Later this year, Liu Ye (Police Story: 2013) will direct and star in Career as a Mercenary, an upcoming action-drama produced by Jackie Chan (Bleeding Steel) and Lu Jianmin (Wolf Warrior II).
Career as a Mercenary tells the story of a soldier who wants to protect his country’s interests abroad. Filming locations include Kazakhstan, France and Israel (via JCF).
Those who were hoping to see Chan in the film may be left disappointed, but they can still look forward to the handful of projects the action superstar is headlining, including Project X-Traction, Climbersand Vanguard, which is currently in production.
We’ll keep you updated on Career as a Mercenary as we learn more. For now, enjoy the Japanese Trailer for 1985’s Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (aka Seven Lucky Stars):
The Bodyguard(read our review) follows a retired bodyguard (Hung) who has settled in the dark and unknown corner of the world where China, Russia and North Korea meet. Suffering from the beginnings of dementia, the bodyguard is befriended by a young girl whose life is threatened when her father (Andy Lau, Chasing the Dragon, Mission Milano) falls in with the local crime world.
Martial arts star Scott Adkins (Triple Threat, Eliminators) will be re-teaming with action director Isaac Florentine (Close Range, Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing) for a ninth time in an MMA-themed thriller titled Strapped, which begins production later this year.
In Strapped, Adkins plays a former MMA fighter forced to confront the heart of his dark past following a brutal robbery and the theft of his championship belt (via FCS).
Adkins and Florentine recently completed Seized, (with Solo star Mario Van Peebles) which releases later this year. Until then, here’s the classic Trailer for Florentine’s Jean-Claude Van Damme actioner The Shepherdthat featured Adkins in a co-starring role.
Director: Tony Liu Chun-ku Cast: Moon Lee, Gordon Liu, Lau Siu Kwan, Leung Kar Yan, Fujimi Nadeki, Kingdom Yuen King Tan, Shing Fui On, Ng Man Tat, Tony Liu Jun Guk, Mark Houghton Running Time: 91 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Like most fans of Hong Kong action, I have a soft spot for the Girls with Guns genre. Sure it was short lived (almost every entry that falls under the category was made between 1987 – 1993), and the sheer volume in which they were cranked out meant that there quickly became more bad than good, but there’s something about even the worst ones which means they’re never entirely unforgivable. There were essentially two Girls with Guns series, of which all of the other knock-offs and copy-cats looked to replicate. First was the Yes, Madam!/In the Line of Duty flicks, which were kicked off by Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock in the 1985 original, however would subsequently be carried by Cynthia Khan in the following 5 entries (some of which are considered unofficial). Then there was 1987’s Iron Angels, which introduced us to the talents of Moon Lee, spawned 2 official sequels, and a plethora of other loose Angel tie-ins.
Killer Angels was one such production, made during the same year as Angel III, and gives us Moon Lee as one of the Blue Angels trio, a kind of mercenaries for hire service that the police sometimes enlist the services of. When a member of a mysterious triad group called the Shadow Gangsters returns from America, claiming to have a list of all of the HK members of the group, the angels are called in to provide him with protection in return for exchanging the list. Said protection takes the form of fending off the HK based sect of the Shadow Gangsters, led by the legendary Leung Kar Yan and his faithful subordinate, the equally legendary Gordon Liu. Cue the tropes we all come to these flicks for – gratuitous machine gun fire, explosions, hard hitting fights, and a general level of energy that belies the obviously low budget.
Helmed by Tony Liu Chun-ku, much of the reason why Killer Angels proves to be a superlative slice of Girls with Guns entertainment, is likely thanks to his involvement. A director who’d been active since the mid-70’s, after helming Hwang Jang Lee classics like Hell’s Windstaff and Tiger Over Wall, he moved onto directing some of the most well regarded 80’s era Shaw Brothers productions, such as Bastard Swordsman and Secret Service of the Imperial Court. By the end of the decade he’d become somewhat of a Girls with Guns aficionado, usually with Moon Lee as his leading lady, with the pair also working on Devil Hunters the same year as Killer Angels (in which he turns up in a minor role).
Almost as if Chun-ku’s mission statement was to create the archetypal template for any Girls with Guns flick (or late 80’s/early 90’s Hong Kong action movie for that matter), the opening of Killer Angels acts like a check list of required scenarios – assassination in a basement car park. Check. Businessman kidnapped by assailants wearing sunglasses, even though it’s at night. Check. Action scene in a container yard. Check. It may feel overly familiar, but there’s a welcome energy to the briskness of the pacing, and the action on display is crisp. Moon Lee is joined by fellow angel Kingdom Yuen (a name more epic than anything in the movie itself), who plays a geeky but equally capable member of the trio, and eventually a lawyer, played by Yuen Hung, who’s proves to be more lethal with her fists than her legal skills.
