Han cheng gong lüe

I'd give this a lower rating if I could, and that's not because I don't "GET the Asian genre." I love Asian films (being Asian myself), even during times when the story lines become overbearingly sentimental, cute or cloying.

But this one... I could barely get past the first 15 minutes. Each time I saw that smug face of Richie Renn's character I wanted to punch him in the nose. No offense to the actor himself (as I know there are many of his fans probably reading this), but I really hated the character. And his entourage of 3 Korean "babes" -- give me a break! All they did was follow him around and display the worst martial arts skills this side of Kung Pao.

I like Tony Leung, and Qi Shu always makes nice eye candy, but c'mon -- couldn't they have come up with something better than this? It's like they're all sleepwalking through their roles. And the ridiculous subtitles? Who distributed this? I've seen more coherent sentences coming from a 3-year old preschooler.

Movies like this make films like the incredibly bad "Dream of a Warrior" instant classics by comparison. What next? Calcutta Raiders? Mercy, please...

"Seoul Raiders" is a great sequel to the "Tokyo Raiders" movie. Why? Well because it has what you need in a Hong Kong movie; action, comedy, martial arts, and of course a good story.

The story starts out in Hong Kong where Lam (played by Tony Leung) meets JJ (played by Shu Qi) during a robbery for some plates to make money. US government agent Owen (played by Richie Ren) is to take the plates into custody, but someone gets tricked. The trail leads to Seoul, Korea, and the chase is on. But who tricks who, and who can you trust?

The action scenes in "Seoul Raiders" were nicely choreographed and with just enough comedy to make it great - and by that I mean it is not Jackie Chan action comedy (eventhough that is awesome, by the way). But "Seoul Raiders" manages to mix in comedy in the action, and it works out well enough. And the dialogue is full of funny remarks as well, which helps it along. However, it is sort of odd that there are very little use of guns in this movie. You would assume that Korean mobsters or criminals would be carrying and using guns. But no, it was all handled by hand and foot here, in displays of good martial arts. Don't expect the martial arts scenes to be in the scales of Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen, then you will just be disappointed. But still, the martial arts was great and nicely choreographed.

However, the movie was carried by two of the bigger stars of Hong Kong cinema, that being Tony Leung and Shu Qi. It should be said that Richie Ren did a great job as well, but to know who he is, you must really be into Hong Kong cinema, as he is not as established outside Asia as Tony Leung and Shu Qi are. The Korean recruited cast also did great jobs with their roles.

"Seoul Raiders" is good entertainment both story-wise, action-wise and comedy-wise, as it merges all three genres quite well.

Yeah, the comment above is very well worded and deep. This movie, while contains some fun dialogue, is certainly not deep. Perhaps in the English or Japanese version things come across differently but I watched it in Chinese, and Seoul Raiders is a run of the mill Hong Kong style action/comedy. That is not to say it was not enjoyable! Leung is superbly funny, and all of the gags that are pulled are hilarious. It definitely has a Stephen Chow feel. Also, i'm not sure if they translate well into English, but the jokes are nuanced and witty. I'd highly recommend this movie for a fun, up beat evening. But if you are looking for a dark character study, this is not the place to start.

Seoul Raiders is a drama with dark humor, satire reflecting some dark side of human in violence or ego that that could be converged into something different form of expression as well. In this film Seoul Raiders, Tony vividly indicated the sheer fact that it is true there are some people who cannot feel be content with himself/herself without indulging in the form of some sort of "violence" or "forceful position" in order to merely protect his/her ego and bring back his/her mental balance despite the fact that such violence or forceful position merely accelerate his/her thirsty of seeking some pain in feeling dark – mal-conditioned self-destructive - nature of harming others. The core of this film is, I assume, that the dark feeling Tony expressed. Lam was about to soak into the sea of irrational excessive hate at the verge of humanity as if Lam was tired of being only moderate and good. I suspect that Lam had felt useless in solving/helping something/someone or situations - say, at the beginning of this film- if Lam was being only humane good and gentle, which may have had undermined his sense of direction of his life. Lam was, however, somehow, recovered from the verge. Lam completed his job and brought back his confidence then recovered his damaged ego and reputation in his carrier.

