Tag Archives: Jackie Chan

The Protector Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a Jackie Chan film that doesn’t really come close to hanging with most of his other films. It’s got the martial arts and parkour at times but everything about it feels basic at best. It goes through the motions like having Billy’s partner get bumped off almost immediately but the film tends to falter throughout.

The movie starts with something out of a futuristic sci-fi dystopia as people wearing weird costumes beat up a truck driver and get away with something. After that we cut to Billy and Michael who were having a normal drive and a beer when some punks showed up and try to steal Michael’s stuffed animal that he bought for his kid. They end up murdering the guy while Billy avenges him. This causes the Billy to get demoted. Things don’t get much better for him as Laura, the daughter of a big gangster is kidnapped while under his watch. Billy and his new partner Danny are sent to Hong Kong to find her and crack the case but it involves multiple gangs and big crime families. Looks like we have a conspiracy on our hands.

One of the big problems with Billy and Danny is that they mess around way too much. We have a big kidnapping case going on right here with someone who is missing and could be murdered at any moment. Yet immediately they’re going to massage parlors and messing around. Yeah you could say this has to do with their mission and they’re gathering info but lets be real, that’s not on their mind at all. They should have died there but the villains slipped up.

Now you might be thinking, James Bond would make that mistake as well right? Yeah and that’s why he has to rely on plot armor all the time. These two do more of the same the whole time and can’t keep up with the banter either. The writing is only okay here and doesn’t stack up with the average thriller either.

Now there are some positives I can say at least. The fight scenes that we get are actually pretty good. The martial arts are still on point and the choreography does not disappoint. If the film could have focused on this the whole time then there would really have been no problem. Of course that wasn’t the case and not much point worrying about what ifs.

The music is also fairly good. Some reasonably solid tracks in there. Fast paced tunes that fit with the scenes and so I don’t have any issues there. In terms of technicals, the film wasn’t bad. It was just let down by everything else. The film has to resort to fanservice because the story wasn’t strong enough which is always a massive red flag. It’s not the kind of thing that a really good film ever has to resort to. Yet this film does that more than once because it knows everyone was probably fast asleep otherwise.

The movie’s tone is also all over the place. Sometimes it is playing things seriously with a lot of danger and adventure going on and then other times it is trying to be a light hearted comedy. It tends to not handle the mix well with the characters being too goofy during a serious moment and vice versa. Again there’s no real urgency on the main duo’s part despite the fact that Laura is still out there somewhere.

Now you may be thinking, at least we’ve got a really big conspiracy here involving a lot of factions so that should keep you interested? Well, it goes in all of the most generic ways possible so that defeats the purpose. Are the Hong Kong cops corrupt as always?? Hmmmm.

Now I’m not going to say that you will see every plot point coming ahead of time or anything like that. That’s definitely not happening but you’re just not going to be all that engaged. It all starts from the top with the characters and then trickles down to every other aspect of the movie like the weak plot. It’s too bad that Michael was bumped off in the first scene because I think he would have made for a much better partner than Danny in the second half. Trust me on this, there’s just a world of difference there.

None of the villains ever get all that memorable either. For the most part it’s not like most of them can fight. We at least do have one big fighter on the villain side who gives Billy a run for his money. That ends up being a good battle and a solid way to end the film off. This is the kind of film that does have actual positives that I can point to which is good. It’s not an awful film or anything like that but it absolutely makes enough missteps where it won’t be mistaken for a good movie either. This really shouldn’t be that hard either, just avoid the fanservice and stick to a lot of fights. Have the heroes be cocky and overconfident but they still need to be focused on their mission at all times at least until they’ve rescued the heroine.

Overall, The Protector probably isn’t the best title for this film. Billy lets his partner get bumped off in the first scene and then the main heroine gets kidnapped, and then even his new partner gets kidnapped. The guy’s too busy messing around to really be protecting much of anything. Yeah Danny was usually the bad influence here but Billy wasn’t really doing anything to stop him now was he? I’ve just seen way better thrillers with this kind of kidnapping plot and pretty much all of Jackie Chan’s other films are better so in the end that doesn’t leave much for this one. I’d say to give it a skip.

