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Review by Daniel Lima  Jackie Chan is one of the most recognizable movie stars on the planet, perhaps the single most recognizable martial arts star. Kung Fu Rookie is a testament to his international appeal: an independently produced love letter to the man’s films, from the nation of Kazakhstan. That it is so indebted to his work creates a low ceiling for what this can achieve, but the studious attentiveness to what made his classic oeuvre so enchanting also gives this a high floor. By all appearances, this film is a passion project of star, producer and editor Timur Baktybayev. He plays a young man who moves from the countryside to Almaty, the largest city in the nation, in order to join the police force. Along the way, he reunites with his good-natured uncle, gets a love interest, runs afoul of a local gang of thugs, and gets into some wild fights. It’s practically impossible to talk about Kung Fu Rookie entirely on its own merits, as its constant references to Jackie Chan’s filmography — particularly his 1990’s films, when he really broke out on the international scene — seem to encourage those comparisons. The plot is a broad strokes rendition of Rumble in the Bronx; Baktybayev is clearly playing a take on Chan’s own screen persona, down to the wardrobe; all of the fights are pulled from his films, in setting and in choreography. Specific beats and gags from the action are present, and I am certain other bits outside the fight scenes simply went over my head. All of this is in good fun, but when the sole intent of art is to retread other art, there’s an enforced limit to how impressive it can be. Chan’s films existed at a particular time and place that allowed them to take the form they did. Hong Kong had a long history of action cinema, and productions were given ample time and budget to deliver set pieces; there was a large number of talented martial artists and stuntmen looking for work; Jackie Chan was an icon who people were willing to risk injury for. None of these things are true of a low budget independent film from Kazakhstan, and so it could never hope to achieve these heights.  In spite of this, Baktybayev and director Aman Ergaziyev work with what they have. Where much of Chan’s comedic work is big and broad, this film plays like a lowkey, low stakes romantic comedy: making breakfast with uncle, studying with the cute girl, helping the nice lady with her groceries. No performances stand out, but they are all charming, sweet, and easy to root for. The villains receive far less definition, but as with the films that inspired this, that’s less important than if they can be convincingly threatening in a fight. It certainly helps that this is leaner than most Hong Kong comedies, barely over an hour before credits. I can certainly think of plenty of small action films that could have benefited from such a streamlined narrative.
None of this is to say the set pieces are bad. While it’s clear that Baktybayev and the team he’s assembled don’t approach the level of on-screen athleticism of Jackie and his stunt team in their prime, they all clearly have at least some training (two of the villains are played by pro MMA fighters). It’s also clear from the blooper reel that ends the film, another Jackie staple that they were all willing to risk injury and take the time to nail their beats exactly; no surprise that the star himself chose to do the editing. The fights themselves, while necessarily pared down and simplified from what they reference, still follow the same principles that made them so electric: incorporating the environment into the action, constantly keeping the hero on the back foot and forcing to overcome incredible odds, peppering in comedy without dialing down the intensity of the movement. There’s even a handful of laudable original flourishes, the highlight being a fight on a merry-go-round. One can only imagine what could have been achieved if they were untethered to the source material. As derivative as Kung Fu Rookie may be, it is the best kind of loving homage. Beyond the appreciation for, and intimate understanding of, all that made Jackie Chan so special to so many, this is also clearly the work of someone who has internalized all of what they’ve learned. As I understand it, Kazakstan does not have a particularly robust film industry and that is a shame. The world could use some more of Timur Baktybayev. Kung Fu Rookie is now available on digital. Rating: 3.5/5
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Review by Daniel Lima  Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “A gang of armed terrorists take a high society office party in a skyscraper hostage, but are unaware of a fly in the ointment with a particular set of skills.” Yes, the new Martin Campbell project Cleaner is yet another Die Hard riff. To its credit, it manages to get right parts of that film’s formula many other derivative works do not. Everything else is a spectacular failure. Daisy Ridley is a former British Army soldier who is down on her luck. On the same day that her autistic brother, played by Michael Tuck, is kicked out of his care home, she is forced to take him to her work… as a window cleaner, the same day of the aforementioned hostage situation. Things go south from there. If there’s one thing to commend Cleaner for, it handles the setup surprisingly well. The opening scene is a flashback to the siblings’ childhood, with their abusive father putting hands on the brother as young Ridley climbs(!) around her kitchen and sits out on the window. It’s a laughably direct and obvious way to establish the characters’ relationship, past trauma, and foreshadow her pivotal role as someone who hangs onto things at high altitudes. For a lean action-thriller, however, this is also an effective way to announce what to expect: a not-too-serious bit of fun, nevertheless grounded in human emotion. It helps that Ridley has such an easy rapport with Tuck. She nails the exasperation of someone in her position, trying to get their life together yet forced to look after someone who may always need them. In spite of a role that may on paper dive into popular cliches about autism, Tuck makes his character feel like a human being whose disorder is a part of him without necessarily defining him. The push-pull dynamic between the two is not enumerated on in the script, but their performances tell a shared history, and would have provided a solid foundation for a compelling action yarn. Unfortunately, Cleaner does not capitalize on that.  Any good Die Hard clone knows that one of the most important aspects is the antagonist. With the cast and setting so limited, much of the story’s drive comes from the nature of the foe set against the fettered hero. Here, an attempt is made to craft a villain who actually has some convincing moral arguments: the terrorists are actually environmental activists, who intend to reveal the environmental damages and assassination of other activists perpetrated by those wealthy and powerful individuals.
