What do you get when you gather up Olivier Gruner (Nemesis), Patrick Kilpatrick (Death Warrant), Martin Kove (Rambo, The Karate Kid), Richard Grieco (If Looks Could Kill), Sasha Mitchell (Kickboxer 2) and Eric Lee (Ring of Fire); then cook ’em up to a crisp with some action direction by Art Camacho (Half Past Dead 2, To Be the Best 2)?
The Answer: The Chemist, “a gritty, action packed thriller about an aging assassin (Gruner) who is double crossed by his employer when he refuses to assassinate a woman he just met.”
Check out hew newly released trailer for The Chemist, courtesy of Film Combat Syndicate. The film is currently in post-production phase, so stay tuned for its official release date!
Jackie Chan (Armour of God III: CZ12) has added an English-language thriller titled Civilian, to his to-do list. The film’s producer, Basil Iwanyk (John Wick), describesit as “Die Hard in a weapons convention.”
According to Variety, Civilian “follows a salesman who finds himself in the middle of a terror attack at an arms convention.” Chances are, the film will be a light-hearted action flick, considering it’s being helmed by Peter Segal (Get Smart, Grudge Match), a director known for his family-friendly output.
Arrow Video USA presents the Blu-ray for 1967’s Day of Anger (aka Day of Wrath, I giorni dell’ira), directed by Tonino Valerii (My Name Is Nobody).
Amiable, unassertive Scott Mary (Giuliano Gemma) picks up the trash, cleans the toilets and sweeps the floors in the town of Clifton. Then a gunfighter (Lee Van Cleef) comes to town. He offers advice and guidance to Scott, who quickly begins to toughen and mature, thus upsetting the balance of power in the town. Watch the trailer.
“Kundo: Age of the Rampant” Korean Theatrical Poster
Director: Yun Jong-Bin
Cast: Ha Jung-Woo, Kang Dong-Won, Lee Kyung-Young, Lee Sung-Min, Jo Jin-Woong, Ma Dong-Seok, Yun Ji-Hye, Ju Jin-Mo, Song Young-Chang, Jeong Man-Sik, Kim Byung-Ok, Kim Jong-Gu, Kim Seong-Gyun
Running Time: 137 min.
By Kelly Warner
I went into Kundo: Age of the Rampant expecting something like a Korean take on the Robin Hood tale. What I got was a Tarantino-infused post-modern historical action movie that tries to be both a martial arts film and a spaghetti western at the same time. There’s a whole lotta movie in Kundo’s 137 minutes.
The film opens on bodies left to rot in the fields. Birds and dogs dine on the carcasses. Decapitated heads are left on pikes. It’s a time of famine and oppression. The poor are left to beg for the smallest favors from the corrupt and cruel nobility. But there is a resistance. A Robin Hood-like gang of bandits called the Kundo put the corrupt on trial, take their riches and redistribute them among the poor.
The lowest of the low is the foolish butcher Dochi (Jung-woo Ha). Barely scraping by, Dochi is tempted by a big payday when a nobleman named Jo-yoon asks him to assassinate a whore. “She’s little different than a pig,” reasons Jo-yoon. But when Dochi backs out of the deal, he angers the nobleman and is sentenced to death. Moments before his execution, Dochi is rescued by the Kundo and is given the opportunity of joining the gang so that he may one day have his revenge.
When Dochi joins the Kundo, he transforms from the lowly butcher into an infamous fighter. Jung-woo Ha is one of Korea’s finest actors and he disappears into the character. Admittedly Dochi is not one of Ha’s most complex roles, but after this and other great performances in The Chaser and The Yellow Sea, I am convinced that Jung-woo Ha can play basically anybody.
Despite Ha’s notable screen presence, I believe the film belongs to the villain Jo-yoon as played by Dong-won Kang. I’ve never been terribly impressed by Kang in the past, but here Kang is in complete control, bringing a cool detachment to a villain that could have easily gone over the top. His villain can do more with a single cold stare than other lesser villains could do with a three page monologue.
Period pieces are all the rage in Asia right now. Some have a difficult time finding fans in the West because they focus too much on history and politics, and not enough on action. And though the plot of Kundo may make it sound like a dense retelling of Korea’s history, one full of backstabbing noblemen and political strife, Kundo’s much more focused on having a good time.
The film is self-aware, but never in an annoying way. An Ennio Morricone inspired score dominates the film. The major characters are introduced in flickering freeze frames (one is simply named ‘The Vicious Monk’). The screenplay is full of humor and the characters have a tendency of dropping some ‘motherf-ckers’ and other modern lingo to make themselves understood (one such line goes something like, “Attain your f-cking Buddhahood!”). I think that director Jong-bin Yun (Nameless Gangster) is clearly a fan of Quentin Tarantino, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say his movie is a rip-off of Tarantino’s style. Like Tarantino is fond of doing for the directors who have influenced him, Kundo: Age of the Rampant plays like a love letter to Tarantino’s films and his particular style of movie making.