Overall 4/10

City Hunter Review

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It’s time for a fairly wacky comedy film. This one definitely does not hold back in terms of how out there it gets. That said, the humor doesn’t really land very well most of the time. There are some good moments but on the whole the film ends up dragging itself out and whenever you think a hype scene is about to occur, your hopes get obliterated right away. This is basically what happens if you make a film with someone like James Bond as the main character…

The movie starts off with City Hunter’s partner getting extremely sloppy as he is gunned down by a group of villains. He quickly tells the hunter not to get together with his sister and City Hunter vows to live up to those words. He’s busy flirting with every girl in town anyway but his days of slacking off have come to an end as he is hired for an important job. He must locate a girl named Kyoko who is with the wrong crowd and her father wants her back. The City Hunter vows to complete the mission for all of the wrong reasons and after fumbling the operation, follows her onto a fancy cruise. What he doesn’t realize is that the boat is swarming with so many terrorists who can fight in hand to hand combat far better than he can. Is it all over for him?

So here’s the deal, I’m all for some good slapstick and I don’t even mind a main character who is completely unable to fight. Someone who is out of his depths the whole time can be a lot of fun with some sarcastic humor. The important point is that he has to be likable and unfortunately….that’s where he falters big time. This guy is just too much of a flirt who prioritizes that over the mission. I won’t say he’s as bad as James Bond but any scene with this guy is extremely annoying.

The film certainly does a good job of incorporating a lot of harem type antics into the movie to make this as authentic as possible but it comes at the expense of the movie being any good. City Hunter should have leaned more into his goofy nature and how he couldn’t find the police office let alone any crooks, but instead it focuses on what a perv the guy is. You’re rooting for the villains to take him out most of the time.

Also most of the film’s humor basically revolves around this which gets old fast and doesn’t come across as clever. There’s quite a lot of fanservice here which bogs down the movie. It’s not quite Charlie’s Angels territory which still takes the dubious crown in that department but it’s fairly unrelenting here. Even when viewing the film under the parody lens, you’re not really going to be sticking with this one for very long.

Kaori isn’t really a great heroine either. She is always jealous of the other girls that City Hunter is with and so she pouts a lot but a better heroine would have really been beating him up all the time. She imagines doing so, but actually tackling him more would have been better. I want to see some confidence and charisma. Instead she goes as far as to pretend to ally herself with the villains at times to get a reaction out of the guy…although it never works anyway. Why would she even want to be with someone who is clearly not going to be loyal in the slightest? City Hunter would drop her in an instant as soon as another girl talks to him.

Now they probably could have let up a little with how many times Kaori gets knocked to the ground though. It just gets sad after a while when you see how often she is the film’s punching bag. Kiyoko gets into a fair deal of trouble as well but unlike Kaori, Kiyoko was basically seeking this out the whole time. I don’t think Kiyoko played this very smart at all from the start but intelligence isn’t the strong suit of just about any character here.

Okay lets talk about some positives. For what it’s worth, there are a few good fight scenes once in a while. There’s a solid fight in the theater where City Hunter mainly gets dominated but eventually churns out a win. It’s still part comedy of course but it works well enough. The best fight is against the main villain’s bouncer though. Both characters move so fast that they keep on missing each other. See, this is actually a pretty good gag that is parodying how good of a fighter they both are. They’re so good that they both actually end up looking weak. Now that’s clever. There are a few other good jokes in there as well.

The effects are so bad that they go all the way around into actually being funny as well. This may not be intentional but I wouldn’t even be surprised if that’s what they were going for. This film is trying to be as silly as possible which is why it’s a shame that it’s not better. Usually I’d be a sucker for a film like this but it just didn’t have the right humor approach. Humor can be very difficult to land of course but at the same time it’s rare to mess up this badly. Seriously just make City Hunter less of a two dimensional character and you could be on to something! A film like this should never feel like its dragging and yet that happens at times. It’s a flurry of activity but sometimes it feels like nobody is going anywhere which doesn’t help matters.