Why should we care about the lives of these awful people? As if to answer this, the leader of this group is usurped by an even more militant figure, a self-described anti-humanist (a philosophy that does exist, but not in the form portrayed here) who has no qualms about killing. Unfortunately, this just creates a new problem: the people being targeted are, in their own way, anti-humanists with no qualms about killing. The difference is the terrorists are moral absolutist fatalists, and the bourgeois are motivated solely by profit. Say what you will about the tenets of antihumanism, at least it’s an ethos. The film does attempt broaden out the scope of the threat late in the game, but too late to keep the audience from the side of the activists. That said, it’s not like the office workers at Nakatomi Plaza were fleshed out and sympathetic. What made Die Hard work was that its hero had a personal stake in stopping the unfolding events. Not only was his wife being held hostage, he was a police officer, and thus had a vested interest in putting an end to criminal wrongdoing. Beyond that, the film is structured in a way that constantly changes the resources both protagonist and antagonist have at their disposal, shifting momentum and who has the upper hand, as well as delivering solid action set pieces. On paper, Cleaner should be able to manage the same, with Tuck giving Ridley a reason to stop the terrorists, and her military background providing the justification for her ability to run circles around them. The script squanders both of these, leaving Ridley stranded on the side of the building for most of the runtime, unable to affect events in the tower, and never going so far as to actually threaten her brother. Every potential complication is quickly quashed, from an attempt to frame Ridley to trigger-happy police to… well, that’s about it really. An ungodly amount is spent with absolutely nothing changing the stakes, no new developments throwing a monkey wrench into best laid plans. Early on, the villain says to ignore the window cleaner, because she can’t do anything from outside. Incredibly, that turns out to be true. Towards the end, there are a handful of surprisingly decent fight scenes, intensely physical brawls that have a sense of rhythm, purpose, and direction that reminds the audience that the man at the helm had once reinvented James Bond. These only serve to highlight how meager the rest of Cleaner is. Why not get the protagonist involved early, so she can actually impact the drama? Why not spend more time with the brother, have him more directly in harm’s way to make their relationship more central to the conflict? Why not lean into the complication of a villain who the audience can easily sympathize with, instead of trying to create the most extreme strawman possible? Why not make a more interesting movie? Cleaner arrives in theater February 21. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  A couple years ago, I made the mistake of eating a cup of yogurt that had gone bad. For days I was bedridden, soaking my bed sheets in sweat as I rolled around in feverish delirium. The nauseating smell of my own sick filled my bedroom, and it took everything I had to make it to the toilet before adding to that stench. The lack of sleep wore me down, every single moment felt like an eternity, and it seemed like I would never again feel normal. It was the worst physical sensation I have ever experienced. Watching Love Hurts is a solid runner-up. Ke Huy Quan stars as a hitman-turned-realtor who has left his criminal past in order to reinvent himself. When a former flame shows up out of the blue, everything that he’s built for himself is threatened, and so he is forced to call upon his particular set of skills one more time. The “retired killer forced to take up arms” movie is practically a genre unto itself. Though these films all treat their premise with varying degrees of seriousness, they all treat their protagonist’s relationship with the life they’ve left behind with sincerity. Keanu Reeves in John Wick was happy to leave the underworld behind, and wreaks vengeance on those who refuse to leave him in peace. Bob Odenkirk in Nobody had grown to resent his placid suburban life, and craved to unleash his inner beast. Liam Neeson in Taken was a devoted family man, but had no qualms embracing that violent part of himself if it meant preserving what he had. In each case, the use of violence and how it disrupts the former killer’s retirement and sense of self serves as the emotional foundation of everything that follows. Love Hurts pump fakes building that foundation. It establishes that Quan loves his new life, and at first it seems that this will conflict with the romantic attachment he has with Ariana DeBose, who needs the help of his former self. Indeed, love and romance are constantly gestured towards through the movie, from a henchman going through a martial spat, to burgeoning love between Quan’s subordinate and an assassin, to the strained familial love between him and his brother. Hell, the movie takes place on Valentine’s Day. Where a decent film would drive home the aberrant nature of the ensuing violence, however, no time is spent here grounding the narrative in anything real. The first scene is a montage of Quan being cheery and vivacious with his co-workers, and the next is a fight scene with a knife-wielding hitman. With no time given to setting up his current world before launching the character back into his old one, it is impossible to feel any sense of loss; his motivations might make sense on paper, but they don’t read as genuine.  To make matters worse, the film maintains a cartoonish, over-the-top, cloyingly self-aware tone to every scene, whether a bloody brawl, banter between thugs, or straight up torture. People do not talk to each other in natural ways, people do not react to the world around them in natural ways. Why would an employee, upon seeing an unconscious man in her boss’ office, start reading poetry? Why would a man in the middle of a torture session invite regular civilians into the house where he’s conducting the torture? This is a story about a man who wants everything to go back to normal, but with moments like this constantly cropping up, it’s impossible to get a sense of what exactly is “normal” by the movie’s own logic. This irreverence is a common thread through 87North productions such as this, and particularly through the work of producer David Leitch. It is typically incredibly irritating and suffocates all pathos with a story, and given the utter lack of any dramatic runway here, that is even more potently felt. There is a distinct lack of stakes through the entire movie, and it didn’t take long for