2000 A.D.
May 28, 2001
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Kwok Fu Sheng (Aaron), Francis Ng, Daniel Wu, Ray Lui, Kenneth Lo

Aaron's brother, played by Daniel Wu, gets arrested for having secret information that some bad guys are using to steal money.

I thought this movie was enjoyable in some respects, and laughable in others. Aaron's acting isn't half bad (he plays a little nerd pretty well), Daniel Wu is no good, and Francis Ng leads the pack with Ken Lo, easily. Their characters are the most interesting and believable. There's action in this, obviously, but at times it's incredibly annoying. Some hand to hand fighting (no Ken Lo isn't involved, are you kidding? This stars Aaron! *BLEH!*) and a good gun fight or two try to keep the movie action packed but don't do too well. Maybe the thing that bothered me the most was Ken got almost nothing, and he plays a serious man so well. I'll detail it all.

Well maybe action packed it isn't. Aaron gets out of jail and a car gets shelled madly by Ken Lo from a skyscraper. It's freakish actually, almost too realistic, people are struggling inside a camry (maybe) which is locked and they're getting nailed with 80mm shells constantly, and screaming at the same time. Some good camerawork here, nice tracking shots with zooms, Lo is menacing.



Immediately after they all follow Ken. Some good angles for gunwork, Aaron runs after Ken and they have a struggle which is harped by camerawork gone wrong, a little odd considering it was fine before. Way too many shaky shots and undercranking is everywhere. Ken shows no moves, at all.



Aaron and Wu meet up with a mainlander (it seems), who is the only one who shows good moves in this whole film. He beats them to pieces. Daniel's moves are generic, but the mainlander knows exactly what he's doing, and the story flaunts it here too. Nice looking handwork from him. Aaron doesn't impress but of course can only lose to the nozzle of a gun due to his popularity.



A fairly good gunfight ensues in a parking garage. Some stomach turning violence here too, almost everyone dies. Mass destruction tries to make this look like a hollywood movie, with breaking windows, cars smashing around, etc. Ng sadly dies, which was the only emotion I had felt so far. Ken gets away clean, he's just too slick.



The Japanese villian (really a mainlander I think) from The Blacksheep Affair fights Aaron and the other mainlander. Not only is he a terrible actor, he can't fight well, just like in BSA. The other guy, whatever his name is, looks more powerful but gets beaten quickly which is too bad. Aaron throws weak and slow kicks and the villian is lanky, wearing western apparrel. Choreography might be to blame, but these 2 don't look good. The camerawork and editing are hideous at times, using extreme undercranking and frame drops (maybe 15 to 20 fps?) to make things look faster, ineffective to those who have seen these things (ab)used before. Aaron does throw one very nice looking kick (captured below), though. So it's obvious he has the ability to do some moves (he's a dancer and is flexible). BUT, still all his other moves make me think the fights were rushed, not well rehearsed, choreographed roughly, and things were just not good in general. At the end he falls 100 feet onto the side of a scaffolding and is ok, rediculous. I call this "selling out" when people take roles like this. I would have walked off.



Now it's obvious that in HK there's a blantant disregard for those who have the talent to do action. The mainlander and Ken Lo were wasted, but were quite capable of doing much more. They could have easily put in a fight at the end between the two, but their conflict simply disappeared after a few shots were fired. Aaron doesn't seem to know how to kickbox and look powerful, or his choreographers don't know how to make him look good. Who knows, that's for my future experience to decide. But the movie isn't filled with good action, and people shouldn't like this just because Aaron is in it. The gun fights are ok though and I liked the camerawork at times.

2/5

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