Much like the Iron Angels series which it riffs on, while the title indicates the plural, the real star of the show here is Moon Lee. Where Killer Angels sets itself apart from the series that inspired it though, is that Lee’s co-stars are just as proficient in screen fighting as she is. No offence to Elaine Lui of course, however she could never have been argued to been cast expecting to deliver top drawer fights (and notably she was missing in action from Angel III all together). Both Kingdom Yuen and Yuen Hung have the moves, and thankfully get a handful of opportunities to show them off. Both ladies get their licks in against Lau Siu Kwan, who plays the triad they’re protecting, and whose unwanted advances lead to him being kicked and thrown around like a ragdoll.
Such scenes are a reminder of just how much talent the Hong Kong stunt community had in the industries prime. Whereas today, being attached to a wire for the purpose of being launched across a room and thrown face first into a wall would (and rightly so) be considered a high impact money shot, back then it was filmed as if it was no more important that the dialogue scene that just preceded it. Killer Angels is one of those movies were people get punched and kicked around on a regular basis, absorbing some painful looking falls and impacts, the type which as fans we perhaps once took for granted. As the expression goes, you don’t know what you got ’till it’s gone, but thankfully there’s an almost never ending catalogue of HK action flicks that’ll always be there to enjoy.
The other standout of Killer Angels is Moon Lee’s performance itself. She gets a little bit more to do here than just look cute and kick ass, as she finds herself going undercover in a triad run hostess bar. Hired as a singer, this results in her being given a full length musical number, in which she belts out a surprisingly catchy slice of Canto-pop complete with choreographed dance moves and backup dancers. Ridiculously, this scene was completely cut from Tai Seng’s US VHS release, which should be considered a crime considering it’s such a highlight. She also finds herself involved in a rather bizarre love triangle with Gordon Liu, who plays a triad enforcer armed with an enormous revolver, and an affinity for wearing black leather (even his cap is leather!).
Much like the audience, Liu finds himself falling for the charms of Lee’s understated sexiness, and even when he finds out she’s undercover, can’t quite bring himself to pull the trigger. This doesn’t go down well with Liu’s floozy, played by Japanese femme fatale Takajo Fujimi, which leads to a nicely choreographed fight between her and Lee. Killer Angels was Fujimi’s debut, and her career never really took off the same way it did for her fellow countryman Yukari Oshima, possibly because she always seemed to be cast in roles similar to those that Oshima was known for. Despite having screen presence and the moves to back it up, she’d only clock up 13 credits in the 10 years she was active in the industry, with her final appearance in 1999’s forgettable The Kingdom of Mob. As a debut though, in Killer Angels she leaves an impression.
Be warned, if you’re a fan of the Master Killer, this is not the movie for you. Much like many of the movies Liu was making at the time (see also A Bloody Fight and My Heart is That Eternal Rose), he doesn’t throw a single punch or kick, although he does get to shoot a lot. Liu was an actor who always seemed a little lost without his mentor Lau Kar Leung, and he never was able to catch the same magic of his work at Shaw Brothers once the studio moved away from film production. Liu isn’t the only student of Kar Leung in Killer Angels, with Mark Houghton also making an appearance as a Middle Eastern(!?) human trafficker. Houghton had started training under Kar Leung the year prior, and made his debut in film the same year as Killer Angels with the Kar Leung directed Aces Go Places V: The Terracotta Hit.
The blonde gweilo does get his licks in against Moon Lee (in a room graffitied with ‘Jesus ♡ You’ of all places), with fellow Brit Wayne Archer facing off against Kingdom Yuen. The action, which strikes a nice balance between gun play and fist fights, is choreographed by Chui Fat (who also worked with Chun-ku and Moon Lee on Devil Hunters the same year). It marked the first time for the Shaw Brothers stalwart to go solo (unless you count Fearless Hyena 2, which I’m not sure he’d want), and he does an amicable job of putting together a number of brief but high impact exchanges. The final fight between Lee and Leung Kar Yan, who appears to be channelling the Yuen Wah look from Dragons Forever, crams in some painful falls and intense exchanges. It would have been nice if it’d lasted a little longer, but it’s still great a great match-up of two talented screen fighters.
Despite the genre being a minefield to navigate, Killer Angels is one Girls with Guns flick that’s definitely worth your time. The glorious illogic of it – I personally loved the fact that the ladies always seemed to have a grenade somewhere on their person to throw at people, regardless of the scenario – only adds to the charm, and it ticks all of the required boxes. Even the obscure ones that you didn’t realise you needed, like an action scene taking place in an abandoned old building full of breakable wooden furniture and tyres. For a throwback to when even the lesser budgeted Hong Kong movies delivered the goods, Killer Angels fits the bill perfectly. Did I mention Moon Lee sings?
Frant Gwo’s The Wandering Earth, which has already earned over $610 million at the Chinese box office, has now made a landing on Netflix.