me to ask myself, “Why should I care about any of this?” It should go without saying that the theme of love is utterly incoherent. Not only are these characters one-note sketches whose personalities could be described in a couple words, the performers all turn in career-worst performances. Thankfully I’ve seen Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, and Marshawn Lynch do good work, because otherwise I’d assume they are simply incapable of acting (Sean Astin does okay, and Daniel Wu… is as good as ever). No surprise then that there no spark of chemistry between any two people in the movie, least of all Quan and DeBose, the romantic leads whose undying love for each other is supposed to be the catalyst of the plot. To say nothing of the fact that their twenty year age gap begs the question of how long ago did he break away from crime, it is impossible to discern why they even like each other, let alone love. To be fair to the actors, they have little to work with. The film opens with two actions scenes, ends with two action scenes, and treads water for the entire middle section. Characters go from one room to another, constantly spout meaningless exposition and backstory, constantly restate what their supposed goals and desires are. The villains spend most of the film looking for the heroes, until a complete contrivance bring them all together. The main antagonist is only ever shown in two locations, and has no direct effect on the plot. So little happens in this movie, there is so much dead air and repetitive dialogue and so little narrative momentum, I began to suspect that ChatGPT may deserve a co-writing credit. Of course, at the end of the day, this is an action-comedy. All this could possibly be brushed aside if this was a silly, goofy movie that earned some laughs and some cheers. Well.  Comedy can be hard to critique in a meaningful way. All art is subjective, but with a joke, you either think it’s funny or you don’t. To the credit of Love Hurts, there was plenty of laughter at my screening. Plenty of people tittered at the juvenile, asinine, hacky, derivative, lazy, smug, self-satisfied humor that pervades the film, a style common through everything that has David Leitch’s name on it. I imagine that if I had seen this movie fifteen years ago, this movie would have made me laugh uproariously if I caught the edited-for-cable version on SpikeTV. Today, as a grown man, it made me feel genuinely embarrassed for the people whose names were attached to the script. Perhaps they should have given ChatGPT the credit just to save face. That said, if you find things curse words, or a man in a suit drinking boba tea, or a Totally Random Non-Sequitur, this might bring the house down.
The most confounding, aggravating part of the movie, however, is how poor the action is. As low an opinion as I have of Leitch’s output, his stuntman roots are apparent in everything he produces, and a large part of the 87North brand is delivering quality set pieces. This film in particular is the directorial debut of company man Johnathan Eusebio, a seasoned stunt coordinator and action designer whose credits are unimpeachable. In fairness, the actual choreography is decent enough: the fighters use the environment in dynamic and reactive ways, there’s plenty of fun wire-assisted throws and falls to maximize impact, and there’s one interesting shot that is fairly novel. The issues are multifaceted. On the one hand, Eusebio suffers from his own success. The actor-driven style of action design that 87eleven (the team that developed into 87North Productions) pioneered, in which the cinematography is legible and clearly shows to the audience that the actors playing these characters are actually performing a good amount of the choreography, was a welcome antidote to the fast editing and shakycam that pervaded Hollywood through the ‘00s. These days, however, that style can be found in everything from the biggest blockbusters to cheap DTV thrillers, and this film doesn’t introduce anything new in the way the John Wick sequels do. Furthermore, that proliferation has started to expose the flaws of this style, particularly in our contemporary filmmaking climate. Allowing your actors to go through the movements themselves can make for beautiful art… when your stars are Donnie Yen, or Scott Adkins, or Jackie Chan, or Cynthia Rothrock, particularly when they were all in their twenties. Here, the cast includes a lot of older men, and actors who aren’t known as martial artists or stunt performers. Obviously, it’s possible to build something interesting within those limitations, as Martial Club did when designing fight scenes in Everything Everywhere All at Once with Ke Huy Quan himself. It is hard to watch this, however, and not consider that the crew butted up against that ceiling. Or rather, they would have, if the action weren’t compromised in ways that are incredibly disappointing to see from a film directed by a stunt professional. Each fight constantly cuts away from the action, usually for some comedic beat, but sometimes just to establish that yes, someone else is witnessing the action, or is leaving to another room. This breaks up the rhythm of the set piece in a way that is incredibly jarring and serves no larger purpose. I suspect that this is either Eusebio didn’t trust the audience to be patient with not having that information, or that this was a rough edit and we’re seeing the best possible version (a possibility made more likely by all the obvious ADR). There’s also the fact that there is so little action — only at the beginning and end of the film — and it all goes down in drab model homes and offices. Some visual diversity would have been a welcome addition, perhaps create opportunities that would allow the fight scenes to stick out. Love Hurts is a truly abysmal film. It is only eighty-three minutes including credits, yet it feels a thousand times that long. There is next to nothing to commend here, nothing for anyone to take pride in. The kindest thing I can say about it is given the choice between giving this a second viewing, and eating some room temperature dairy product, I would not immediately grab a spoon. I would, however, do just about anything else. Love Hurts escapes into theaters February 7. Rating: 0.5/5 VALIANT ONE -- Flat, Thin Military Thriller Reveals Deeply Ingrained Americentric Jingoism1/30/2025 Review by Daniel Lima  It can be hard to properly judge art that runs counter to your political convictions. To what extent does an objectionable worldview affect a work’s artistic merit? Can a heinous sociopolitical message truly be separated from aesthetic values? Valiant One slices through this Gordian knot with ease, tying its particular brand