But psychological pressures and some shadows in Lam's character seemed to have remained, which is enough cruel to torn Lam's humane goodness apart and to bring him back to the indulgence into the pain in harming which is, in fact, a simple biological chemical response in human brain to the stimuli of seeking some sort of feeling of achievement – in fact doing harms by violence is not anything achievement but is merely a result of simple physical power from body movement - nothing more than that. However, unfortunately, some people are wrongly confused by malice-manipulation AS IF some violence to others or harming others are only tangible unattainable achievements which are only be able to be done by someone who can be real cruel only with non-humane sense, which utterly wrongly puts force on people to the verge of humane, which inevitably devastatingly completely destroys his/her humane goodness in its original nature. That humane goodness is, nevertheless, only key to survive on this globe. That humane goodness only made people humane. However, somehow, people are/were forced to be put on the helpless non-exit unnecessary competition in "achieving" such simple violence and non-humane sometimes when people feels something helpless in his/her situation in seeking self-destruction or seeking numbness in pain in harming others which means harming himself herself with 'spotless mind' in recognizing/analyzing what s/he does – as in this film Lam did. (well, besides this film and Tony, I should say though …Some people who are not able to understand – or say who are not even trying to find out what s/he is doing in harming others cannot be seen as same as Lam or someone like that. Such people are simply lacking in courage of facing with what harming others irrationally unreasonably only for fun meant to himself/herself and others at the end of the day) ...then What would happen to Lam - Tony's expression in Raiders series- in next Raiders????

The subdued and thick darkness in the Tony's expression in Seoul Raiders about the risk of human nature was, that was why, essential core in this film as a warning to anyone who never thought of being indulge into any violence.

If there is any another version without the last plane battle, the onsen scene....for dialog between Tony and other actors actresses in order to concentrate on deepening the Lam's character because Tony expressed that tone (and other actors/actresses too) although I think I can imagine how much and how far action scenes are hard and difficult for any stuffs, not only for actors/actresses. But I just felt that this film could have shown something more than the film shown.... Deepening the Lam's character is, I strongly believe, a quite right direction of this film in maximizing and enhancing the prospective attractiveness in this script and film by the excellence in the depth in expression as always by Tony that differentiates the series from any other 'action' film.

All in all, a lovely dark quick wit film Besides the drama nature of the film, what I was impressed was that I simply love many scenes in this film since those Tony's real quick wit and genuine parody of "action film" …… I will not tell which scene it was but I especially loved one parody sequence in the film very much. All in all, I think the Raiders series and this is lovely and dark.

SHU CHI (as she was in Gorgeous) and Ritchie added the tone of drama as well, as Hiroshi Abe (impressive caricature of Yakima as a human with humane weakness that was very memorable co-play with Tony)(and Toru Nakamura) did in Tokyo Raiders I guess.

I guess if someone who is found of tasting the later series of Detective Crusou, you may like this darkness as well.

"Tokyo Raiders", made in 2000, was a fun, lightweight action film that didn't exactly cry out for a sequel. But after five whole years one was made anyway, and it is another fun, lightweight action film that manages to equal, if not top, its predecessor. There are some creative fight / chase scenes (in the subway, on the wings of a bi-plane, etc.), and most of them have a comic element as well. It's always nice to see a Hong Kong film with real martial arts and limited wire-work and CGI, though the editing can be confusing at times. Tony Leung is a cool and suave lead, like an Asian version of James Bond. Shu Qi is charming, if perhaps underused action-wise. And Richie Ren does a good job of replacing Ekin Cheng (not in the same role) from the first film. Overall, "Seoul Raiders" is a film that doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is - pure entertainment - and I enjoyed it on that level both times I saw it. (**1/2)