Kundo: Age of the Rampant is a movie that knows it’s a movie. Now, that’s going to turn some people off who will wonder why they couldn’t just play it straight, which is a reasonable question. Personally, I like this stylistic choice as it sets Kundo apart from the rest of the historical actioners, making it a rather unique film.
On top of the surplus of style, we also get a heavy dose of well-done action. Director Yun shoots the large scale battles and the duels with equal skill. The swordplay is fast-paced and in your face, but it’s easy to follow and we never lose the characters in the action. Jung-woo Ha has an interesting fighting style as he swaggers onto the battlefield with some serious meat cleavers in either hand. And Dong-won Kang makes one believe that he is the unbeatable fighter his character requires him to be.
The film does feel a bit crowded at times. There are a lot of characters and many are not as defined as one would like them to be. It also takes a long time for Dochi to announce himself as the hero of the story. And one could argue that Jong-bin Yun would’ve been better off coming up with his own particular style instead of so openly mimicking others. Overall though, the movie works. It’s often dark and violent but it’s a lot of fun thanks to its playful style and an awesome villain.
I’ve read that when Kundo debuted in South Korea it broke the opening weekend box office record… only to have its record beaten in the very next week. Whether that says anything about the movie—like does it have staying power and will we remember it a year from now?—I have no idea. One thing it helps make clear is that this is an important time in South Korean film. The South Korean film industry is cranking out great, stylish movies made by some truly gifted filmmakers and the audiences are showing up. Kundo: Age of the Rampant may have clearly been inspired by international cinema, but it makes for an interesting addition to Korea’s ever-expanding list of quality films.
Are you ready for another dose of surveillance action from three of Hong Kong’s most popular actors? Louis Koo (Flash Point), Daniel Wu (Shinjuku Incident) and Lau Ching-Wan (The Bullet Vanishes) are back in Alan Mak and Felix Chong’s Overheard 3.
DDDHouse.com now has Blu-ray & DVD versions available for an October 28th pre-order. Keep in mind that the DVD versions are Region 3 coded, so you will need a multi-region DVD player to view the movie. Fortunately, the Blu-ray version is coded for region A, so they’re good to go on your current North American Blu-ray hardware.
"Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman" Theatrical Poster
RELEASE DATE: January 20, 2015
Screen Media presents the DVD for Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman, directed by Ernesto Díaz Espinoza, the Chilean action filmmaker responsible for Marko Zaror’s Mandrill, Mirageman, Kiltro and the upcoming Redeemer.
Timid, video game-loving DJ Santiago (Matías Oviedo) seemingly digs his own grave when he agrees to bring a violent criminal kingpin the head of Machine Gun Woman (Fernanda Urrejola). Watch the trailer.
Director: David Leitch Co-director: Chad Stahelski Cast: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe, Daniel Bernhardt, Bridget Regan, Lance Reddick, Keith Jardine Running Time: 96 min.
By Jeff Bona
If there’s one Hollywood superstar who’s maintained a solid connection with the martial arts film genre, it’s Keanu Reeves.
Reeves first made this connection in 1999/2003 with the Matrix trilogy, where he “learned” a great deal of on-screen fighting from legendary Hong Kong choreographer Yuen Woo Ping; in 2013, he starred in the samurai epic 47 Ronin, where he worked with Zhang Peng (choreographer of The Wrath of Vajra); that same year, he reunited with Yuen for the Chinese/U.S. co-production Man of Tai Chi, a kung fu flick he not only starred in, but also directed.
With a resume as physically demanding and cultured as his is, it should come as no surprise that Reeves is still kicking some serious ass in his latest film, John Wick.
John Wick marks the directorial debut of David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, founders of the 87Eleven Stunt Team. They’re obviously known for staging stunt work and fight choreography in films like 300 (2006), Tron: Legacy (2010) and Safe (2012). Now, if Stahelski’s choreography work in Safe alone isn’t enough of a credential to get you excited about seeing John Wick, then you obviously haven’t seen Safe. Let’s put it this way: I like Reeves, but I’m not exactly watching John Wick for him, if you catch my drift.
John Wick is written by Derek Kolstad, who penned the straight-to-DVD actioners One in the Chamber and The Package (both star Dolph Lundgren, just to give you an idea of what kind of films these are). So, what we have with John Wick is essentially a “B-movie” with a moderate budget, a big star, and a couple of first-time directors who probably had one common goal: To make a brainless action flick for people who love excessive violence. Given this context, John Wick succeeds.
Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, an infamous, retired assassin who now leads a peaceful lifestyle. But when a series of unfortunate events distort his daily routine, Wick has no choice but to revisit his sinister past and go on one hell of a kill crazy rampage.