The Wandering Earth stars Li Guangjie (Drug War), Qu Chuxiao (Bloody Romance), Ng Man-tat (Shaolin Soccer), Zhao Jinmai (A Love For Separation) and martial arts star Wu Jing (Wolf Warrior II, SPL II).
Here’s a snippet of the film’s plot, which is based off a short story by Liu Cixin: In the near future, the Sun ages and is about to turn into a red giant, pushing the nations of the world to initiate a project to move Earth out of the Solar System to the Alpha Centauri system, in order to preserve human civilization.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray/DVD collection for the New Battles Without Honour and Humanity Trilogy. Check out the official details below:
The New Battles Without Honour and Humanity films are important links between the first half of Fukasaku’s career and his later exploration of other genres. The set will include New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss’s Head and New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Last Days of the Boss.
In the early 1970s, Kinji Fukasaku’s five-film Battles Without Honour and Humanity series was a massive hit in Japan, and kicked off a boom in realistic, modern yakuza films based on true stories. Although Fukasaku had intended to end the series, Toei Studio convinced him to return to the director’s chair for this unconnected, follow-up trilogy of films, each starring Battles leading man Bunta Sugawara and telling separate, but fictional stories about the yakuza in different locations in Japan.
In the first film, Bunta Sugawara is Miyoshi, a low-level assassin of the Yamamori gang who is sent to jail after a bungled hit. While in stir, family member Aoki (Tomisaburo Wakayama) attempts to seize power from the boss, and Miyoshi finds himself stuck between the two factions with no honourable way out. In the second entry, The Boss’s Head, Sugawara is Kuroda, an itinerant gambler who steps in when a hit by drug-addicted assassin Kusunoki (Tampopo’s Tsutomu Yamazaki) goes wrong, and takes the fall on behalf of the Owada family, but when the gang fails to make good on financial promises to him, Kuroda targets the family bosses with a ruthless vengeance. And in Last Days of the Boss, Sugawara plays Nozaki, a labourer who swears allegiance to a sympathetic crime boss, only to find himself elected his successor after the boss is murdered. Restrained by a gang alliance that forbids retributions against high-level members, Nozaki forms a plot to exact revenge on his rivals, but a suspicious relationship with his own sister (Chieko Matsubara from Outlaw: Gangster VIP) taints his relationship with his fellow gang members.
Making their English-language home video debut in this limited edition set, the New Battles Without Honour and Humanity films are important links between the first half of Fukasaku’s career and his later exploration of other genres. Each one is also a top-notch crime action thriller: hard-boiled, entertaining, and distinguished by Fukasaku’s directorial genius, funky musical scores by composer Toshiaki Tsushima, and the onscreen power of Toei’s greatest yakuza movie stars.
Limited Edition Contents:
High Definition digital transfers of all three films
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Original uncompressed mono audio
New optional English subtitle translation for all three films
Beyond the Films: New Battles Without Honor and Humanity, a new video appreciation by Fukasaku biographer Sadao Yamane
New Stories, New Battles and Closing Stories, two new interviews with screenwriter Koji Takada, about his work on the second and third films in the trilogy
Original theatrical trailers for all three films
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist
Illustrated collector’s book featuring new writing on the films, the yakuza genre and Fukasaku’s career, by Stephen Sarrazin, Tom Mes, Hayley Scanlon, Chris D. and Marc Walkow
On May 28th, 2019, action legend Steven Seagal (End of a Gun, Cartels) returns with General Commander, his latest thriller from writer/director Philippe Martinez, who is perhaps best known for directing Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 2004 film, Wake of Death.
After CIA agent Jake Alexander (Seagal) sees a member of his team killed during a sting operation, he demands revenge against guilty mob boss Orsini. But the CIA won’t sanction the hit, so Jake and his crew quit the agency and form a task force with just one mission: vengeance.
The film also stars Sonia Couling (A Stranger in Paradise), Byron Gibson (Hard Target 2) and Ron Smoorenburg (Triple Threat).
Lionsgate is releasing General Commander on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and On Demand on May 28th.
On June 18, 2019, Well Go USA will be releasing the Blu-ray for Swing Kids, a swinging musical drama set during the Korean War from director Kang Hyung-Chul (Tazza: The Hidden Card).
In Swing Kids, the soldiers at a POW camp plan a tap show to distract both themselves and the prisoners from the hardships of war. Led by a former Broadway dancer and a rebellious North Korean soldier, the band of prisoners find a new sense of freedom in dancing.
The film stars Do Kyung-Soo (Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days), Park Hye-Soo (Will You Be There), Oh Jung-Se (Fabricated City), Jared Grimes (Boardwalk Empire), Kim Min-Ho (Money Flower) and Park Jin-Joo (The Sleepless).
