Tokyo Raiders
3/04/2001
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Ekin Cheng, Tony Leung

Tony Leung is an undercover agent who uses Ekin Cheng's help to catch the leader of a Japanese gang.

Another new-wave HK movie? Yes. Any good? Hard to say really. The style is DEFINITELY different from other films, which is one of the things I like about the new-wave films, they all seem to be filmed in their own ways (2000AD, this one, Hot War, Downtown Torpedoes, etc.). This one has that slomo Matrix-esque stuff EVERYWHERE, and sometimes it actually gets sped up. The camerawork is ok... I'll go into it in more detail. But the movie itself isn't too interesting really. Ekin Cheng, as always it seems, is as interesting as a sofa, Tony Leung is a smartass, but they are able to move to an extent. Not only that, but the action isn't just fighting, but fighting mixed with other cool elements. Onto that...

The first scene we come upon has Tony Leung taking on a small crowd with an umbrella, something not too original for us who have seen Jet Li's movies. Leung isn't bad, he seems to get into the fight pretty well. Decent choreography with him grabbing guys' hands, pulling them down, poking them, etc. One of the nice things is that the music is cool, some samba-techno stuff (which I strongly suspect is done by either Ekin Cheng himself or one of the other idol stars). Other things include Leung reaching into his jacket and pulling out some stink gas (or something), some sticky glue, and one of those taser sticks, which he tries to stick onto some big guy and he says, in Japanese, "Too short isn't it?" with a smile (very funny) after he falls short. Immediately afterword in his house, Leung is shot at and just dodges bullets. He does some generic rolls and uses some objects, which gets a bit silly when he starts using air filters on his wall as weapons. Sometimes I doubt it's actually him doing the rolling too. At the end he closes a bullet-proof door and the bad guys shoot point blank at it, but the bullets clearly don't go through the glass, so where do they go? Must have ricocheted and gone sideways? Doubtfully. Mildly impressive, yet fun, scene.



Ekin and some girl go back to Leung's house and he's gone, and a group of about 6 guys attack Ekin. His talent isn't very obvious. He's slow, stiff, does some bland punching, and he goes against 6 guys. Come on. He takes on a talented fighter who can kick, but Ekin can't kick at all. It's aweful. And the use of slowdown in this scene is revolting, almost sickening. It happens all over the place, and immediately after slowdown is speedup. And Ekin's doubled at times too (like when he does an airtrack), uses a sheet as a weapon, uses a vacuum hose as a weapon, the camerawork is bad bad bad as is the editing (almost as many cuts as Fist Power), Ekin does some bad escrima with a broken stick against the good fighter, and goes outside against the whole crew and still fights. The camerawork, again, is bad, bad so that you can't even see Ekin hit anyone, which is probably why they did it that way. Then some girl comes in, tries to do some splits kick (with her legs apart at about a 70 degree angle), and that's it. What's up here? Basically, Ekin can't fight, and the director/cameraman knew this so they made it look like he's fighting but in reality, to those who can notice such things, he's not coming within 6 inches of anyone. Worth skipping.



Ekin goes to find the girl again at a big office building, and he takes some goons outside on the stairs, which is some surf ninjas quality crap, then goes against another bigger villian and does terrible moves. The choreography is slow and unremarkable, while the camerawork is too fast again, but you can get a better picture this time unlike the last.



Ekin, Leung, and the girl end up in a bathhouse where Ekin and Leung fight off another horde of bad guys. Leung does some interesting but bad looking moves while Ekin flails his arms at everyone. More of that slomo->speedup crap here too. They go outside and fight off an army of them with golf clubs. Some mild moves are put in slow motion to make us think they're good, but it doesn't do too well. Leung takes to the street with a little go-ped deal with everyone chasing him on bikes. He goes up stairs, down stairs, bla bla, at one point you can even see him fall but they cut it to make it look smooth, but it's still an interesting idea. THEN he goes onto one of those car-carrying trucks (used for dealers), and Leung does a fairly dangerous stunt where he's standing between 2 cars and one comes loose and hits the other one, but he jumps up just in time, and even runs over a car that is moving towards the back, and finally jumps from the truck to a moving convertable. Whether the truck was going slow or what doesn't really matter, it's not a bad move for someone like him. What started out bad turned out ok.



Ugh, these things bother me. Ekin fights some untalented woman dressed in leather at a gas station, and she throws some TERRIBLE chops and ugly kicks, 2 per cut I swear, ugh don't watch this scene, cover the eyes of your children. It's that bad.



Oh then we learn that Ekin's actually good at martial arts, that's nice, champion for 4 years huh? Give me a break.

Ekin and Leung fight eachother (it was bound to happen) in Leung's office, and though Leung is faster than Ekin and looks more realistic, Ekin wins with silly attacks like jumping off the wall into an elbow, of all things (Leung was doubled for the block of that move for some reason) and then using a pc mouse to block Leung's little shocker tool. Ugh, and the camerawork AGAIN is bad, REALLY bad. Could barely get a good capture.



The last scene is ok, and it has no hand to hand fighting in it. It's a boat chase, a short one at that. Ekin's on a jet ski (I don't know if he was doubled or not, but I seriously doubt he'd do that kind of thing considering his career), and Leung and the Japanese boss are in different speed boats. Oh, the Japanese boss has a small tangle on the baot with the bad guy from Gen X Cops, but it's over a gun and isn't a big deal, and Ekin fights with another bad guy but that's terrible, Ekin's punches are weak and are always pulled. The boat blows up, the end. But now that I think about it, a lot of the scene is just people going down the river on boats and not doing anything else.



After watching this a second time, I'm even less impressed than I once was. I don't like Ekin in fighting movies at all, he's cocky and uninteresting. He should stay in the singing/dancing business. Leung is good considering he's somewhat of a new-waver, but needs more interesting choreography to show what he's made of. Maybe that'll never happen. But that's also what this movie needs, better choreography. It's bland, plus it's filmed so poorly and edited by a drug addict, so you can't see anything. The chase scenes could have been good, but they were also filmed badly, edited badly, and there wasn't anything interesting content-wise. Don't be fooled by the previews on the Action Channel that show all this action, it's all weird stuff that doesn't belong anywhere. Skip it if you're looking for some good action.

And I'm very pissed off that I had to do this one for my 100th review. Oh well, Happy 100th Review To Me.

2/5 - For lengthy, but uninteresting, action scenes.

UPDATE - May 08, 2001. Exactly that, bad action scenes, terrible filming. Doesn't deserve a 2. And what the F*CK is up with putting this teenie bopper idol girl on the cover when she has 5 minutes of screen time? She can't even sing from what I hear, she's 19, HAS A FIGHT SCENE (god it's aweful, read above), but she's got a 'pretty face'. Should have been killed in the movie and not listed in the credits.

1/5

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