“Nightshooters” Theatrical Poster
Director: Marc Price
Writer: Marc Price
Cast: Jean-Paul Ly, Adam McNab, Nicky Evans, Rosanna Hoult, Richard Sandling, Kaitlyn Riordan, Mica Proctor, Hung Dante Dong, Nicholas Aaron, Ben Shafik
Running Time: 100 min.
By Martin Sandison
Hot on the trail of his self-directed short The Division, Jean-Paul Ly (Jailbreak) has achieved the seemingly impossible: starred and choreographed in a low budget, great British-made martial arts film, Nightshooters – ok, ok, it’s not a purists martial arts film – it incorporates comedy, gangster and horror elements, a hybrid of the sort we’re seeing more of these days. In fact, I just went to see the Scottish zombie-horror-comedy-musical Anna and the Apocalypse, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and is making waves internationally. You’ll notice I called the latter Scottish and the former British. Here at COF we don’t get political on your asses much, but let me tell you as a Scotsman (of the sentimental kind, Mr. Bramhall), we need to get the fuck off this sinking ship. Anyway, to Nightshooters…
Donnie (Ly) is a stuntman/actor working on a guerrilla shoot. His director Oddbod (Nicky Evans, Shameless), crew members and another actor, Harper (Doug Allen, Band of Brothers), are struggling to finish before the morning, when the building they’re shooting in is set to be demolished. Camera operator Jen (Kaitlyn Riordan, If I Were You) captures a crime occurring across the way in a parallel building, gangsters burning a man alive. Led by Tarker (Richard Sandling, Zapped), the goons go after our heroes, leading Ly to use his martial arts skills to maximum effect.
A one location action film premise certainly worked for The Raid, and to a lesser extent Jailbreak. Here this trope is explored in a maximally entertaining way, with real invention and tension. There is of course the audience involvement with guessing which characters will survive and which will be killed off; the movie succeeds in keeping you in that game right until the credits. A tight 100 minute running time leaves room for plenty of each genres styles, and surprisingly they all hit the mark.
Nightshooters is brimming with humorous lines and sight gags, such as an arm cut off to be thrown into a villains head, and the dialogue is very British in its sarcasm and profanity. Expect plenty of “fucks,” and the use of the dreaded C-word – I know you American folks don’t like that word much, in the UK (especially Glasgow, where I live), it’s a term of endearment! One Welsh gangster is consistently hilarious in his characters line delivery and ineptitude, and Oddbod serves up some nice comedic wordplay.
While leaving room for all of the aspects previously mentioned, the movie serves up a banquet of hard-hitting, wondrously choreographed fight scenes that are well placed in the narrative and serve as Ly’s calling card. Very much in the vein of modern low budget martial arts films, the fights are filmed in mostly wide shots with long takes, Undisputed 3-style. Ly’s form has never been in question – here he outdoes himself. All of the fights show more than significant improvement on Jailbreak and The Division, with a crisp, clean approach that gives the viewer true martial fulfilment. His enemies are superb fighters in all; Hung Dong gets a rematch with Ly after their bout in The Division that tops that encounter, with intricate knife fighting the icing on the cake.
Ly told me himself the film’s budget was so tight that some of the fight direction was choreographed on WhatsApp! (instead of flying Hung from London to Manchester). A short 2-on-1 with Ly taking on Hung and Marcus Shakeshelf (one of the stunt co-ordinators on Wonder Woman) is feverish in its intensity, and features some superb ideas in action choreography, such as Ly being flying kicked mid air by Hung. A great set up for the final match up made me anticipatory as fuck, with British stuntman Karanja Yorke making an effectively nasty villain who you want to see Ly mess up. The fight doesn’t disappoint. What marks Ly a class above some modern martial arts onscreen fighters is his approach to handwork. While maintaining an intricacy and 80’s Hong Kong-style, he manages to be completely fresh and exciting.
Another aspect I loved was seeing just how many references the filmmakers can cram in to the movie. Ly’s character being called Donnie is an obvious one. I noticed Evil Dead, Day of the Dead, numerous Jackie Chan films and there’s a nice joke reference to Scott Adkins, with whom Ly worked with on Doctor Strange. An immense strength of the film is how well drawn the characters are; you really care about the crew and want them all to survive. There is even room for development, especially Harper, who begins a coke-addled idiot who has his own picture as a phone cover (LOL!) and becomes a stoic, empathetic man as the situation worsens.
Acting-wise, most of the cast quit themselves well: Ly a likeable, humble hero; Adam Mcnab (The Summoner), as the boom operator (he uses it well as a weapon), emoting very convincingly; and strong central female performances from Riordan and Rosanna Hoult. Unfortunately, Sandling, as the lead villain, brings a touch of the amateur to the production. Tarker is a nasty, murdering piece of shit, but the way Sandling plays him comes across as a big teddy bear, who you can imagine enjoying a pint with. His performance isn’t all bad, as he handles the comedic elements well. Director Marc Price (Colin, a zombie film I now must see) shows a sure hand in direction, balancing all of these aspects brilliantly, and is destined for greater things on the evidence of this movie.
In the grand tradition of recent British cinema such as The Cornetto trilogy and Attack the Block, Nightshooters is a wildly entertaining slice of B-movie fun, made for peanuts compared to some soulless Hollywood fare we as audiences are so used to zoning out to. Sure it’s got some faults, but the film revels in and celebrates them, turning in on itself to plant itself firmly in the 21st century.