of establishment-friendly jingoism directly to its own emotional core to the point that it’s impossible to appreciate the film at all without casting judgment on its simple-minded politics. Also, it’s really bad. A small team of U.S. Army soldiers stationed in South Korea go on a routine mission to repair some surveillance tech. After a terrible storm leads to a helicopter crash, only a handful of grunts and a civilian defense contractor are left. They realize that they have landed on the other side of the Korean DMZ, well into North Korean territory. The team must band together in order to escape this hellish land full of people who would murder and rape them with no hesitation. Writer-director-producer Steve Barnett insists that he set out to make an apolitical film, focusing not on articulating a coherent message, but on telling a story about personal heroism and rising up to meet a great challenge. Like all “apolitical” art, however, the film betrays certain ideological predilections, so deeply entrenched in the minds of Barnett and Americans in general that they are simply accepted. It presumes that: America has a right to maintain a military presence on the Korean peninsula; American interests are altruistic; the North Korean government is cruel and hostile to any sort of diplomacy; the North Korean people would welcome an American intrusion into their home; any form of violence that American military personnel engage in is justified. Suffice it to say, I find all of these presumptions suspect, ranging from disingenuous to ignorant to despicable. Undoubtedly, most Americans would object to at least one of these, in spite of oft-recited truisms about the righteousness of the American military and the evils of North Korea. Yet Valiant One necessitates broad acceptance of these ideas in order to function as a story.
If you don’t believe that the North Korean military would brutalize any American they come across, the premise seems thin. If you don’t think Americans should be installing surveillance equipment on the Korean border, it gets harder to root for these characters. And if you don’t like the idea of armed soldiers bursting into homes of foreign civilians in countries they aren’t supposed to be in the first place — or better still, killing foreign soldiers before even attempting to communicate with them — it becomes impossible not to see these “heroes” as villains. Of course, it’s possible for a film with objectionable politics to still be engaging, stimulating, entertaining. Valiant One is none of those things. The main ensemble is given only the barest amount of definition, mostly relying on archetypes: the dutiful grunt, the reluctant hero, the sniveling civilian. Normally, a narrative like this would see this team fleshed out through the trials that they undergo, pitting them against obstacles that force reveal parts of themselves that might never otherwise see the light of day. Instead, most of the film is just wandering through the woods, pitched and repetitive arguments, and inert gunfights, none of which spurns any interesting character development beyond “they get tougher”. It’s surprising that even at a scant eighty minutes, so much of this movie is just dead air. An interesting note is that the film begins with a title card claiming to be inspired by true events. Of course, this is being generous, as by Barnett’s own admission the genesis of the story was the realization that American soldiers are stationed near the 38th parallel (in the past, downed American servicemen have been released after a period of detention). That little fib is par the course in works like this, however, and unremarkable on its own. If one is willing to engage in this bit of fiction, however, why stop there? Why not engineer a scenario where these soldiers are captured and have to break free before execution? Why not see them run into a North Korean family that is not enamored with them, forcing the squad to make tough choices about what they’re willing to do to hide their incursion? Why not name any of the North Koreans pursuing them, give them characterizations and treat them as something more than a faceless Other? Why not make Valiant One a more interesting movie? Valiant One lands in theaters January 31. Rating: 1.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Billions of people have grown up familiar with the Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods, the epic tale of history, myth, and fantasy that relays the fall of the Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou. All cards on the table, I am not one of those people. As an ignorant Westerner, I can only appreciate Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force — the second part of the latest adaptation of the Chinese classic — as a Lunar New Year blockbuster spectacle. On those terms, it’s certainly not a boring watch, but lacks what made the previous film so compelling. Picking up where the last film left off, the corrupt king of Shang has been saved from the brink death, sending his most trusted generals to bring down the rebellious city of Xiqi and capture the Fengsheng Bang, a powerful artifact that will secure his rule. The lord of Xiqi, joined by an array of immortals and gods, fights against the onslaught as he weighs how to best defend his people. The source material has been adapted countless times in countless forms, and this trilogy of films is perhaps the largest and most expensive. This second entry is heavy on action and special effects, with much of the runtime devoted to large-scale battles with a dizzying number of glowing particles flying across the screen and a cacophony of war cries and explosions. At just under two and a half hours, it’s hard not to feel a bit overwhelmed well before the credits roll (through which there are three post-credits scenes, at that point just don’t end the movie yet). It doesn’t help that it is as dark and drab as any Hollywood tent pole, with much of the action taking place under the cover of night, with a muted color palette, and annoyingly often over a barren plane or against an obvious green screen.  Novelty sets this apart from American CG-driven slop: giants commanding steel dragons to attack thunder gods, immortal beings traveling through the elements to rescue people from paralyzing moon beams, mythical steeds felled by evil wizards commanding undead armies. There is a certain looseness to how these elements are brought to life, not as constrained by the paradoxical desire to make things “realistic” that plagues so much Western big-budget fantasy. Perhaps to an audience used to seeing these cultural touchstones adapted to screen, this isn’t anything special, but it was enough to keep me engaged.
