Fish, Fists and Ambergris | aka Chase for Amber (2025) Review

“Fish, Fists and Ambergris” Poster

I’m always grateful for those moments when watching a movie leaves me that little bit smarter after the closing credits roll than I was before them. In the case of Vietnam’s Fish, Fists and Ambergris it takes the form of an expanded vocabulary, with the newly acquired knowledge that ambergris refers to “the solid, waxy, and flammable byproduct created in the digestive system of sperm whales” (thanks Google). Also commonly known as floating gold, it’s certainly a word I’ll be attempting to throw into as many conversations as possible moving forward. When it comes to the production it appears in, it relates to the history of a small coastal town on the southern Vietnamese coast.

We learn that 200 years ago a whale rescued a shipping vessel that was in distress, carrying it on its back to shore, where the whale perished. The survivors would go on to set up a fishing village, with a temple at its centre built to pay respects to the whale that saved their lives. Using the ambergris, they sculpted it into a statue of the whale that sits at the alter, with the village soon gaining a reputation for housing such a unique treasure. To protect the temple from the marauding pirates that regularly attempt to pillage the statue, the villages most skilled fighters stay on guard as residents of the temple, a lineage that’s been passed down to present day.

At least, almost present day, as the plot actually plays out in the year 2000, with the descendants of the temple’s protectors played by Quang Tuan (The Corpse) and Tram Minh Hoang (Trum So), meeting them as the upcoming festival to celebrate the villages founding is just a few days away. They’re joined by Ma Ran Do (Hijacked) playing the younger brother of Tuan, who moved to the big city Saigon and became a successful businessman, returning to the village with a trendy early 2000’s flip phone that gets everyone’s attention. To celebrate his return the trio get blind drunk together in the evening, however when morning comes both Ran Do and the ambergris are nowhere to be seen. Left with no choice but to assume Ran Do stole it, Tuan and Minh Hoang set off for Saigon to track him down and retrieve their precious whale, hopefully doing so before any of the villagers realise it’s gone.

If the plot sounds familiar, it’s because it has more than a few call backs to the 2003 Thai action classic Ong Bak. Just swap out the buddha’s head for the ambergris and Bangkok for Saigon. Even the character roles are instantly familiar. Ran Do is essentially playing the same villager corrupted by the big city that was played by Phetthai Vongkumlao, right down to the spunky female contact the main characters connect with in the urban sprawl, with Nguyen Thao (Duoi Day Ho) in the role that Pumwaree Yodkamol played. Throw in a motorbike chase instead of one with tuk-tuks, and a wet market fight scene instead of a dry one, the comparisons are difficult to ignore. It’s a formula that’s proven to be a successful one in Southeast Asia, with Iko Uwais’ debut Merantau also leaning into the same structure.

However while the likes of Ong Bak and Merantau where primarily focused on showcasing the screen fighting aesthetic of Muay Thai and Silat respectively, Fist, Fists and Ambergris is first and foremost an action comedy. A very funny one at that. In an era where poker faced violence has become the go-to aesthetic in recent years, much like China’s Second Life, the action here is more of a throwback to the 80’s Hong Kong style where fight scenes could still be fast and furious, without needing to lean into graphic violence.

Echoing the way Chad Stahelshi and his 87Eleven team have taken a much more active role in filmmaking across the pond in Hollywood, here it’s Duong Minh Chien’s Action C group who take the reins, a local stunt team who’ve been producing their own YouTube shorts for the last few years. Unsurprisingly citing 80’s Hong Kong action cinema as their inspiration, Fist, Fists and Ambergris provides Minh Chien with his directorial debut, and together with Dai Bao Bao and the previously mentioned Tram Minh Hoang, the trio also act as action directors.

Even before realising that Minh Hoang was part of the action team, it becomes apparent from whenever he springs into action that he’s the real deal, with a particular crispness and sense of impact to his movements that can only be achieved through experience (or maybe it’s just because I’ve spent too larger portion of my life watching kung-fu movies that I notice these things). While I confess to not being familiar with much of the cast, it was reported that many of them went through a 6-month training program with the Action C team prior to filming, and the results are certainly there to see onscreen. The lead Quang Tuan in particular almost comes across as a modern-day incarnation of Han Yong-cheol, with his tall lean frame adding an extra impact to the kicks he delivers, of which there are many.

There are several action highlights, with an early wet market melee showing an obvious Jackie Chan influence in the usage of the environment to dispatch the attackers (are market fights scenes to Southeast Asian action cinema what tea house fight scenes were to old school kung-fu cinema?), and a warehouse brawl later on highlighting some painful falls and impacts. Best of all, it contains one of my favorite kung-fu movies tropes – the reveal that a seemingly harmless old guy is actually a near impossible to beat martial arts master. Played by Tuan Voi (Furie), who’s a stunt coordinator himself, his reveal as the main villain makes him a suitably intimidating presence, with his attire feeling like a subtle nod to Bruce Leung’s character in Kung Fu Hustle.

Unlike Stephen Chow’s 2004 classic though, here there’s no CGI in sight during the fight scenes, so by the time Tuan, Minh Hoang, and Ran Do have to team up to take him down for a three against one finale on the beach, it’s a raw display of physical talent that sees the choreography reach its peak. Indeed while Vietnam revisits the marital arts genre infrequently (which, admittedly, could be said for almost any country), when it does it usually delivers. Whie Fists, Fish and Ambergris isn’t going to be the production that has action fans proclaiming Vietnam as the next country to watch out for in the action genre, at no point is it trying to be. Instead, Minh Chien wisely opts to balance its action and comedic beats in such a way that most will be left with a smile on their face when the closing credits roll.

Ironically the only time the narrative feels like it runs out of steam is during the final scenes, when having defeated Voi, we’re forced to sit through a 5-minute denouncement covering everything from forgiveness, belonging, and the importance of social cohesion. The sudden switch to such dialogue heavy scenes to close out proceedings feels like it could be from a different movie altogether, but then it’s important to remember that, much like China, every movie needs to make it past a government censorship committee before approval is given for screening (lest we forget the 2013 debacle of Cho Lon, which never saw the light of day). It seems that the approach here was to have fun for 99% of the runtime, and leave the tick box requirements to be tagged on the end, so in that regard its entirely forgivable.

True to Minh Chien’s source of inspiration, the end credits play over a blooper reel from the fight scenes and stunt work that are well worth sticking around for, some of which look particularly painful (including a fire stunt that’ll give flashbacks to The Man from Hong Kong!). Successfully transitioning from the short film format of YouTube to a feature length production, Fists, Fish and Ambergris proves a worthy showcase for the Action C teams talents, and I for one will be hoping to see a lot more of them.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8/10