Filmmaker/actor Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is currently prepping his latest actioner, Hidden Man(read our review), which he’ll also star in.
According to Variety, Hidden Man is pitched as the third element in a loose trilogy that stared with Let The Bullets Fly and continued with Gone With The Bullets. Both mix up old time gangsters, decadent high life, and power grabs, throwing up political analogies that Chinese censors were expected to OK and audiences were supposed to read between the lines.
Director: Erik Matti Cast: Anne Curtis, Brandon Vera, Victor Neri, Arjo Atayde, Levi Ignacio, Nonie Buencamino, Lao Rodriguez, Joross Gamboa, Sheenly Gener, Mara Lopez, AJ Muhlach, Tarek El Tayech, Maddie Martinez, Ricky Pascua Running Time: 126 min.
By Samson Kwok
Even though the year is only half way over, I already know that there is a very good chance that Filipino director Erik Matti’s BuyBust will be my favorite action film of 2018. Watching this film, I got the same sense of excitement as when I first saw Thailand’s Ong Bak, Indonesia’s The Raid and more recently, Cambodia’s Jailbreak. It features the same kind of crazy, real and dangerous action that is hard to find in Hollywood productions, where CGI can make anything seem possible but everything feels fake.
The story is simple: an anti-drug squad carries out a raid with the intention of capturing a notorious drug lord. If you think it sounds just like The Raid, you are right. However, while the basic premise of the story is very similar to the 2011 Indonesian hit, there are quite a lot of differences in the details; and instead of a rundown apartment, the drug boss here is ruling over a heavily populated slum. The battlefield is therefore larger, more chaotic and much more dangerous.
The lead character is drug enforcement agent Nina Manigan, played by actress Anne Curtis. She is part of the squad headed by Bernie Lacson (Victor Neri). There are a number of fellow team members and one of them is Rico, played by mixed martial artist Brandon Vera. The police have captured a lower level drug dealer Teban (Alex Calleja) and with his help, the squad set out to capture drug lord Biggie Chen (Arjo Atayde). Of course, things do not go as planned and soon the team is trapped inside the slum that resembles a maze and the members come under attack by hundreds of criminals headed by Chen’s right-hand man Boss Chongki (Levi Ignacio, The Hunted Hunter) and a group of angry civilians led by Solomon (Ricky Pascua), who has decided enough is enough. Soon the slum becomes a place of anarchy and the goal for the squad shifts from catching the bad guys to getting out of the place alive.
The action scenes in BuyBust are jaw-breaking for the cast and jaw-dropping for the audience. There are some inventive sequences that prove that when the situation is desperate, really anything could be used as a weapon. Reportedly, there were over 300 people in the stunt team and judging by the scale of some of the scenes, that does not come as a surprise at all. The main action sequences include the fights against Chongki’s gang, Biggie’s guards and Cocky’s crew, the tree ambush, the lightning fight, the war on Widow’s Alley and the rooftop battle. They are all superbly choreographed (by action director Sonny Sison), lensed (by cinematographer Neil Derrick Bion), edited (by editor Jay Halili) and scored (by composers Erwin Romilo and Malek Lopez). Stars Curtis and Vera both shine in the complex action scenes. I think the Widow’s Alley and rooftop mob fights will become classic fight scenes that generations of action fans will be talking about for years to come.
As usual, director Matti has a lot to say about corrupt cops and the government’s war on drugs and is not afraid to express his opinions here. All the anti-drug campaigns seem futile because at the end of the day, it is still the drug dealers who are running the country. It is the poor civilians who have to suffer at the hands of both the criminals and the police, and the film suggests that it is common for innocent people to lose their loved ones and their own lives. One particularly memorable scene shows a good man who wants to help but decides to hide behind closed doors when the law enforcement officials cannot guarantee his and his family’s safety.
BuyBust, which recently screened as the Closing Night Film at the popular and influential New York Asian Film Festival, will without a doubt turn Erik Matti into the best known Filipino filmmaker in the world. It is a mesmerizing piece of cinema that features brilliant action, crazy stunts and top-notch production values. This is action cinema at its very best and a must-see for every fan of the genre.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Wolf Warrior an action/martial arts flick directed by, and starring Wu Jing (SPL,SPL 2).
Sergeant Leng Feng (Wu), top marksman of the Chinese Special Forces, is jailed under court martial for disobeying orders. But he’s just the kind of fighter the Wolf Warriors are looking for. Silent. Stealthy. Deadly. The Wolves bring Feng into their pack, honing his skills to a knife’s edge. But another team has Feng on their radar: a group of corrupt blades-for-hire, seeking revenge for the drug lord’s murder.