That is good, because in devoting so much time to the spectacle, this second film in the planned trilogy sacrifices the character dynamics and political intrigue that drew me into the first. The previous entry was mostly set in the Shang capital, depicting the descent of the king into villainy as his court turn against him and the heavenly interlopers attempt to find a new ruler. With the battle lines not yet drawn, this made for more drama, more time establishing who these people (and gods) are, more reason to actually care about what happens. There are a handful of welcome moments here that attempt to do the same, but not enough of them to make Xiqi feel like a place worth saving. This may well be a consequence of how the novel has been divided up, but coupled with how spread out the characters are, and how many have died or fundamentally changed, it means there is a distinct lack of emotional stakes. Recently, I’ve found myself watching a good amount of wuxia cinema produced by the Shaw Brothers in the 1970s and 1980s. These films were often directly or indirectly inspired by Ming literature about gallant heroes, powerful magicians, and fearsome monsters, and were the crowd pleasers of their day. Though they themselves vary in quality (especially those that attempt to condense particularly long tomes), it can at least be said they are beautiful to look at: ornate and vivid sets, cinematography that glowed, intricate action choreography. It’s hard not to think of these films when watching this modern incarnation, and lament at the lost recipe that made for such gorgeous imagery. Yet as somewhat disappointing as Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force is on the whole, I still have sights like young Nezha shaping his winding sash into a shield and Leizhenzi summoning his green lightning stuck in my head. For whatever it’s worth, this is a film that scratches an itch for big budget fantasy splendor, with a distinct flavor that has me looking into what’s the best translation of a medieval Chinese text. For all the flaws, it still captured me enough that I’m keen to see the grand finale. Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force is now in theaters. Rating: 3/5 Review by Daniel Lima  For forty years, Donnie Yen has been one of the brightest action movie stars, shining in period wuxia martial arts epics and especially in hard boiled contemporary crime thrillers. In recent years, he has parlayed that into making Hong Kong action films the likes of which rarely see the light of day post-handover. Though his latest directorial effort The Prosecutor does feel limited by the constraints imposed by mainland China, it is still an effective thriller that boasts all the impressive action you’d hope for. Yen plays a police officer who, frustrated by seeing his work stymied by ineffective prosecutors, decides to become one himself. His very first case involves a young man coerced into taking part of a drug smuggling ring, and as he strives to punish the true culprits, he finds himself up against powerful forces willing to exploit every loophole and blind spot in the glorious criminal justice system of the People’s Republic of China. Will these institutions prove themselves capable of withstanding these subversive elements? Can our heroic representative of CCP authority make right what went wrong? Might he get into a lot of big, intricate gunfights and brawls in order to do it? Let’s get it out of the way: the Hong Kong film industry is now the Chinese film industry, and that means paying lip service to the values that the Chinese Communist Party want reflected in the media they produce. That means the heroes must lack any flaws beyond “works too hard”, and the villains lack any redeeming qualities… or interesting qualities. Admitting that the courts are fallible can only go so far, with blame being laid not at the institution’s basic structure, but on nefarious, evil individuals outside of it. And people who use drugs? Utter filth, of course (sexual harassment accusations seem okay however, considering Bey Logan is credited as a post-production supervisor). Perhaps toeing the party line would be less aggravating if they were promoting land reform; here, it’s almost indistinguishable from mainstream Western copaganda like Law & Order.  There are plenty of action movies with disagreeable politics that at least express those in such a dynamic, snappy way that even the scenes without any fighting are engaging. The Prosecutor is not one of them. The film drags throughout its two-hour runtime, filling most of it with exposition and practically none with either character work or procedural detail. The case itself is hardly riveting in its own right, but actually caring about the people involved or getting into the details of how the modern Hong Kong legal system works might liven things up. The cast is decent, particularly the industry vets like Kent Cheng and Lau Kong, but they have little to work with in a story that moves like molasses. Unfortunately, this is one of those action movies where you’re only here for the fights.
