“Extreme Crisis” DVD Cover
Director: Bruce Law
Cast: Julian Cheung, Theresa Lee, Shu Qi, Kenya Sawada, Wong Yat Fei, Spencer Lam
Running Time: 95 min.
By Tequila
Imagine The Rock on acid…that is the only way I can describe this movie. I was expecting a clone of The Rock from the reviews and my expectations were pretty low – this film is pretty much just crap acting and a bunch of explosions on the first VCD and I was only kept interested by the psychotic shootings and shit.
BUT THEN!!! *Dum Dum Dum!* The second VCD has to contain the most glorified and sick violence ever, it’s as if Bruce Law realized his film was beginning to suck and just decided to murder everybody – in close up, slow mo, with splatter and sound effects. If you just feel like watching innocent people get their brains plastered on walls, get the VCD of this NOW! Who cares about the appalling acting when the cast speak English or the average 1st disc?
***SPOILER START***
The most shockingly violent moment in Extreme Crisis is when the female cop, nervous to shoot, takes the main lieutenant of the Japanese cult hostage with a gun to his head. You think she’s going to make up for her past errors and blow the cunt’s brains out but instead gets shot point blank by a terrorist and that is that. A little boy also takes a head shot at one point, and some Navy Seals get burned at shot in slow mo.
***SPOILER END***
Basically, Extreme Crisis is a sick and twisted version of The Rock, if you hate Hollywood and want mindless action, go see this.
Tequila’s Rating: 6.5/10 (1 mark off for scummy 1st disc)
By Numskull
Eh…
The only extreme thing about this movie is the body count. Defenseless hostages get gunned down by the shitload. Nothing I can’t handle, but it’s a little more unnerving here than in something like Hard Boiled, because Extreme Crisis is not what I would categorize as an action movie. Not in the Hong Kong sense, anyway. In some ways it reminded me of The Rock, only…well, worse.
There are two elite cops, one Chinese and one Japanese, who try to foil this Japanese cult’s plan to massacre Hong Kong’s citizenry since they’re pissed off about their leader being imprisoned. The Chinese cop’s girlfriend is a news anchor who works in the TV station that the cult takes over and there’s also a stuffy female cop who just can’t bring herself to pull a trigger.
Three languages are used throughout the movie: Cantonese, Japanese, and, most of all, English. The woman who plays the non-ass-capping cop isn’t much of an actress, but she does speak English really well. Kinda like a female Michael Wong. The other performances are OK, nothing outstanding. The cult’s sub-leader says “I have made myself very clear” but it sounds like “I have made myself very queer.” That would explain the haircut.
Some people get shot, some shit gets blown up, there are a couple of fights…passable stuff, but nothing that will really grab you by the balls. The production values are quite good and the music is above average, and there really isn’t anything fundamentally WRONG with the movie, unless you count it being somewhat Americanized. It just doesn’t hold your attention very well. Sorry, people. There are worse films out there, to be sure, but if your spare time is limited, you’d be well advised to avoid this one.
Numskull’s Rating: 5/10