Cannes Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Koreeda (Third Murder) will be directing The Truth (aka La Vérité), which will be his first film outside of Japan.
The Truth (short for its original title, The Truth About Catherine) will star Ethan Hawke, Juliette Binoche and Catherine Deneuve.
The French-backed production involves a stormy reunion between a daughter and her actress mother, Catherine, against the backdrop of Catherine’s latest role in a sci-fi picture as a mother who never grows old.
According to Deadline, production for The Truth starts this October in France. For now, we leave you with the Trailer for Koreeda’s Third Murder:
On September 4, 2018, Well Go USA will be releasing the DVD for 2016’s Brothers, a war actioner written and directed by Ah Gan (Don Quixote).
The film centers on the relationship between two brothers who used to have a bond for life but it is ripped apart through a civil war in 1936.
Brothers stars Peter Ho Yun-Tung (Sword Master), Ethan Li Dong-Xue (Brotherhood of Blades), Xia Zi-Tong (The Monkey King), Yang Qi-Ming (Another You), Tian Yuan (City of Trance) and He Zi-Ming (Cold Steel).
Like most people, my first Seijun Suzuki film was the infamous Branded to Kill. It was unlike any crime movie I’d seen before; weird, visually inventive, playful, and shocking. Jo Shishido got off on the smell of rice, there were all these damn butterflies everywhere, and the plot sounded a bit like a videogame. It was nuts and I loved it. I then continued through Criterion’s offering of Suzuki titles (which sadly has not expanded much since that time about a decade ago), watching Tokyo Drifter, Gate of Flesh, Fighting Elegy, Story of a Prostitute, and Youth of the Beast, and loving each to varying degrees. I think Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell, Bastards! was the first Suzuki film I watched when I branched out beyond Criterion’s wacky C branding. I remember liking it but thinking it was decidedly less gonzo than the Suzuki films I’d seen before it.
I revisited the movie last night to watch the new Arrow Blu-ray. In the seven or so years in between the first time I saw it and last night, I’ve seen many more Suzuki films, and have come to understand that his filmography was far more varied than the weird art film action movies he’s best known for. He was very much a studio director and he shot whatever they handed him. It was only later, when resentment for the studio grind grew parallel with Suzuki’s skills as an artist that we got to see him truly let it all out and make some remarkably original genre entertainment with more regularity.
After having seen films like The Incorrigible, Teenage Yakuza, and a few others from Arrow’s Suzuki Early Years box sets, Go to Hell, Bastards! doesn’t seem like such an oddball anymore. It’s like the halfway meeting between his grittier action pictures and his goofier mainstream fluff. Sometimes these two competing tones don’t always blend as well as they should – one wishes some of the comic relief performers hadn’t played their parts quite so broadly – but Suzuki gives the film this breakneck, high tension, straight-faced lunacy that serves the story well.
Go to Hell, Bastards! opens with the most violent scene in the movie. An American military truck hands over the keys to some gangsters, who then begin unloading weapons into a new vehicle. They are ambushed by a Pepsi truck drive-by shooting. It’s chaos. Pepsi bottles shatter, the gangsters are slaughtered in the street, and the goods are stolen. It looks like the thieves are all about to get away with it, but one vehicle is struck by a bullet and breaks down on the road, leaving the driver Manabe (Tamio Kawaji) to be picked up by police.
It seems that Manabe’s gang has been ripping off the yakuza for weeks now. But nobody knows who they are or who they answer to. Manabe represents the first good clue to figuring it out, but the police can’t break him. Meanwhile, all the city’s rival yakuza clans wait outside the police station ready to gun down Manabe as soon as he’s released. They’re all armed to the teeth with swords and guns. At one point, we are forced to ask the question, hey is it legal for all of them to have guns? To which one police character explains away, saying that all the yakuza have hunting licenses and the right to carry their rifles if they wish. A news reporter covering the scene exclaims, “Can this really happen in Japan?!” And the answer is, of course, no. Only in America… It’s an early hint that the movie’s not really playing by the rules of gritty reality.
Puffy cheeked badass Jo Shishido plays private detective/information peddler Tajima. The P.I., who operates out of the Detective Bureau 2-3 office with two annoying assistants, smells an opportunity and introduces himself into the situation. He suggests to Chief Inspector Kumagai (Nobuo Kaneko) that only he, an unknown variant in the situation, can get what the cops are after. He offers to rescue Manabe upon his release, thus gaining his trust and an invite to meet the gang. All the while the police follow at a distance and try to keep the yakuza off their trail.