Fortunately, the Donnie Yen Action Team is at this point a well-oiled machine; I don’t know that Kenji Tanagaki and Takahito Ôuchi could deliver a bad set piece if they wanted to. Donnie and his crew pioneered the use of mixed martial arts in action choreography decades ago with Flash Point, and the fights here switch between striking and grappling with characteristic fluidity. Each one feels wholly distinct in both setting and challenge: a high-octane police raid, a rooftop club standoff with dozens of foes, a showdown in the close confines of a metro train. Each scene tells a story of its own, incorporating the environment and a changing landscape to keep things from getting stale. While this may lack for the more fanciful flavor of Tanagaki’s work on Twilight of the Warriors or the Rurouni Kenshin films, there is a polish and scale to the action that grants the fisticuffs a weight that evades smaller productions. With that said, does this rank among the best of Yen’s oeuvre? Hardly. Time comes for us all, and a life spent undergoing tremendous amounts of physical punishment for the sake of our entertainment means Donnie isn’t quite as capable as he once was. Hard to begrudge him going a bit easier in his 60’s, and the choreography and camera work go a long way in making a legible, exciting action scene that allows his stunt and (what seems to be) digital doubles to take some of the burden. Even so, the use of far-off drone and crane shots, POV oners, off-camera beatdowns, and other ways to visually obscure the action — however artfully done — does create a degree of remove, a break in continuity and flow that creates a ceiling for how enjoyable the fighting is. That, and the fact there’s only four proper action scenes in the entire movie. In spite of all the obvious flaws of The Prosecutor, however, it still offers something that has become exceedingly rare: a big-budget martial arts action thriller made by a team that knows how to deliver solid martial arts action. This would hardly be the first of those that asks the audience to bear through some tedious, shallow drama, and given the alternative, I hope that this is not the last. The fact remains that even in it emaciated state, no one makes an action movie like Hong Kong. The Prosecutor arrives in theaters January 10. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Anyone used to exploring the depths of the low budget genre movies of yesteryear will be familiar with a particular kind of disappointment. You come across a film with an exciting title, a promising premise, and a cool poster: Dracula’s Dog, The Drifting Avenger, most giallo. Then you watch it and find that it’s mostly people standing around and talking to each other, with a handful of moments sprinkled about that capture that imagined greatness. Werewolves hearkens back to that ignoble tradition, but in the days of bloated, sanitized, impersonal studio IP movies, its shaggy contours become charming in their own right. “One year ago a supermoon turned millions into werewolves.” This ludicrous line opens the film, immediately setting the stakes and the tone. With a new supermoon about to rise, a crack team of CDC scientists seeks to test a way to prevent these transformations. Frank Grillo barricades the home of his brother’s wife and daughter before leaving to head the operation, as the world’s least convincing virologist. Naturally, things go awry, and both Grillo and his family must fight to survive the night. The ironically self-aware genre throwback has been a plague on modern cinema, and thankfully Werewolves avoids that trap by committing wholeheartedly to the silliness of its premise without ever tipping over into parody. Though many elements are fantastic and absurd — the gung ho neighbor, the repeated use of the word “moonscreen”, the monsters themselves, Frank Grillo playing a scientist — they are treated with the frankness and gravity they should demand within the context of this reality. Beyond providing the audience a level of buy-in that makes what happens feel like it matters, this straight-faced treatment of the material makes it even seem even goofier; I know I laughed every time someone said “moonscreen”, or a character did something that strained credulity, or an entire conversation did nothing but reiterate the obvious. That’s helpful, because one thing this movie has plenty of is filler. Even at barely over ninety minutes, Werewolves strains to engineer enough narrative momentum to propel it to the credits. There is barely any character work to speak of, with the action divided between Grillo’s homeward quest with his forgettable companion, and his forgettable sister-in-law alone at home with a forgettable child. The number of times the gruff man of action stops to just say, “We have to keep moving”, is truly baffling. As funny as it is at first, when it dawns on you that this will be most of the movie it becomes a tad less amusing.  The most confounding choice, however, is how the film looks. This would largely be in keeping with most modern low budget genre thrillers, if it werent’t for the lighting. Throughout the first set piece, when the titular creatures first rear their heads in a government facility, the lights are flashing so rapidly it creates a migraine-inducing strobe effect. Never before have my eyes been so physically discomforted by a movie; epileptics, stay away. More annoying is the amount of artificial lens flare, often overwhelming the screen to the point that it’s hard to make out what is happening. I can only imagine these choices were made to help obscure how cheap the actual werewolf costumes actually are, but it instead just makes the film an ugly mess.