Overall, City Hunter is a movie that just tries way too hard. It ends up being more cringeworthy than funny most of the time. Having a better main character would have helped a whole lot. Ultimately it’s probably for the best that most people don’t remember this one. Why would you adapt City Hunter instead of the original Gundam or even Astro Boy? Trust me when I say there were plenty of other manga titles you could have adapted before this one even entered the conversation. You may as well call this guy the City Hunter by the end of it with how much he’s getting wrecked the whole time.

Overall 4/10

Dragon Fist Review

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It’s time for a very old film with Jackie Chan. It’s definitely not one of his best films but the fight scenes are definitely on point when they occur. You get a lot of action at the end of the film but outside of a fight near the beginning, the film does go a long while without action. There are quite a few twists throughout the movie which does take it in a different direction than you might have expected but in this case that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The movie starts off with two factions fighting. One of them wins and so the master claims the title of “Champion” and has the banner to prove it. The master of a different faction didn’t like this and so he challenges the first one to a battle for the crown. The first master loses and is promptly murdered. His top student Tang is tasked with avenging the master’s death and restoring honor to his family. So he travels with the master’s wife and daughter to the home base of the villainous Master Li. Tang has been doing some training but is he really ready to take on a master level opponent when he was folded so easily the first time? Additionally there is a lot of politics going on here with various factions so Tang must really plan his moves carefully or risk complete and utter defeat.

Okay so lets start off with the positives here. The fight scenes are really good. I always appreciate some good martial arts like what this film has. The choreography is really good and the fighters are attacking at high speeds all the time. You feel good power behind the blows and it’s nice when two fighters finally go at it in life or death stakes near the end. A lot of the action scenes tend to involve one side holding back due to circumstances but of course you’re eager to see the fighters cut loose. There’s a really fast fists barrage near the end of the film which should really stand out even among the other combos.

The film is also fairly unpredictable which is good to an extent. I probably would have preferred the more predictable plot of revenge in this case but more on that later. There are also a decent amount of memorable supporting characters so it helps make the film more memorable. For example the 2nd in command for the main villain and the main heroine of Master Li’s faction. So it’s not one of those films where only the main character and villain are important.

Now on the not as impressive side is the main character. This is in part I’d say a cultural difference as well. A lot of times in both Japanese and Chinese films, there’s a lot of stock put on family honor and doing whatever you gotta do in order to preserve it. The main problem is that this will often result in the characters making the wrong decisions just because to go against it would be dishonorable. Tang strikes me as that kind of character as he goes as far as to become a full villain after some strategic blackmail. Here’s the main problem, he should just be taking what he needs by force.

The situation involves a drug that he needs or at least the formula to replicate it and the only way he can get it is to beat people up by working for a gang. At that point if you’re going to have to be a villain anyway, choose the outcome that has the least amount of victims. In that case it would be taking down the villains himself. Tang just seems a little slow on the uptake here as he doesn’t quite seem to realize how evil his bosses are when they don’t really hide it.

There’s one scene where the villains murder a child and Tang gets framed for it. He quickly confirms that he didn’t murder the child but this doesn’t stop one of the villains from being upset at how he orchestrated all of this for Tang to murder some more heroes. Here’s the thing..he says that right in front of Tang yet the lead doesn’t visibly react at all. Surely that should have been the end of this alliance right?

Then Tang goes as far as to fight all of the good guys at once while still working for the villain and it’s not until the final 15 minutes or so that he realizes he’s not doing well. This results in yet an even higher body count once more. I would also argue that the ending isn’t even a happy one at all. You have to remember that the heroes were heavily outnumbered with numerous guys with swords bumping off anyone who tried to leave the complex. The movie ends immediately after the final fight but as far as we know there are 3-4 super weakened heroes left who are going to have to fight well over 2 dozen armed fighters. I don’t think they’re actually leaving that place alive. There’s a slight shot Tang can do something since he’s the most skilled but even then I just don’t see it.