It’s a cool, not too simple/not too complicated plot of deception as Tajima goes undercover in the new gang. And these guys do not trust easy. They overturn every rock they can in order to look into his cover story. The police, meanwhile, try to keep up by planting actors in the right places to sell the lies. But Tajima is always on edge, fearful that the crooks may go one level deeper into the story than the police, thus blowing his cover.
Before the end, we get at least two more massive shootouts. Suzuki doesn’t film these as he normally would. He keeps the camera at a distance and just lets things go bang. It’s like we’re watching the action from across the street. Rarely during these sequences do we get a close-up on any of the actors, not even the leads. It’s chaotic and noisy. I’m not sure it’s particularly exciting, but it does fit the vein bulging, teeth gritting, wide-eyed mania of the movie.
This is an action movie where Jo Shishido has a song and dance number, shoots a machine gun through the street pavement to send a signal, and uses some very aggressive unwanted kissing to get information. Other strange parts include the undercover priests, the impotent bad guy, and the lesbian and nerd comic relief. One can sense the film tearing at the seams a bit, not because it is overstuffed but because every subplot/supporting character is trying so desperately to eclipse the other.
I like Shishido a lot here. He’s charming, cool, and funny. He has great chemistry with Nobuo Kaneko. The film’s title and ending suggest that Nikkatsu saw this as the start of a potential new series. It was not to be. I feel some sadness at that, because I would’ve loved to have seen some of these characters again. I say ‘some’ and not ‘all,’ because if the film has a major failing it’s that a few of its supporting roles are either weak or troubling. I did not like the way they wrote the leading lady, Chiaki (Reiko Sassamori), as a victim of abuse who then becomes a willing conspirator in crime only to be rescued by the film’s hero who then proceeds to abuse her, too. It’s discomforting. I also did not like Tajima’s comic relief P.I. partners played by Hiroshi Hijikata and Kotoe Hatsui. They simply are not very funny.
The film looks and sounds good on the new Arrow Video Blu-ray. The only new special feature is a 30-minute interview with film historian Tony Rayns, who gives us some context about how the film fit into the careers of Suzuki and Shishido. It’s a great extra for fans wanting to know more.
Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell, Bastards! is not one of Suzuki’s most iconic films. Not by a long shot. But I quite like it. I like it more today than I did when I first saw it many years back. It holds together better on second viewing and I was no longer struck by how ‘normal’ it was compared to the likes of Branded to Kill. It’s a high-strung action comedy with a great lead performance from Jo Shishido and one of the best titles in all of film history.
Director: Matt Palmer Writer: Matt Palmer Cast: Jack Lowden, Martin McCann, Tony Curran, Ian Pirie, George Anton, Kate Bracken, Therese Bradley, Joe Cassidy, Cameron Jack, Kitty Lovett, Cal MacAninch Running Time: 101 min.
By Martin Sandison
There are two films everyone remembers when discussing my homeland, Scotland; Mel Gibson’s historically inaccurate but entertaining Braveheart, and Danny Boyle’s masterful junkie odyssey Trainspotting – two films that could not be more oppositional in their approach. The humble genre of the thriller is not one you would associate; that’s where Calibre comes in. Securing financing for a feature film in Scotland is difficult; most have to look elsewhere for a company big enough to do the job. Matt Palmer’s directorial debut Calibre is one of that kind, with the ubiquitous Netflix producing the film. What’s great, and gives me hope for the future of Scottish film making, is that most of the cast and crew are Scottish. And… the film is great. I mean, like, actually great. I went in to the screening knowing nothing about the film, and not realising I knew the director, who I will always be grateful to for putting on a Japanese cult film season many years ago, introducing me to two of my favourite films House and Sword of Doom. Calibre is nothing new as a thriller, but its execution is near flawless.
Vaughn (Jack Lowden, Dunkirk) and Marcus (Martin McCann, The Frankenstein Chronicles) are two old friends who go on a hunting trip to the Scottish Highlands, a last hurrah for their friendship as Vaughn will soon have a newborn. Everything is going well until they accidentally murder a pair of hill walkers, and Marcus makes the decision to hide the bodies. The two are in deep water, and so begins a deadly game between the two and the locals, led by Logan (Tony Curran, Underworld: Evolution).
