Blood Money

Advertised as 'the next Bruce Lee', Zheng Liu makes his acting debut in Blood Money as Zhou, an unnamed hit-man for hire that changes his morals to suit whoever is offering the biggest cheque. But when his family is murdered by a ruthless drug lord, his job becomes somewhat more personal as he sides with the Asian Triads and goes looking for sweet revenge.

That's about as explanatory as anybody could be in attempting to synopsise this utterly plot less endeavour. Each formulaic scene plays out in the same fashion: rival drug gangs sit down for a meeting, tempers flare, shots are fired and any number of expendable baddies are removed from play, only to have an almost identical character take their place within mere minutes. Deaths, or at least death threats, are omnipresent, with the barrel of a gun often enjoying more screen time than the man holding it.

Those who disapprove of rapper Pitbull's glorified, self-indulgent music are not likely to enjoy his glorified, self-indulgent performance, but not all the blame rests with the hip-hop megastar.

The 'so-bad-it's-good' overacting and sketchy line delivery becomes very tired very quickly to the point that even the respected Gordon Liu, best known by Western audiences as Pai Mei from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, can't salvage an out-of-place role as Zhou's Shaolin monk mentor.

Often, the lone saving grace of films like this one is the action, but not so here. Being a martial artist first and an actor second, Liu's physical skill is apparent, but his fight sequences are shot and choreographed so poorly that they make Sonny's infamous miss on Carlo Rizzi look like a send-off offence.

In case the point hasn't been made clearly enough already, there are no redeemable qualities to draw from Blood Money, which is at best an embarrassing excuse for an action thriller and at worst an unmitigated disaster of a film.

*There's nothing I love more than a bit of feedback, good or bad. So drop me a line on jnatsis@iprimus.com.au and let me know what you thought of my review. If you're looking for a writer for your movie website or other publication, I'd also love to hear from you.*

I understand were all different. We all see things in a unique perspective-our own.

Having said that, I cant believe for one second that someone sat through this whole movie and thought to themselves, 'wow!'. I cant believe it.

I wanted this to be good 'cos I was bored and hoping it would sit nicely. I was wrong. Its very confusing and feels like its trying too hard to be something its not-exciting and plot-driven.

Im sorry. There is no way someone thought this movie was above a 5, let alone an 8!

The ratings at IMDb cannot be trusted. Come here to get the plot idea about the movie but put no faith in the ratings. They are garbage. Either that, or the site has nothing but 12yr old 'pitbull' fans posting their reviews.

Don't get excited like I did and mistake this for some kick-ass Hong Kong actioner. It's actually an Australian cheapie which just so happens to be shot in Hong Kong. It stars the unknown actor Zheng Liu as a fighter who gets involved in a battle against the usual drug runners. I know little about Liu, except that he trained at the real-life Shaolin Temple, but his acting is woefully bad and any martial talents he possesses are hidden by poor choreography which all too often employs the unwanted shaky-cam. The plot is cookie cutter stuff, Gordon Liu's cameo is wasted, and the CGI explosions take bad FX to the next level. It's pretty tiresome, if I'm honest.

Nothing wrong with a good, silly, action packed Kung Fu flick but this movie unfortunately has very little going for it.

First of all, I had an incredible hard time ever getting into this movie. Not necessarily because it was doing some silly things but more so because of its story. For most of the I had absolutely no clue what was going and who was fighting who and what for exactly. OK, so it's all drugs related I got that but please don't ask me what the main plot line was supposed to be all about. But what was even worse, was that I had absolutely no idea who the main characters was and what or who he was fighting for. The movie does an overall poor job with handling and explaining its story, which brings me to another point.

The movie really isn't all that well directed. Gregory McQualter is a first time director, that might be a good excuse but fact remains that both the storytelling and overall flow of the movie are far too lacking. It's obvious McQualter had more eye and passion for making a Kung Fu flick with plenty of action in it but he had no clue how to tell a good and compelling story as well, which got us involved with its characters and events happening on the screen. Not that the story itself seemed to be anything too solid either but I still have the feeling that in the hands of a more capable and experienced director this movie still could had worked out and at least would had become something more fun and entertaining to watch.

At first I thought it was a bad move for the movie to not let its main character, played by Zheng Liu, speak a lot. It made him uninteresting as a character and it was something that could had still worked out with a far more charismatic person. Then he however started to open his mouth more and suddenly I started to wish that he stayed mute for the entire movie. He really can't act and all of the dialog that's coming from his mouth sounded awful.

This obviously wasn't a very expensive movie to make and in that regard it's still being a bit of an accomplishment. It has a good look to it but I did also wished that I held back on its special effects a little bit more at times. It isn't always that convincing looking and it took away some from the movie its action as well.

The action is still some decent stuff. I at least feel and think that the genre lovers will still get some kicks out of it. Zheng Liu is obviously more talented in that department as well, though he most certainly ain't no Bruce Lee of course, which this movie desperately still tries to let you believe.

I was certainly glad when the movie finally was over.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I read a lot of the past reviews and yes there are areas in this movie that are at times confusing and yes we can not clearly understand every word our hero is saying and heck yes some of the special effects are very badly done. The plot was not exactly clear either. However that all being said, I must say that when I sat down to watch this I wasn't expecting an academy award winning, Oscar taking movie, no I was simply expecting the old style martial arts movies from the old days,and yes, even a Bruce Lee style movie, and for me that is exactly what I got. I have yet to sit down to a martial arts movie and expect an Oscar, no I expect great fight scenes and this movie has that for sure. We don't get a choppy fight scene where the screen cuts from one angle to another after every punch to hide the fact that the stunt person is actually doing it, no this movie lets you see a continuous flow of action during the fights and not close up on the face or arm or leg but on the whole body in motion. The main actor here might not have been a Bruce Lee cause there will never be another Bruce but as far as his fighting style on screen he would make Bruce proud. Visual physical poetry in motion. It's true I give this movie a 5 which is good, and thats just because of the great fight scenes.