It also obscures what is far and away the best part of the movie. Yes, these are practical werewolves. Yes, they are stiff, only vaguely dog-like,, and look like hair stuck to rubber or latex. Yes, they are awesome. For some reason filmmakers and audiences have decided that a fake, rubbery CGI creation that does not exist is somehow easier to believe in than a fake, rubbery piece of fake rubber that does. The latter, since it actually exists in physical space, allows for more interesting ways to shoot the monsters: they can share the frame with the heroes without breaking the illusion, interact with the environment to make them seem more of a threat, a scene can be staged without have to guess how it will look after post. As obviously artificial as they are, the magic of cinema quickly asserts itself, and you accept that these are dangerous, bloodthirsty predators. Are they utilized to maximum effect? Not quite. Again, the visual language of the film does undermine their appearances, along with some rapid editing to further make things unintelligible. Too often do the wolves appear only for nothing to actually happen, and as the finale draws near it does seem like they are rather easy to outsmart and outfight. That said, this movie is at its best when they are front and center, and towards they end it finally delivers on the high-octane lycanthropic thrills that one would hope for. Ultimately, Werewolves does fail to be a proper spiritual successor to the excellent Dog Soldiers, but in doing so hits on a particular niche appeal that is increasingly rare. It’s messy, it’s dumb, it’s occasionally boring, but when it works it works. If this movie had come out forty years ago, it might have looked and felt largely the same, spoken about today as a hidden gem of an era that looks even better in hindsight. Hopefully, the decades to come will see this in that same light. Werewolves is now in theaters. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  The hitman who attempts to leave behind their criminal life, only to be forced to fight out of the underworld, is a stock narrative, particularly within the past two decades of Korean cinema. There's nothing wrong with adhering to formula, so long as it is executed in an exciting, idiosyncratic way. At the very least, the familiar contours should manage to hold an audience's attention for a couple of hours. Sadly, A Man of Reason doesn't quite measure up, delivering only the barest minimum of what is expected of the genre and being all the lesser for it. Jung Woo-sung directs and stars as the contract killer, out of prison for the first time in ten years. Though he wants to rebuild his relationship with his wife and daughter, he finds himself marked for death by his former employer and so must use his particular set of skills to defend his family and forcefully sever his ties to the past. It's boilerplate material, yet there are missteps in establishing even this very basic premise. The former employer isn't actually the antagonist; instead, it's his lieutenant, a brown-noser who is simply jealous of the admiration his boss holds for Woo-sung. He does not personally see to the killing; instead, he relies on outside help. That outside help comes in the form of a pair of assassins who specialize in explosives. The result is our hero finds himself up against hirelings that he has no personal connection to, working for a villain he barely knows, who works with a powerful mobster who holds no animus towards him. Which is to say, there's precious little emotional stake in the actual conflict.  That should come from Woo-sung's connection to his wife and daughter. However, he doesn't even know he has a daughter until he's out of prison, and spends most of the film separated from both. Where films like The Man from Nowhere or The Killer externalize their protagonists' conscience but take the time to develop the bonds they form with their innocent morality pets, A Man of Reason simply asks the audience to accept that its hero will go to any length to protect his family. It's certainly enough to move the plot along but not enough to make an audience emotionally invested in what happens.
None of that would matter if the film at least delivered thrilling set pieces. Sadly, this is where Jung well and truly drops the ball. The handful of action beats here are about as exciting as all the exposition: low-speed car chases, shooting a nail gun as the target jogs into cover, choppily-edited fist fights in the dark. Truthfully, much of the action in the classic Korean revenge thrillers of the '00s and '10s probably would not hold up today, but they at least committed to delivering a brand of stylized violence that hadn't really been seen up to that point. The only thing commendable here are the explosions, which seem practical, yet even they pale in comparison to another actor-director's action thriller, Hunt. Coincidentally, Jung Woo-sung had a starring role there; it's a pity he didn't take notes. All that said, nothing in A Man of Reason is exceedingly poor. It follows the expected beats of this kind of story andblunders its way through the narrative and the action, but not enough to earn ire. It certainly is not a success, but it's not a total failure. In a way, it'd be preferable if it were, as it would at least be memorable. Instead, it evaporates from the mind shortly after watching, leaving in its place the desire to revisit any number of better examples of its genre. A Man of Reason arrives in theaters July 5 and hits VOD on July 9. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Lakshya in Kill. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions. I distinctly remember that in the fall of 2023, I was listening to an interview with stuntman/action director Lee Whittaker about his experiences working within the various Indian film industries (on Action Talks with Eric Jacobus, highly recommended). At one point, he was asked whether it would ever be possible for an Indian filmmaker to make something akin to the Indonesian film The Raid, that is, a stripped-down, brutal action film that abandons the ample melodrama and gravity-defying opulence of many Indian blockbusters in favor of a more grounded genre experience. It’s a question that made me chuckle, as while the interview was months old, the Hindi actioner Kill had just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it promised precisely that. The film has consistently been described as “The Raid on a Train,” and there’s no better way to do so. An army commando finds himself on a train that dozens of bandits have taken over, and it’s up to him to take them down. The film is under two hours, set almost entirely in one location, the fights are visceral and violent to an almost shocking degree, and there is only the barest amount of narrative groundwork laid. In short… it’s The Raid on a train. Obviously, the selling point here is the action, as hyperviolent and frantic as one would expect, given its obvious influences. Pitted against such an overwhelming force, the protagonist is forced to use every tool at his disposal against his foes, including the claustrophobic environment. To that end, the choreography departs from the typical Indian style of