The best thrillers (such as Deliverance, to which Calibre owes a massive debt) make the viewer feel as of they are right there with the characters. Calibre succeeds in this unbelievably well; I was gripped from start to finish, and all of the aspects combine to take you on a tense and anguished journey. The unobtrusive filmmaking and minimalist approach frames the narrative beautifully, and not a second is wasted. I’m not usually one to question how realistic a film is, I always suspend my disbelief, but Calibre looks, feels, and is acted like it could really happen.
Which brings me to the performances. Lowden and McCann are both fantastic. The former plays the role of passivity but strong-heartedness, caught in a web of deadly lies brilliantly. McCann as the alpha male, loud braggart whose one decision destroys the mens lives (for his own selfish ends) with an edge and cocaine fuelled paranoia that sets the screen alight. Curran, the veteran actor in a youngish cast, is superb as the world weary Logan whose sleepy village is decimated by the two leads. Peripheral characters such as Logan’s brother, the intimidating Brian McClay (Ian Pirie, Gangs of New York) and Iona (Kate Bracken, Being Human) are well drawn and have real depth.
Pivotal scenes such as the initial incident that leads the men down a dark path and the nail biting climax are handled with real assuredness and belie the fact that it’s Palmer’s first film. There is a consistency of tone that draws the viewer in despite a shaky opening, once this movie gets going it won’t stop for no one, like a freight train off the tracks.
The biggest faults come in when realising that the film is slightly derivative; Deliverance in idea and execution, Straw Dogs in feel and tone. This does not detract from a riveting tale well told with a moralistic ending, and a beacon of hope for Scottish film talent. I look forward to Palmer’s next project, and with the might of Netflix behind him there’s no stopping him.
“Thousand Faces of Dunjia” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Yuen Woo-ping Writer: Tsui Hark Cast: Da Peng, Ni Ni, Aarif Lee Chi-Ting, Zhou Dong-Yu, Wu Bai, Ada Liu Yan, Tiger Xu, Yang Yiwei, Mo Tse, Xu Ming-Hu, Sun Mingming, Zhang Yiqian Running Time: 110 min.
By Paul Bramhall
In 2015 it was announced that master choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping would be teaming up with visionary auteur Tsui Hark to remake The Miracle Fighters, Woo-Ping’s madcap fantasy from 1982, that featured most of the Yuen Clan either in-front or behind the camera. Understandably, the reaction was mixed. Most of the charm of The Miracle Fighters came from the low-brow, but always creative, special effects, an element which many feared would be drowned out by CGI if it was to be remade for a modern audience. Then you have the collaboration itself. While both Woo-Ping and Hark are instantly recognizable names, both in Hong Kong cinema and the action genre overall, the fact is that the last time they worked with each other was on Black Mask 2: City of Masks. I’ll just leave that there.
While their previous collaboration saw Hark in the director’s chair and Woo-Ping on action choreography duties, when the remake finally hit screens in 2017, their roles were somewhat reversed. Going under the title The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, Woo-Ping maintains his director role from the original, while Hark is credited as writing and producing. Perhaps most tellingly though, it’s oddly Hark’s name that gets splattered across the screen during the opening of TTFOD (as I’ll refer to it from here on in), with Woo-Ping’s director credit receiving second billing. The reasoning behind this becomes increasingly clear as proceedings progress, as the influence of Hark is far more prominent than that of Woo-Ping. Those who felt Woo-Ping’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny lacked his distinctive style, will likely feel it’s disappeared all-together in his latest directorial effort.
If anything, TTFOD feels like Hark is revisiting the world he created in his seminal Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain, or more specifically, its more recent sequel The Legend of Zu. We have an embattled clan, called Wuyin, who have been defending the earth from aliens (because, you know, creatures from Chinese folklore are off the cards in today’s Mainland friendly climate), one of which has been kept prisoner in a heavily chained piece of rock within a mountain. The aliens are after a device called the Destroyer of Worlds, the only defence against which is to activate the Dunjia, a kind of astrological force which is believed to be dormant in a frail young girl (Zhou Dong-yu) with a unique birthmark on her arm, one which indicates her as the Wuyin clans destined leader.
