder, 'what were they thinking'?

The movie got slammed both by the critics as well as the public, and there's a reason for that...

2/10.

Wow, I just walked out of a screening of "Fighting Fish" because it truly is a horrible movie. This is the "first dutch martial arts movie", and if this is the best they can do, it should also be the last.

It's a story about an ex-triad member who comes to Rotterdam to avenge his brother. Trow in some power hungry son of a triad leader, a dutch girl (oooh, Chinese and dutch people don't mix, don't date her!), and a lot of people who never have acted in a movie before and voilá: "Fighting Fish".

Cheesy dialogs, horrible martial arts (why don't they pretend that they want to hit each other?), boring storyline. Only good thing about this movie is the location (Rotterdam), it was fun to see my own city in a Kung-Fu movie. If you don't live in Rotterdam (or never been there) you probably don't care (so one less reason to see this film).

I didn't expect anything good from this movie, Still it was extremely disappointing. Not recommended for anyone (even for lovers of bad martial arts films playing in Rotterdam). If you are so eager about seeing a martial arts film in Holland, see "Who am I" instead.

Road map of Fighting Fish is very predictable. Content is razor thin and I suspects some copy work too. And the actor's performance can be compared with Arnold Schwarzenegger in this early years. Although the stif character of the A-Ken suits very well.

You have to watch this movie with a martial arts glasses. And when you do this, Fighting Fish is one of the top I have seen. It is not the spectacular kind of special effects a la Matrix. But more a slow and long shoot action style. There is of course show elements but the actions scenes are sublime. Especially the combination with the Asian drum like music make this movie a top in his kind.