All right time for some spoilers so skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film. It’s time for me to go into detail on some of the twists and why they didn’t work for me. Well first off, we never got the big fight with Master Li. It turns out that his wife destroyed herself in guilt after his win because she had an affair with the other guy so then Li removed his leg as penance and wants to make amends with the main characters. It’s not like you can just go ahead and beat up on someone with one leg who can no longer fight although Tang comes dangerously close to attempting this anyway. It’s a very intense twist to be sure but it means we have lost the main villain//the strongest fighter in the series. The movie has a hard time recovering from this because the actual main villain is so much weaker.

It’s subversive but it comes at the expense of a cool climax. The new villain’s second in command is reasonably tough but only makes this a real fight because he grabs some weapons at the end. Likewise the actual new villain only does well because the hero is tired by then. It would be much more satisfying to take down a main villain who is super powerful. It also feels like maybe the film did this because Tang would have been no match for Master Li but I’d still have preferred to watch that fight.

Ultimately though, the film’s lacking because of Tang in each scenario though. Beating up on the heroes while working for the villains is pretty wild in itself but he’s always extremely slow to act. At one point a group of 5 men attack one of the heroines and he just stands there like a statue until their blows start to add up and he realizes he should be in there fighting. Yeah it’s good that he eventually got in there but leaving her to fend for herself for any period of time really wasn’t cool.

That’s it for the spoilers so back to the program. The old master’s wife and daughter were more reasonable than Tang at least which is good although you do feel like they were just holding him back the whole time. I know they needed to be there as per tradition for their revenge but if Tang had just gone by himself then the whole film would have played out verrrrry differently. Having to watch out for two noncombatants the whole time is very tricky.

The film can also get a little dark at times. Of course you have the kid dying which I wasn’t really expecting. Fortunately it’s completely off screen but it’s still something we didn’t really need here. Two characters commit suicide and so the film which already had a fairly large body count, really added to it with some intense ones there. Considering that the gang’s run things for a while now, it’s likely something that happens a lot. Master Li’s reasoning for not fighting back doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Yeah he was waiting for proof but in the meantime his men are being attacked and the villains are gaining more ground. That’s a losing, defensive strategy. If you want to win then you have to press forward and attack. It’s not like he’s a diplomat who needs absolute proof before doing anything. He’s a martial arts master whose first duty is protecting his students, he really should have done something.

The characters don’t always feel very logical to me and it feels like an honor thing at times. They all just have to pretend to be polite at all times and do everything by the book. That may be fine in some scenarios but often times you need to get out there and attack. While I have numerous issues with Tang throughout the film, at least his intro scene where he jumped in to defend the master was good. It would have been nice if he would have at least looked decent in the fight instead of being thrown around effortlessly but the attempt was the important part.

Overall, Dragon Fist is not going to be able to hang in there blow for blow with most of its martial art rivals but if you’re looking for a quick film with lots of action then this definitely works out well. It is over with very quickly and so the pacing’s not bad. I would have liked a little more action and for Tang to have been more likable for it to have crossed over into the next level. I think that alone could have bumped it an extra two stars. It just focused too much on so many different plots with all of the factions which could work really well for a series where you keep spreading out the cast for the inevitable conclusion but having 3 different groups in a film that’s barely 90 minutes is pushing it. You don’t have much reason to care about some of these characters and it takes away from the main story which gets put on the backburner at different points.

Overall 5/10

Police Story Review

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Now it’s time for a film that I hadn’t heard of before but is apparently very big. The Police Story is a comedic thriller that works really well and I can see why people like it. I definitely had a lot of fun with it and it shows just how much you can do with a fairly small main cast and a plot that’s rather direct. There aren’t a lot of twists and turns here but the film’s fundamentals are on point so there is never an issue on that front.

The movie starts off with police officer Ka-Kui and the rest of the department getting ready to take some villains down. They have an elaborate scheme set up near the beach but unfortunately it doesn’t go too well. After a lot of destruction and mayhem they eventually manage to take down the villains and get them ready for court. It will be difficult though because the villains are as corrupt as they come and without a ton of evidence they may win the trial. So Ka-Kui is told to act as Salina’s bodyguard. She was the main villain’s secretary and so she should know a lot of secrets but of course she won’t want to sell him out. Time to trick the truth out of her but it won’t be easy since she is rather crafty too.