When the imprisoned alien is set free by a red tentacled alien (you’re going to have to bear with me here), and events are further confounded by five power greedy clan heads activating the Destroyer of Worlds, the good guys realise they’ll need to fight back. The Wuyin clan, headed by Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai (the lead from Hark’s Time and Tide) and consisting of, amongst others, a fiery tempered Ni Ni (The Warriors Gate) and noble hearted Da Peng (Jian Bing Man), ultimately end up joined by a fresh-faced constable in the form of Aarif Lee (Kung Fu Yoga), essentially playing Yuen Biao’s character from Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain. Can our heroes keep the constable safe, activate the Dunjia, convince their new leader to accept their destiny, fight the evil clan heads, stop the Destroyer of Worlds, and defeat the aliens!? Perhaps a more appropriate question to ask is, will you care? To which I can safely say, probably not.
Despite structuring itself into 6 chapters, TTFOD quickly turns into an unwieldy mess of a movie, with so much going on that audiences are likely to need a reminder of exactly what’s at stake more than once. It’s also guilty of being completely derivative of more recent (and more entertaining) blockbusters. The opening scene is practically identical to that of Stephen Chow’s Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, as Aarif Lee attempts to chase down an oversized fish demon through a village. While I confess that it’s the first time to witness a rooftop chase sequence involving Lee, a three-eyed fish, and a sheet (don’t ask), it’s such a blatant rip-off that it’s impossible to enjoy. The chase is eventually interrupted by Ni Ni, who captures the demon and stomps the living daylights out of it, as Lee looks on, wide eyed at how Woo-Ping could so unashamedly cast her as an exact clone of Shu Qi’s character in Chow’s 2013 hit.
The biggest issue with TTFOD though is that it’s an eyesore. A garish, incredibly messy eyesore. What exactly the level of collaboration was between Woo-Ping and Hark would be interesting to understand, as the highly creative CGI action found in the latter’s Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back and Detective Dee series, is here nowhere to be found. Instead, there’s an almost tireless bombardment of sub-par CGI bursting out of the screen every few moments. The main alien looks like a mix of a low budget 90’s PC fantasy game, and Sulley from Monsters, Inc. (not to mention its dialogue fails to match its mouth movements), characters frequently stare past the CGI rather than at it, and there wasn’t one scene when it felt integrated with its surroundings. Oh, and the hero of TTFOD is actually a gigantic fluorescent peacock thing which looks like it swallowed a bunch of glow sticks. I wish I was kidding.
In fact the only real trace of Woo-Ping could be said to come from the characters. The clan members appearances could well have seen them just walk off the set of the 1982 original, with hunchbacks, one-eyed warriors, buck-toothed swordsmen, and wild-haired bandits all populating TTFOD’s scenery. The evil clan heads also show traces of Woo-Ping’s influence, with names like the Eight Armed Ape and Lord of Hell, they resemble distant relatives of some of the Shaolin Drunkard cast. While the hark (pardon the pun) back to the period of Yuen Clan craziness was nice to see, they’re too often drowned out in the swathes of CGI nonsense that accompany the majority of scenes. In particular, the water effects are so bad they drew a wince out of me.
However with any Yuen Woo-Ping movie, there should be at least some saving grace in the form of the action. Here his fellow Yuen Clan luminaries Yuen Cheung-Yan (the director of Taoism Drunkard) and Yuen Shun-Yi are on action duties, and what little on display is sadly an embarrassment to their legacy. Indeed, apart from a brief showdown at the 80 minute mark, there is in-fact no action at all involving the cast themselves squaring off against each other. We get aliens flapping about and causing mildly engaging chaos, there’s plenty of jumping around, and there’s even some heroic posing, but actual choreographed action scenes? Forget it. Regardless of all the above criticisms, having practically zero choreographed action scenes, in a production with 3 members of the Yuen Clan at the helm, is TTFOD’s most heinous crime.
I can only guess that having 2 creative forces as stylistically distinctive as Woo-Ping and Hark come together, in this case resulted in them cancelling each other out. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sammo Hung and Ringo Lam came together for Touch and Go in 1991 with similar results, and who can forget Wong Jing and Jackie Chan’s differences on 1993’s City Hunter (though I have to confess, I kind of like that one). Sometimes when a filmmaker has such a defined style, mixing it with another filmmaker with a similar disposition doesn’t always create the dream results that everyone expects. This seems to very much be the case here, but still I can’t help but feel that if Hark was in the director’s chair, and Woo-Ping on action choreography duty, we would have at least got a slightly better end product than what we’re left with here.
With a surprising absence of humor (and what there is of it in Hark’s script, is painfully misinterpreted for the screen), zero characterisation, and one of the most anticlimactic cliff-hanger endings ever committed to film, TTFOD is a tragic waste of talent for all involved. 25 years later, we’re still waiting for a sequel to Jet Li’s Kung Fu Cult Master, hopefully in the case of Woo-Ping’s latest, we’ll have to wait even longer.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for the fantasy/martial arts epic, League of Gods (aka Feng Shen Bang 3D).
