Satan Returns 666
4/24/2001
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Donnie Yen, Francis Ng, Chingmy Yau, Dayo Wong

The devil is coming back on the 6th of June, 1996 at 6:00 to find his daughter. Chingmy Yau has been having bad dreams about these kinds of things for days and finally Francis Ng comes to show her what water her dreams hold.

Alright, I can agree with a lot of reviews on this one. But I'll start from the beginning. At the beginning, this movie is a thrill to watch. Donnie, I believe, set up the lighting and photography and it's breathtaking. Everything is captured brilliantly, with some tricky camera shots. Francis Ng is shown as an evildoer setting all his clocks to 6:00, and his presence is strong. Enter Donnie, and the movie gets even stronger. However, we then see Dayo Wong get into the picture, and everything he does (he stands there, talks, makes jokes) is aweful, he should have been shot in this movie. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is worse than a complete smart ass ruining the spooky mood set up in a horror movie that could have been pretty good. Take Sammo, his humor is smart, not smartass. In Spooky Encounters, he's able to pull off comedy and look scared out of his mind at the same time. Dayo, though, acts as though he's too good for this genre and passes it off as second priority to his looking good and attracting various women in the film, as well as his terrible dialogue. That said, I was very impressed with the first half of the film, mainly because Dayo's terrible, uh, BUBBLE didn't get in the way of things. The first few shots are magnificent, very smart. Francis Ng appears first and he starts things off well enough.



The first (and one of the few) action scene has Donnie in a restaurant taking on some goons with a gun. Normally I hate gun fights, but I trust Donnie and I have good reason to. He uses objects and VERY nice camerawork and lighting to make the scene as best it can be. Some bloodiness, and a glimpse of one of Donnie's favorite stunt actors (jungle man with claws from Legend of the Wolf), Donnie does a very nice jumping side kick, and the thing is over like that. Flash, gone, but good. Oh god the music works so well too.



And then there's a small brawl in the hallway that I enjoy just because it's Donnie, again. Francis Ng, though, isn't TOO good with action and can't move as well as some of us would like.



Then we go into an alley where there's another gunfight and this time some more baddies use pokers (red hot?) to jab at our hero, who reaches for a garbage can lid to defend himself. Something to note here is that Donnie uses objects in a smart way. Jet Li's choreographers (Yuen Kwai, for instance) can't manage to get an object to fly across the screen without some kind of BS happening. Donnie tosses a trashcan lid with style and grace, very believable. These little things are what keep me buying Donnie's stuff. He throws in some fast kicks as well This is a short scene again, but nice nonetheless.



Ok, from here on the movie takes an aweful turn to complete stupidity. Things start getting goofy, Dayo makes jokes about the worst things (it becomes a cheap comedy when he enters) and just spoils everything. I can't stand him, ever. His face is cursed. I can think of a few remidies. 1. Cut the hair, he is such a pretty boy in this, typical HK pop-idol crap. Of course, he doesn't mind, he's one of those guys who can go into a movie, spoil it, walk away and be happy that he got his check. This is exactly what Ekin Cheng (see Tokyo Raiders or anything else with him) and Shu Qi (Gorgeous and anything else with her) do. Remidy 2. Learn to talk like an adult man. You sound like the little kids on HK game shows.

The finale is a mess. It's like Donnie stepped out of the choreographer's chair and a kid took over. The fight starts out alright with Donnie having a struggle with Francis Ng, who happens upon a chainsaw. Dayo gets attacked by zombies and makes jokes about things, which made everything worse of course. Francis Ng burns, we get a really corny ending (you don't know bad endings until you see this), a Jesus Saves bus burns, and it's over.



Actually this is an interesting look at to how HK cinema is dying, only in another light. On one hand we have people not able to perform the way the old masters did (Who Am I?), and by that I mean people can't manage the comedy, action, drama, nor suspense anymore without stunt doubles, 5000 cuts per minute, poor dialogue, or canned humor. And on the other hand we get this slew of new talentless actors and actresses who just go in and completely f*ck up a movie and feel fine about it. Why? Because people buy this rubbish and these "new talents" realize it, and as long as they are good looking, people will keep on buying. Once upon a time, people had a natural (hate that word but it's the only one that comes to my clouded mind right now) beauty about them that radiated outside the screen and got people to take part in the movie with them. For instance, John Liu, with his huge cheeks and big hair, still managed to look good. Sammo ain't the best looking guy in Hong Kong and if he sang today, nobody would buy his stuff, but his presence in Pedicab Driver is so magnificent and as you suspend disbelief and travel to a world where 230 pound men jump around like grasshoppers, you wonder "How can this guy do that?" Film making was different then, the casting was RIGHT. People were cast correctly (occasionally they'd slip up and waste people but that was common). Now, they say "Alright, what we need for this great movie are 4 guys and 3 girls. The 4 guys should be... physically attractive. The 3 girls should be the same. I'll go write the script while I take a sh*t. Someone get me a small table." These aren't movies. These are music cds with pictures. And people buy it all. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I took Knockabout to Hong Kong and people would rather watch "For Bad Boys Only."

So what if I got side tracked, it's my review and I'm pissed. Dayo symbolizes 80% of the evil that is being jammed into HK cinema. Instead of exhausting the talents of great actors and actresses, they employ people who don't have a clue (Man Called Hero). I like Francis Ng, he's got a real image and can look good in any movie. I feel that way about Ken Lo (he gets wasted by Aaron Kwok in a few films and still outshines the pop-star), Yuen Biu, and of course Donnie Yen. But this film is rediculous, and maybe Dayo wasn't at fault for everything, but he's the best target on the screen and I blame him for it all!

I'd give this a MUCH higher rating if it had STAYED a horror movie instead of becoming a mess at the end. I know I didn't say much about Mrs. Yau, but there's not much to say about her really. Donnie deserves a point for trying, but it's kind of pathetic, much like Highlander: End Game.

1/5 - 4/5 for Donnie's action and camerawork, but there wasn't enough.

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