John Wick truly delivers during its amazingly staged action sequences. The majority of them involve brutal gun battles, which are stylishly choreographed with a dance-like rhythm; think a less exaggerated, more grittier take on Gun Kata, the fictional gun-wielding martial art style in Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium (2002). It’s a whole lotta fun watching Wick plow through hordes of enemies, sometimes shooting them 3 or 4 times a piece – aiming at various body parts – from a number of neat angles and distances.
The firefights are accented with hand-to-hand combat scenes, placed randomly between the endless rain of bullets. There will be those who complain that they’re filmed too close, or are too darkly lit, etc. This may be true, but the rest of the film’s savagery is the trade off. Although there wasn’t as many physical fight scenes as I’d like there to be, they’re at least done without the typical shaky cam approach.
The style doesn’t stop at the action. You might be amused by the treatment of playful on-screen text – and reoccurring subtitles – which were scattered across the screen using colored fonts, instead of the typical generic white text at the bottom of the screen. If you’re a muscle car enthusiast, the film showcases a number of beastly automobiles for your eyes (and ears) to appreciate.
What’s disappointing about John Wick is the lack of a competitive adversary to the title character. I felt the film was just begging for an enemy that can hold their own against Wick. The closest we get is an annoying femme fatale (Adrianne Palicki) who would be more suitable in a Pierce Brosnan-era James Bond flick. Equally as bad is a non-threatening, over-the-hill gangster (Michael Nyqvist) who ultimately becomes Wick’s main opponent during the film’s anticlimactic finale.
Then, there’s the film’s music. At times, I felt it was overused. From what I remember, almost every time any type of action kicked in, it was accompanied by an uptempo soundtrack; sometimes it worked, sometimes it was overkill. There are some other questionable hiccups throughout John Wick, but you have to remind yourself that you’re watching a B-movie masked by the star of Speed (1994), so these flaws should be easily dismissed and forgiven.
Overall, not a bad directorial debut for Leitch and Stahelski. They certainly have a good sense of pacing, and without doubt, they’re the real deal when it comes to creating some hard-hitting action pieces. With a little less aerial shots (someone went a little stock footage crazy), and some worthy baddies worked into the script, the Leitch/Stahelski duo may one day make an action flick that I can fully recommend. As for John Wick? It’s definitely worth a watch, but if you’re wise, you’ll wait ’til it appears on Netflix.
When a spate of eerie murders erupts across Hong Kong, two troublemaking cops are assigned to the case. After discovering that all of the victims were former boyfriends of aspiring starlet, the detectives find themselves in a deadly situation.
Badges of Fury also stars Wen Zhang, Michelle Chen, Collin Chou and Wu Jing.
Months ago, we reported that Don “The Dragon” Wilson (Bloodfist, Ring of Fire) and a group of producers were supposedly mounting a new project called The B-Team, an Expendables-esque movie with straight-to-video stars like Cynthia Rothrock, Michael Dudikoff, Loren Avedon, Billy Blanks, Jeff Speakman and Mark Dacascos.
Well, looks like “The Dragon” has some competition. Cityonfire.com was contacted by Indonesian filmmaker Bagus Ariatama, who’ll be directing his own Expendables-esque flick called Garuda 7. This Indonesian production will star local legends and some well-known, straight-to-video names; and possibly some Hong Kong talent. Garuda 7 will be put out by Lifevolution Pictures, which was formed by Ariatama and Bey Logan. Ariatama says the film will start pre-production this September (after Logan wraps up Lady Bloodsport) with cameras expected to roll by January 2014.
So, who’s going to be in Garuda 7? Apparently Indonesian martial arts stars Barry Prima (The Devil’s Sword) and Willy Dozan (aka Billy Chong of Kung Fu Zombie and Crystal Fist) are on board. Ariatama also mentioned that the well-connected Logan is trying to get Mark Dacascos, Michael Dudikoff, Lorenzo Lamas, Richard Norton and Hong Kong’s Simon Yam, to be a part of Garuda 7. The addition of even two of these guys could make Garuda 7 the first Expendables-like movie – that’s if The B-Team doesn’t get made first.
Updates: We have some new visuals for Garuda 7, which may hint that the forever-in-development “Indonesian Expendables” may finally be taking shape. Check out the film’s new promo poster, which has some very familiar names, including Verdy Bhawanta (Mortal Enemies), Tim Man (Raging Phoenix), Ron Smoorenburg (Who Am I?) and Brahim Achabbakhe (Man of Tai Chi), Kazu Patrick Yang (Dragonwolf), John Ladalski (Chinese Stuntman) and last but not least, Mark Dacascos (Brotherhood of the Wolf). In addition, visit the film’s Facebook page, which has a behind-the-scenes teaser. | Two new teasers.