League of Gods (read our review) is directed by both Koan Hui (Snow Blossom) and newcomer, Vernie Yeung. The film is based on the 16th-century Chinese novel by Xu Zhonglin titled Investiture of Gods.
The movies are fun. They are even more fun when the cast is made up almost entirely of 8 fabulous women. By now you have to know that we are talking about one of the most awesome chick flicks ever. That is if it even qualifies as a chick flick. Ocean’s Eight, this is one of the movies released at the end of the first half of 2018.
About the Movie
The movie is a remake of the classic online casino real money heist movie Ocean’s Eleven. However, this is not a simple copy and paste of the original. This movie has the ability to stand on its own feet. Although too many times the director of the movie forced it to crunch on the successful trilogy featuring George Clooney.
This movie is propped up out of this big pitfall by magnificent performances by the leading ladies. All of the 8 women who had the starring roles in the movie gave special performances. From the heist leader Sandra Bullock who plays Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie Ocean right through to Rihanna who plays Nine Ball, a genius hacker.
Just like the original, the gang leader Ocean goes around recruiting thieves to help her with her heist. The mark in this movie is Anne Hathaway who gives an outstanding performance. The target of the heist is a set of diamonds that is worth over $150 million dollars.
What to Love about the Movie
Well as mentioned earlier it is an All-Star cast. So there are bound to be memorable performances from the artists. The movie has a few notable one-liners, it would just be rude to share any of them here. And of course, the heist itself.
There have been a lot of heist movies lately. Most of them have been very good while a few have been exceptional. The pressure of having to live up to the original Ocean’s movies has had a good impact on this flick. You will not be pulling out your phone to play canadian online casino games during this movie, that is how good it is.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for Shout! Factory’s Jackie Chan Double Feature, which includes 1993’s Crime Story and 1985’s The Protector.
What makes this Bu-ray special (other than Crime Story being a great, early-serious JC film) is that it contains both versions of The Protector: The U.S. Theatical release and the HK cut. The difference between the two is so dramatic that it feels like two, totally different movies (in a nutshell, JC was so displeased with James Glickenhaus’ vision that he re-edited, re-shot, added a sub-plot, and inserted new fight sequences for the HK crowd). In the end, both versions have their pros and cons (i.e. the U.S. version has T&A, the HK version has better fight scenes).
I get it, Enter the Dragon is an iconic movie. Ever seen a t-shirt of Bruce Lee? Chances are the image on it is one of him poised in a kung fu stance, three bloody scratches adorning his chest, his face alive with intensity. It’s an image from the finale of said title, and even today, 45 years on, it’s one that endures. It’s also a landmark movie, for its casting of an Asian lead in a co-produced Hollywood production, made at a time when it was practically unheard of.
Enter the Dragon premier at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California, on August 24, 1973.
However, is it a good movie? Hell no. In fact if someone was to tell me I had a choice of watching Enter the Dragon or Iron Monkey 2, guess what, I’d watch Iron Monkey 2. It’s a hard fact to swallow that Lee postponed filming of his sophomore directorial feature, Game of Death, to make Enter the Dragon. A decision which, due to his untimely passing, would mean the former would never be completed (at least, not the way he intended). To put it into context, such a decision is the hypothetical equivalent of Jackie Chan placing Police Story on hold half way through filming, to head off and make The Spy Next Door instead. Frankly, it was the wrong call.
“Enter the Dragon” Chinese Theatrical Poster
So naturally I find myself being the target of much derision whenever a discussion pops up about Enter the Dragon, and I pipe up with my opinions on how it’s the most overrated kung fu movie ever made. You want me to watch a 1973 kung fu flick? Give me The Blood Brothers, give me When Taekwondo Strikes, for that matter, give me Knight Errant. I’d re-watch these endlessly before having to inflict myself with the plodding pace, overlong runtime, and one-sided fight scenes that so many seem to believe reflect Bruce Lee’s crowning achievement.