pseudo-superheroics, instead adopting a more realistic approach. Well, as realistic as carving through forty armed men can be. Throughout the many, many fights, characters utilize whatever weapons they can, from knives to canes to guns to fire extinguishers. Navigating the confined space provides an additional challenge and aids in combat, restricting movement but allowing one man to take on many without being swarmed. While limited to only one setting, there is a deliberate attempt to break up the visual staleness of the surroundings and introduce new dynamics to the action: taking a fight to the bathroom, opening a locked door while a friend provides cover, facing down one particularly large adversary. And, of course, all of this is uncompromisingly bloody, with an almost overwhelming amount of stabbing, mauling, cutting, and killing. It’s all admirably intricate, as one could expect from the action director pairing of Parvez Shaikh and Se-yeong Oh (who previously collaborated on films such as War and Tiger 3). However, it cannot be helped that there is a sameness to all the action, largely because of a lack of variance in both the actual choreography and the intensity of the action. Violence breaks out about fifteen minutes into the film and carries on at the same level for the next hour and a half. Considering the premise, we will inevitably see the number of villains dwindle, and there is a dwindling return on the impact of all the gore. Worse yet, there is little to distinguish all the combatants while they are fighting, as impressive as it all is to coordinate. Watching The Raid, there is a clear difference in how all the characters fight, befitting their personalities and the martial abilities of their actors. That personal touch is lacking here, and by the end, it all blends together.  Lakshya in Kill. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions. Adding to this effect is the strength of the narrative, or lack thereof. As silly as it seems to critique a film like this for how it establishes its ensemble, it must be said that the short amount of time spent with them is not enough to engender any strong feelings about whether they survive. There is an atmosphere that anyone may die at any moment, but it is impossible to care, since they are all so thinly sketched anyway. If anything, the perfunctory romance that serves as the protagonist’s motivation actually does the movie a disservice, as the treatment of the love interest feels almost distasteful. Even the villains, as dastardly and cruel as they are, never feel particularly threatening to the commando hero.
None of this would matter if this movie delivered action that felt as fresh and exciting as its inspiration. Unfortunately, we already have The Raid, and plenty of other action movies have taken their own cues from that film’s brand of grounded martial arts mayhem. This raises the question: why is the thought of an Indian take on this same style appealing in the first place? As over-the-top and bloated as many Indian blockbusters can be, it is a style that other industries around the world are slow to draw influence from. Is it not more exciting to see the lengths that minds like Anbariv, Dhilip Subbarayan, or even an imported talent like Yannick Ben push the homegrown approach to stage action, rather than see the likes of Bollywood, Tollywood, and Kollywood adopt the same thing everyone else is? All that said, it’s not like Kill is not successful at what it does. For those looking for frenetic, close-quarters combat that leaves pools of blood on the floor and ears ringing with the sounds of crunching bones and disembowelment, this will supply that. Despite its missteps, it’s not even a bad version of its premise. Seeing the diversity and singular nature of Indian action cinema today, however, we should expect more than just “The Raid on a Train.” Kill hits theaters July 4. Rating: 3.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  No one knew how to name a movie like Italians in the 1970’s. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. Hey Amigo! A Toast to Your Death. Watch Me When I Kill. No matter how middling the movie, it was often accompanied by a distinct and evocative title that promised intrigue and danger. In that way, The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer is something of a spiritual successor. Unfortunately, it also shares something else with those earlier films: it does not deliver on that promise. John Magaro plays the titular writer, who has been working on his second book for years with no end in sight. His literary agent has become disinterested in him, his marriage is on the rocks, and he can do no more than lamely explain to anyone who will listen how his novel is about the last Neanderthal. It’s at this low point of his life that a stranger approaches him with an offer: write a story based on the stranger’s former life as a serial killer. When Magaro’s wife finds the stranger in her home, the two pretend he is a marriage counselor, setting up an interesting dynamic that does not ever pay off. The premise sounds like ample ground for some black comedy hijinks or the setup to a dark comparison between relationships between romantic partners and those formed by murderers and their victims. While there is a paltry attempt to do this, the film takes so long to set up this state of affairs that there’s little runway to make the most of the conceit. The Shallow Tale is never more fun than in its last third, as characters begin to grow suspicious of one another and flimsy plots begin to spiral out of control, but by that point, it is too little too late. The journey to get there sorely lacked the energy of the finale, and the best part of the movie is over as quickly as it began.  The three leads — Magaro, Britt Lower as his wife, and Steve Buscemi as the retired serial killer — all commit to their performances, and every laugh the film earns is more on their shoulders than on the limp material they are given. The comic rhythm and sensibility of the film never seem quite right, going from droll and dry to absurdist to meta and ironic at the drop of a hat. This lack of consistency gives the film an unevenness that feels less like “anything can happen” and more like “there is no coherent vision for what this story actually is.” Considering the uneven pace of the narrative as a whole, this appears to be the case.
It’s impossible to watch this and not think about the recently released Hit Man. That film is similarly a riff on mystery and crime stories that incorporates romance into genre thrills and vacillates in tone. Those are where the similarities end: that movie has a clear thesis, has a deliberate build in how absurd the comedy is, and knowingly wrings as much as it can from its premise. Of course, that is a film from Richard Linklater, an artist who has been making films for decades, whereas The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer is the English-language debut of a comparatively young filmmaker. Hopefully, Tolga Karacelik will learn from the missteps of this shallow tale going forward. The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, which ran from June 5-16 in New York City. Rating: 2.5/5 |