Right off the bat you do need to be prepare for this to be played in a very comedic angle as this is not a serious police drama. That said, I thought it worked really well because the humor is on point. You should be laughing quite a bit during the experience. At times the humor can be rather dark but for the most part it’s more on the slapstick side. Characters get beaten up in funny ways and there are a lot of fun lines as well. It’s mainly a very upbeat film which is why when characters do get really injured you can tell that things are getting serious indeed.

Unfortunately this does mean that Ka-Kui does look pretty bad at times because I do have to count some of the comedic stuff against him. For example Salina decides to prank Ka-Kui in order to make sure he loses the case by acting in a suggestive way while the recorder is on. This plan only works if Ka-Kui fumbles the ball at every corner and of course he does. For example when she offered to go to bed with him he flat out accepted which showed his true colors.

His girlfriend May has a rough time of it throughout the movie because of how thoughtless he can be but this is why she should have left by this point. If Salina wasn’t kidding then he was really ready to betray May at the drop of a hat. That’s not the kind of loyal man that you want by your side. Not by a longshot. Even if it’s played for laughs I would argue that his true colors shown through there and it was a low moment for the guy.

He is a great fighter though and of course the climax does live up to the hype. The fight is so very long and there are a lot of good moves being thrown out. I also appreciated that Salina actually tried to help at several points. She wasn’t just watching as you often see the heroines do in these films. She went out on a limb to help out and it was a great moment. She did this several times during the movie as well.

Salina made for a decent anti hero. You can absolutely see why she doesn’t trust Ka-Kui and why she set him up later on because deception was everywhere. She’s certainly no hero but Salina was caught up in a tricky place from the jump. If she crosses the villains then they’ll probably bump her off but if she crosses the heroes then they might put her in jail for any number of reasons. She really has to be careful here.

I really liked the police’s way of handling this in at least one scene to sow distrust among the villains. They kept her in the interrogation room for an extra minute but didn’t actually say anything. So when the villains confronted her later on and she said that nothing happened, it obviously makes her look very suspicious.

As I said it’s a fairly small main cast. Salina, May, and Ka-Kui are really the only main characters. Sure you have the main gangster, the lawyer, and Ka-Kui’s two bosses but they don’t actually do a whole lot beyond that. It’s part of what helps the film’s pacing flow so well as a lot of the film is just about Ka-Kui trying to be a big bodyguard and then a ton of fight scenes. The writing is good here and we even got a court case which was a lot of fun.

In fact, outside of the climax that would be the biggest highlight of the movie. I liked just how desperate the prosecutor kept getting as he tried to discredit Ka-Kui. Fortunately Ka-Kui always had a good comeback until the audio tape did him in but he was holding his own up until that point. I always like a court scene, whether it is serious or sometimes played for laughs. It’s still a court scene either way.

One thing that seals the deal here is the ending of the film. For a little while you’re getting worried that things will end on a bit of a whimper after an incredible climax. Instead that wasn’t to be and Ka-Kui comes up with one last initiative. The combo is great and the film was really good with the sound effects the whole time so this wasn’t a surprise when you felt the blows.

Finally, the film had an excellent soundtrack. The music choices were bold and popped out at you for every scene. This is how I would want more films to sound like because a lot of films tend to be more generic without many big tunes in them. This one sounded like an anime almost with how colorful the themes were and they really set the mood. It was a brilliant choice by the composer to make this film stand out even more.

Overall, Police Story is one of the funnier films that I’ve seen in a minute. It probably would have ended up being really solid even if there wasn’t action although obviously every film is better with some fighting in it. The action scenes are top notch just like the comedic ones so you’ve got a full mix here. I have a hard time picturing any of the sequels or remake matching up to this one in any way but I’d be curious to see how those turn out. This one really tackles everything, even the classic themes of betrayal and having to go against the agency. You don’t always get the complete package like that.

Overall 8/10