But let me put some structure to my ranting. If anyone was in any doubt as to why Enter the Dragon is to Bruce Lee what Millennium Dragon is to Yuen Biao, then here’s 10 points clarifying exactly that –
It’s directed by Robert Clouse
Robert Clouse
Warner Brothers provided an A-list star with a B-movie director, which is a crime in itself. Amidst the many visionary directors that came out of America in the 70’s, Robert Clouse could not be said to be one of them, with perhaps his biggest claim to fame before Enter the Dragon being that he directed an episode of Ironside. His affiliation with Bruce Lee would continue to dictate the rest of his career – he’s the guy we can thank for the eventual release of Game of Death, attempted to introduce Jackie Chan to American audiences with Battle Creek Brawl, and helmed cult B-movies like Force: Five and Gymkata. As a sidenote, Clouse was also deaf, which likely explains a lot of the horrendous line delivery that so many cast members get away with in Enter the Dragon.
It stars John Saxon as a martial arts master
John Saxon vs. Lau Wing.
Saxon was already almost 40 by the time of Enter the Dragon, and was most likely cast thanks to having a black belt in karate and featuring in an episode of Kung Fu. While he’s a solid journey man actor and has built an impressive career in the world of B-movies, the decision to make him a co-star next to Bruce Lee is a lamentable one. Whenever Lee isn’t onscreen and we have to spend time with Saxon’s character, Roper, we’re immediately transported into the world of uninspired (and now terribly dated) 70’s kitsch. When he’s not frolicking with the ladies, we’re subjected to his fight scenes. Yes, his fight scenes, here we have a movie which could have given us a face-off between Bruce Lee and Bolo, but what do we get? Bolo versus John freaking Saxon. Words fail me.
No Bolo versus Bruce Lee fight
John Saxon vs. Yang Sze (before he was known as “Bolo”)
While it’s true that it was Enter the Dragon that cemented Yeung Sze’s bulking frame into popular consciousness (he’d even take on his character’s name for the rest of his career!), there can be no denying that his talents are wasted. Essentially there to flex muscles and throw people around, before succumbing (of all things) to a bite on the leg and a kick in the balls, the fact that Enter the Dragon squanders an opportunity for the big man to face off against the Little Dragon is insufferable. Bolo has one of the coolest looking onscreen fighting styles to grace the silver screen, the so called ‘no looking kung fu style’, in which he fights while not actually looking at his opponent. Said style could have provided Enter the Dragon with some much needed variety to its action scenes, but alas it wasn’t to be.
Sammo Hung could have choreographed the action
Sammo Hung taps out of choreographing.
By 1973 Sammo already had over 10 choreography credits to his name, and was gradually starting to develop his own distinctive style. While he does get to appear in the opening scene of Enter the Dragon, as Bruce Lee’s sparring partner (providing the best fight of the whole movie), the rest of the action would have benefitted greatly from Sammo’s touch. Instead, what we’re left with is Lee decimating whoever gets in his way with minimal effort, and lacklustre fights when he’s not directly involved. Lee’s strength lay in choreographing himself, with a style that rarely worked well when choreographing others (see his work on The Wrecking Crew for further proof of this). With Sammo at the helm, at least we would have gotten some worthy exchanges, and not just a one-man army with no sense of danger or risk.
Bruce Lee is invincible
“Bruce Lee the Invincible” Theatrical Poster
Not to be confused with the more entertaining Bruce Lee the Invincible (featuring Chan Wai-Man versus gorillas), Bruce Lee’s seeming immunity to having anyone land a hit on him is one of the biggest detractors of Enter the Dragon. For the people that complain about Steven Seagal not being hit in his movies, man, they should check this one out! One of the most well-known lines has Lee declare “Boards don’t hit back.” But apparently, that also applies to most of his opponents. When he finally does have some damage inflicted in the finale, it’s nothing more than aesthetically pleasing scratches, there to make him look cool rather than bruised and battered. In fact the only person who even gets close to Lee is a leg grabbing Bob Wall, which if you wanted to get technical doesn’t count, because it’s actually Yuen Wah. Go figure.
Bob Wall is the most unintimidating villain ever
Billy Zabka (The Karate Kid) and Bob Wall (reprising his O’Hara character) on the set of a commerical for TwinLab.
When Bruce Lee decided to bring in karate champion Chuck Norris for the finale of Way of the Dragon, he probably thought he could recreate the intensity of their confrontation by bringing in another one, this time in the shape of Bob Wall. Wrong. Unlike the Little Dragon’s evenly matched showdown in the colosseum, there’s never any doubt he’s going to beat the living daylights out of Wall. With the scarred villain resorting to a pair of smashed bottles, Lee channels the audiences rage at Angela Mao being given so little screentime by making quick work of his opponent, which in a more merciful world would have signalled the end credits. While Wall’s time in Enter the Dragon was short, the career he built off it was quite the opposite, and he still gives interviews to this day discussing the lame fight scene in question.
