chowyunpat

I must have seen a totally different film than Kazuo_Kiriyama and archip57, I found it to be an exciting,entertaining and at times even touching martial film chock full of well choreographed and cringe inducing fight scenes. I'm not pretending it's Lawrence of Arabia (which, by the way contained a lot of historical inaccuracies)and its a notch below Ong Bak, but it does what it sets out to do and succeeds where so many Hollywood films fail in that it simply delivers the goods: well choreographed, bone crunching fight scenes. Its the kind of film that makes me feel giddy like a kid again and I felt the same way watching Ong Bak,Born to Fight, and Tom Yum Goong. I found the lead actress Jeeja Yanin to be demure and her performance very charming and sympathy inducing, not irritating in the least.

Also contrary to other claims made by one reviewer , there are no wires used in this movie and the blooper reel at the end of the film reveal that Miss Yanin's kicks actually did hurt some of the stunt men (did you happen to watch that Kazuo_Kiriyama?) and not all of her kicks were stationary as I recall she did many flying kicks, spin kicks and multiple kicking attacks, but I guess some people we're too busy thinking of stuff to criticize the film about to really notice the great fight choreography or maybe they should be watching something more cerebrally challenge and artistic fare like "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly" and stay away from immensely entertaining films like Tom Yum Goong, Born To Fight, and this one.

I guess some of the naysayers about this movie have seen a different movie than I did, because this movie to me was filled to the brim with the hyperkinetic off the charts excitement that Hong Kong action movies have been famous for. Once the action starts it has a breathless place that never lets up for a minute and it has everything a Hong Kong moviephile could love some well choreographed and bloody shootouts, some dangerous eye popping stunts, and some manically hair raising mix ups. I have seen this movie in the Chinese movie store for some time and finally decided to rent it and did I get my money's worth. This is a great example of the action films Hong Kong used to make in its heydey. They had no artistic intentions other than to provide a mindblowing, hyberbolic opiate for the retinas. You can have your arty-farty plotless Wong Kar Wai films and sit there and be pretentious, but I would rather watch a film like Enter The Eagles and have an intoxicating good time much like I would rather have a sweet wine, over that dry flavorless crap anyday because when I drink wine I wanna get a buzz and enjoy getting there and not sit there sipping some expensive crappy tasting wine marvelling at how great the bouquet is. The Dragon's daughter is awesome and gets in a dust up with the Benny the Jet that is close to on par with the classic fisticuffs between Jacky and the Jet. She is just spectacular to watch in action whether she is firing a gun or unleashing her fists of fury and seems to have capture some of the charm and charisma of her father, she has a very likable screen persona and its a shame that she didnt make more movies like this.

The film isnt perfect though, I found some of the drama while adequate, just seem to be by the numbers and the sequence with the blimp was the only other complaint I had. The acting was from good to fair and Micheal Wong is compentent for a change. I find it interesting that this film didnt have a US release like Gen X Cops did, especially since most of the film is in English.

One more thing people, the glory days of John Woo's heroic bloodshed days are over, so you might as well get used to that fact and stop being so jaded because watching this film was a blast and to compare to a John Woo film isn't fair, it may not be art, but it's damn fine entertainment and better than a lot of the crap that Hollywood has been putting out lately. You can have your arty-farty plotless Wong Kar Wai films, but I take this

I give this film 7 out of 10 stars because it was highly entertaining and fun despite it faults and plus where else you gonna see Shannon Lee shoot people and kick some ass? That alone was worth the price of rental. If only Hong Kong would have a made a film with Brandon Lee and Shannon Lee together. Oh well, its nice to dream.