Cityonfire.com and Well Go USA are giving away 3 Blu-ray copies of Donnie Yen’s Iceman to three lucky Cityonfire visitors.
To enter, simply add a comment to this post and describe, in your own words, this clip (yes, you read that right). We will be selecting a winner at random. Be sure to include your email address in the appropriate field so we can contact you for your home address. Additionally, you must ‘Like Us‘ on cityonfire.com’s Facebook by clicking here.
The Blu-ray & DVD for Iceman will be officially released on November 11, 2014. We will announce the 3 winners on that day and ship out the prizes immediately.
CONTEST DISCLAIMER: You must enter by November 10, 2014 to qualify. U.S. residents only please. We sincerely apologize to our non-U.S. visitors. Winners must respond with their mailing address within 48 hours, otherwise you will automatically be disqualified. No exceptions. Contest is subject to change without notice.
"The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom" Theatrical Poster
DDDHouse.com now has Jacob Cheung’s (A Battle of Wits) wuxia-fantasy 3D film The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom available for an October 24th pre-order.
Penned by Liang Yusheng (The Bride with White Hair), the film revolves around a pair of star-crossed lovers – a devilish outlaw (Iron Man 3’s Fan Bingbing) and the righteous Taoist leader (Ip Man 2’sHuang Xiaoming), and their love that could change the fate of the nation.
Keep in mind that the DVD version is Region 3 coded, so you will need a multi-region DVD player to view the movie. Fortunately, the Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray versions are coded for region A, so they’re good to go on your current North American Blu-ray hardware.
Kundo: Age of the Rampant | Blu-ray & DVD (Well Go USA)
Cityonfire.com and Well Go USA are giving away 3 Blu-ray copies of Kundo to three lucky Cityonfire visitors.
To enter, simply add a comment to this post and describe, in your own words, Steven Seagal’s clothes in this clip (yes, you read that right). We will be selecting a winner at random. Be sure to include your email address in the appropriate field so we can contact you for your home address. Additionally, you must ‘Like Us‘ on cityonfire.com’s Facebook by clicking here.
The Blu-ray & DVD for Kundo was officially released on October 21, 2014. We will announce the 3 winners on October 30, 2014 and ship out the prizes immediately.
CONTEST DISCLAIMER: You must enter by October 29, 2014 to qualify. U.S. residents only please. We sincerely apologize to our non-U.S. visitors. Winners must respond with their mailing address within 48 hours, otherwise you will automatically be disqualified. No exceptions. Contest is subject to change without notice.
CONGRATULATIONS: Damon, Daniel K. and 31FilmTalk. You have been notified via email!
Chilean martial arts sensation Marko Zaror (Kiltro, Machete Kills) is set to star in Zambo Dende, an action film based on Nicholas Rodriguez’ Colombian comic book of the same name. Darren Shahlavi (Tactical Force) and Michelle Lee (Blood and Bone) are also in talks to join the film.
According to Film Combat Syndicate, here’s what you can expect from the plot: “The character is based on real life events about a child named Azuk who would rise from oppression to become a fighting force for the oppressed slaves of Latin America, ultimately foreseeing his royal destiny preset by the assassination of his mother.”
Until then, look out for Zaror’s next film, Redeemer, which is just around the corner. He’s also tied to One Good Thing, directed by Kimo Stamboel (Macabre). Stay tuned!
Cinema Epoch presents the Blu-ray for 1991’s Samurai Cop. Detective Frank Washington (Mark Frazer) and Joe Marshall (Matt Hannon) team up to take on the Yakuza in this 1991 cult classic. Watch the trailer.
Directed by the late Amir Shervan (Killing American Style), Samurai Cop found a whole new audience during its midnight theatrical circuit and film festival re-release. Its resurgence prompted producers Rich Mallery and Gregory Hatanaka to start production on an upcoming sequel, Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.
Imagine if Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau, Yuen Biao, Lau Ching Wan, Ti Lung, Jimmy Wang Yu, David Chiang, Simon Yam and Tony Leung got together for a Chinese version of The Expendables? Cool thought, huh?
Well, there’s a slight possibility that a Chinese Expendables-type project may happen one day. While promoting his latest film, Kung Fu Jungle, Donnie Yen revealed that he has casually brought the idea up to Jackie Chan.
Here’s what Yen told Flicks and the City (via EP): “Months ago, I had a conversation with Jackie and I kind of brought the idea up: ‘You know what, why don’t we make our own Chinese Expendables,’ and he told me: ‘Talk to Jet Li. If you convince Jet Li, [I’ll] do it.’ It was just a casual conversation and was never really a serious follow up project we were aiming at. But, who knows…I think it’s brilliant idea.” When Yen was asked who he’d like to team up with, he said: “Everybody under the sun. Every Chinese action guy in film. That would be very fun.”
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