Angela Mao is wasted
Angela Mao is featured in a flashback of a flashback of a flashback.
You may have noticed the recurring trend of martial artists that Enter the Dragon wastes the talents of, and so it continues with the inclusion of Angela Mao. Hot off the heels of starring in the likes of Lady Whirlwind and Hapkido from the year prior, Mao had it all – the intense stare, a furious energy to her fight scenes, and an onscreen charm that was impossible to deny. To hear she was going to feature alongside Bruce Lee must have been pretty exciting news. But what do we get? A pitiful few minutes of screentime, which consist of her being little more than a damsel in distress, one which doesn’t get to show off any of the many talents that made her the icon that she was. Instead, we had to wait for the following year to see her team up with a legitimate thespian, in the form of “the other fellow”, George Lazenby.
Sek Kin acts like a useless old man
Listen to Sek Kin’s battle cries. He sounds old and scared.
Legendary HK villain Sek Kin may have already been 60 by the time he appeared in Enter the Dragon, but it still doesn’t justify the way he’s reduced to a rather lame Asian hybrid of Dr. No and Blofeld from the 007 franchise. Kin still had the moves, just check out the shapes he pulls in 1985’s Hong Kong Godfather, made 12 years later! However for whatever reason his extensive kung fu repertoire was decided to not be utilized, so instead we have him running around in a hall of mirrors, a role which practically anyone could have played. For anyone watching Enter the Dragon for the first time, Kin comes across as one of the least threatening villains in the history of cinema, which is a huge disservice to the man and his talents. You want to see Kin facing off against a Bruce? Watch the classic Bruce – The King of Kung Fu.
It’s a James Bond rip-off
“Asia-Pol” Chinese Theatrical Poster
The influence of Bond drifts in and out of Enter the Dragon like spliced footage in a Godfrey Ho movie, making it come across as shoehorned in rather than a natural part of the narrative. Look, if you want to see an Asian version of 007, check out Jimmy Wang Yu in Asia-Pol from 1967 to see how it’s done. Released the same year as Roger Moore’s debut as Ian Fleming’s most famous creation, the secret agent styled shenanigans on display in Enter the Dragon were dated even before it hit cinema screens. Casting Geoffrey Weeks as a poor man’s M, and a head scratching plot of a rogue Shaolin student using a martial arts tournament as a front to his opium smuggling operation, Robert Clouse and co. should have taken a page out of the ‘less is more’ manual of filmmaking.
It’s boring
Just short of 100 minutes, Enter the Dragon is at least 15 minutes too long. To think there’s people out there who are looking for additional footage is, quite frankly, unfathomable. The plot should have been simple – Bruce Lee partakes in a martial arts tournament to avenge the death of his sister. Chaos ensues. Instead, we’re subjected to some nonsense about him being a hired secret agent from Shaolin, Saxon’s completely uninspired backstory involving gambling debts, and Jim Kelly acting like he’s in a completely different movie all together. Considering Lee’s co-stars have little to nothing to do in terms of contributing to the finale, the amount of time we have to spend with them leading up to it provides more padding than his punchbag.
Jean-Claude Van Damme (Cyborg, Kill ’em All) and Dolph Lundgren (Skin Trade) – the action duo known for their team up in the popular Universal Soldier franchise – join forces once again for Black Water(read our review), which will be getting a Blu-ray and DVD release on August 21, 2018 from Lionsgate (the film is currently available via VOD, if that’s your preference).
Black Water is the story of a CIA operative (Van Damme) who is imprisoned in a CIA black site on a nuclear submarine after being framed as a traitor. He has to prove his innocence with the help of fellow inmate (Lundgren) and clear his name before he disappears forever…
The film also stars Patrick Kilpatrick (Death Warrant), Al Sapienza (Sopranos), Jasmine Waltz (Poker Run) and Kristopher Van Varenberg (Assassination Games).
Black Water is written by Chad Law (Close Range) from a story by Tyler W. Konney (Blue Line), and is produced by Richard Switzer (Altitude).
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I get it, Enter the Dragon is an iconic movie. Ever seen a t-shirt of Bruce Lee? Chances are the image on it is one of him poised in a kung fu stance, three bloody scratches adorning his chest, his face alive with intensity. It’s an image from the finale of said title, and even today, 45 years on, it’s one that endures. It’s also a landmark movie, for its casting of an Asian lead in a co-produced Hollywood production, made at a time when it was practically unheard of.
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