Jean-Paul Ly is at the vanguard of modern onscreen fighters and a sure sign that the film (and him) don’t take things too seriously – this is proven as he snorts a bag of cocaine before the final fight. It’s hilarious, and may be a “first” for a martial arts film. Nightshooters is out on limited edition Blu-ray from now until the 26th of December, so beg, steal or borrow!
Martin Sandison’s Rating: 8.5/10
“this is proven as he snorts a bag of cocaine before the final fight. It’s hilarious, and may be a “first” for a martial arts film.” sounds like Ly was channeling Jackie Chan, i.e. the end of DRUNKEN MASTER II or the end of YOUNG MASTER. Good stuff!
Awesome stuff, I’ve been looking forward to checking this one out! As for the drug induced final fight…not quite a “first”, Sonny Chiba took the same approach in ‘Soul of Chiba’, 40 years earlier!
As for your sinking ship comment Mr. Sandison, sounds like it’s time for a reboot of ‘Braveheart’, but this time with Nicola Sturgeon in Mel Gibson’s role (hey it worked for ‘Ghostbusters’!).
Actually, Popeye was probably the “first” to take a similar approach by eating spinach. 🙂
Correct, Jeffrey. Ok this is funny, I didn’t realise I made a mistake at the end there and said “the now” instead of “now”. Thing is that’s how us Scots phrase it! Yaaas
Fixed. =)
As for Paul’s correction…. his knowledge is the Hybrid of Bey Logan and Mike Leeder with a creamy Frank Stallone twist.
You wee turd Mr Bramhall, I knew there had to be an instance of that in a movie! I feel ashamed that I’ve not seen Soul Of Chiba, being a big fan of him. As for Sturgeon, she could easily kick Gibsons lame ass in to touch! Braveheart 2: The Ginger Woman Avenger
I bought the DVD from tribal.film/Nightshooters, and I don’t regret my purchase at all! Nightshooters was a real blast, and satisfied my action junkie fix!
I liked the little nuances in the film such as how despite Jean Paul Ly being a skilled fighter, he’s not a professional killer and is really bothered by doing it. He’s also not invincible as he has to avoid fights when he gets worn out, and ends up snorting coke out of desperation.
I liked Sandling as the villain. He reminded me of Kingpin without manners. I wish there could have been more of a scrappy fight scene with a battered Jean Paul Ly vs him. It would have been a better comeuppance than what we ended up with.
It’s amazing what these professional stunt people come up with only a little bit of money when they’re not risking their lives on Hollywood productions.
I spent the entire film convinced that Tarker was Nick Frost!
This was an awesome film, lots of fun, and far better than Judgement Night and most other big budget, similar titles…
I remember being impressed by ‘Colin’, and I am sure there are big things in store for Marc Price
Thanks to the Sentimental Scotsman’s review I also picked up the limited edition Blu-ray (although the only difference between the standard edition is the cover art), and got around to watching it this weekend.
I confess to being somewhat blindsided by the mean spirited nature of some scenes, such as the protracted gunpowder massage and subsequent being burnt alive of one character, and another one in which a young female has her face repeatedly pummeled into a bloody mess. After laughing out loud at the wheelchair zombie in the opening scene, I don’t think I laughed again after that. It also felt like some of the actors just graduated from the “HK Gweilo School of Shouty Acting”, with possibly the most disproportionate ratio of lines yelled to spoken normally I’ve heard since, well, the last 5 minutes of any given episode of a Korean TV drama.
However the action was definitely on point. This is my first Jean-Paul Ly flick, and I enjoyed his understated presence combined with the ability to break out into some blistering fight choreography. The fight against Hung Dong was a highlight for me (both the 2-on-1 part and the 1-on-1), with just the right amount of intricate choreography paired with a gradually escalating tempo. I can definitely say I’m looking forward to watch Ly develop both as a choreographer and a screen-fighter, I’d say in another couple of years he’ll be up there with the likes of Iko Uwais. Hopefully we can get a project similar to ‘Triple Threat’ so we can see them onscreen together.
“…such as Ly being flying kicked mid air by Hung.”
A move so good it warranted its own limited edition artwork! 🙂 I’m also a big fan of this piece of choreography, I’m sure I saw it being used for the first time in some of Panna Rittikrai’s early flicks, and I always felt like it was one of his trademarks. I loved its use in his 2004 remake of ‘Born to Fight’, and it was just as great seeing it in ‘Nightshooters’.
You are right about the mean spiritedness in the movie. I tried not to dwell on it too much, but it made me wonder why the women suffered so much. Was it an equal opportunity thing where if the guys suffer, everyone else has to?
I was also bothered by the the sleazy wannabe star who sexually harassed the women, and then he becomes a sympathetic character. In today’s climate with people speaking out against that behavior, having such a character is questionable.
What he went through was nothing compared to that poor aforementioned lady.
I hope you get around to watching Jailbreak. Jean Paul Ly certainly has a good thing going for him with those titles. What did you think of the final fight with Karanja Yorke?
I enjoyed the final fight, but the reason why I preferred the fight with Hung Dong is it had a rhythm that gradually escalated and increased in tempo. The fight with Yorke was still great, but for me it missed that escalation which drives the feeling of tension and danger. It didn’t really feel like either of them were better/worse off by the time the fight climaxed than they were at the start of it – I guess you could say the choreography was on point, but the feeling behind it was missing. I’m nitpicking, but the Hung Dong fight incorporated that element really well, so it probably made it stick out more for me.
That’s understandable. The fight with Ly vs Hung was really cool. I thought it was interesting how he had to escape from the 2 on 1 fight, and then I was wondering if he was recuperated enough to fight Hung again. I enjoy those details that most people overlook.