Blacksheep Affair
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Chu Man Cheuk, ??

The Chinese have a great military agent on their side, Dong. However, he refuses to obey orders and is sent to Lavernia, which is titled as the "weapons convenience store". While he is there, he comes into contact with Mishima, the leader of the Red Sun cult, who intends to filter out those on earth who are not worthy of heaven.

The story is interesting, and the movie is done very well. This is the kind of film that would do well in the US market. Lots of pyrotechnics, broken things, wires, Matrix material that would do very well here. Since it's directed by Yuen Wo Ping and it's only 2 years old (made in 1998), I think you might know what to expect from it. The actors are good, but I think that, when there was English dubbing (in the subtitled version), the people were really speaking Russian, and the people who speak English for these dubbing jobs can't do it well at all. Leave it in Russian, please!! Oh, and the subtitles were impossible to read sometimes. What they should do is leave them as simple subtitles like "Eat bread so you don't go hungry" instead of "Well for your information, I find it best to eat bread for this occasion so that you won't be hungry today and at any time at all" because things like that sometimes flash on the screen for a half second and don't give you ANY time to read them. I liked the sets though. Big buildings, run down apartments, a good setting for an apocylapse, which was what Mishima wanted.

However, it's not exactly my style. Although there are 2 fights that caught my attention and have some extremely good looking kicks (though only a few), there wasn't anything in this film that made me get excited. The plot is interesting, yes, but it's like watching an Asian version of Enemy of the State with a cult plot instead. The first fight takes place in a subway (Yuen Wo Ping has something for subways), and had the moves been done better (it looked as though Mishima couldn't keep up with Dong), it would have looked fabulous, but it's obvious that when Cheuk throws a punch, the other guy (don't know the actor) just throws his arms around to it. But, the two of them (Mishima may have been another person in a couple of parts) do a few movements where one sweeps and the other does a reverse roundhouse in the air at the same time, and then they exchange positions. This is something that only the best of them can make look good. The punches, though, were ugly and there wasn't any power involved, just choreographed punches that were a lot like those in the Matrix.



The end fight has some wirework that was really unnecessary. Cheuk can do this stuff perfectly well and doesn't need a wire, Mr. Ping. He can make a HK Spin look good, but when on a wire it just looks like he's on a wire. That's all there is to it. Some parts need a wire, like when Mishima throws Dong up a flight of stairs through the railing, but when a guy flies up into the air and breaks the parabola movement (like throwing a ball in the air, one high point and it's fairly symmetrical), then it starts to look aweful. They look like they're on wires. I don't like that. Makes me mad. They also have a small sword fight which I didn't care for because the movie had been ruined already. Cheuk, though, had a moment of his own when he got to take on a few goons alone using some good looking moves. But other than those 3 scenes, and one with Mishima in the shower beating up 7 other guys wearing only towels, there wasn't much action at all besides LOTS of gunplay, which was slowed down all the time. In fact, the first 2 minutes or so of the last gun fight were slowed down. Gets annoying.



It could have been awesome. The first time I watched the first fight, I thought it WAS awesome, until I watched it again and realized that it wasn't performed very well. Maybe it's ok, I guess, just not as good as I wanted it to be. Obviously not "10" material. Perhaps what got to me was that the fights weren't furious enough.

Rating: 5/10 (for potential and sets).

UPDATE!! 8/25 - To justify myself, the reason I didn't like these fights was because they were extremely poor; the Japanese character couldn't make a punch look good if he tried. Cheuk's movements were well done, but ended up in a slosh with the Japanese throwing his hands all over the place looking like an idiot. I downgrade the score to a

4/10.

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

2/5 - Bad fights, hideous wirework, Cheuk deserves better.

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