Director: Pedring Lopez Cast: Cristine Reyes, Germaine De Leon, KC Montero, Guji Lorenzana, Freddie Webb, Jennifer Lee, Cindy Miranda, L.A. Santos, Ronald Moreno, Ronnie Lazaro, Andrea Del Rosario, Johnny Revilla, Sonny Sison Running Time: 90 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Say what you want about Atomic Blonde, but one thing we do have the 2017 Charlize Theron actioner to thank for, is the resurgence of the female lead action flick. While Hollywood has been looking to recreate the success of David Leitch’s tour de force ever since (Red Sparrow, Peppermint etc.), in the first half of 2019 South East Asia has already served up a double helping of femme fatale action. After displaying her martial arts talents as co-lead in The Rebel and Clash, Vietnam gave us the Veronica Ngo vehicle Furie, and in the Philippines director Pedring Lopez is back with the Cristine Reyes headlining Maria.
Lopez is gradually becoming one of the most distinctive voices for genre cinema in the Philippines. After his 2015 movie Nilalang gained international exposure, thanks largely to its killer combination of a face slicing ancient demon facing off against Japanese AV actress Maria Ozawa, Lopez had lined up his next production to be the Mark Dacascos action vehicle Breach. Scheduling conflicts have meant that Breach has, at the time of writing, yet to get off the ground (which could be a blessing in disguise, since Dacascos hasn’t made a decent action movie in almost 20 years. Here’s hoping John Wick 3 changes that!). In its place, Lopez has directed the found footage horror flick Darkroom, and is now back with his most ambitious production to date, Maria.
In some regards the Philippines has already been ahead of the curve with its female driven action movies, thanks to turns from Anne Curtis in BuyBust and Erich Gonzales in We Will Not Die Tonight, both from 2018. Maria shares both Nilalang and BuyBust’s action director in the form of Sonny Sison, who has been tirelessly working towards his own personal mission of putting Filipino action cinema back on the map, since it’s been decidedly MIA for the last 30 years. While the general opinion on Nilalang was that the action was fun considering what resources the crew was working with, BuyBust proved to be massively polarising with its approach to a more realistic action aesthetic. In that regard, for many fans of action cinema, Maria could well be considered a make or break moment for the appeal of the countries output overseas.
Like Erich Gonzales and Anne Curtis, lead Cristine Reyes is not an action actress by trade, mainly due to the fact that in the Philippines there’s no such thing. A model and actress, Reye’s filmography is entirely dedicated to the types of production that make commercial Filipino filmmaking so safe – saccharine romantic comedies, toothless horrors, and dramas that wouldn’t be out of place on a Sunday afternoon HBO slot. I’d like to comment on a few of them, but I’ve attempted commercial Filipino cinema before, and rarely get past 30 minutes. So as much as Maria will likely be an introduction for international audiences to Reyes, for local audiences it also marks a clear departure from the type of roles she usually plays.
The plot is nothing new – an assassin, the spin here being that it’s a female one, has long since given up her life of killing, and is living under a new name with a husband and child, who know nothing of her past. The husband is involved with a shady politician, and when the assassin’s former crew are hired to kidnap the daughter, they get quite the surprise when it leads them to crossing paths with their old colleague, long assumed dead. Despite the plot, the scenes of Reyes together with her husband and daughter (played by Guji Lorenzana and Johanna Rish Tongcua respectively) at home are everything I’ve come to dread from Filipino cinema. Like a 50’s slice of white-picket Americana, the family playfully bicker about breakfast in a sun kissed kitchen, and a brief spat is resolved by Reyes offering to cook a “special dinner” later on that evening. It’s torturous to watch.
These scenes are like the movie equivalent of the template happy couple you see in photo frames, before you put in your own, and markedly at odds with the surprising amount of graphic violence that’s on show involving scenes with the bad guys. Snitches are given the steel baseball bat treatment, soldering irons are put where the sun don’t shine, and fingernails are subjected to some nastiness via a pair of pliers. So it almost comes as a relief when the bad guys raid the home of our happy family, and things get flipped on their head in a matter of seconds, when Reyes’s domestic bliss is obliterated in front of her eyes. So sets the titular Maria off on a path of bloody vengeance against the ‘family’ that she used to be a part of, and any thoughts that Lopez’s latest was going to take the safe route are quickly abolished.
The bad guys are a lot of fun to watch. The influence of The Raid 2 is apparent, with the setup of a crime boss and his hereditary successor waiting in the wings. However here the scenario is expanded to include a pair of sons, one played by Ivan Padilla, who is the favoured next in line, but not particularly capable, and the other played by KC Montero, who has a ruthless ambitious streak that puts him at odds with his father. The tension between the pair adds a welcome layer of depth to an otherwise straightforward revenge plot, as do the other supporting characters. The usual head henchman trope is turned on its head to be a pair of henchwomen, played by Jennifer Lee and Cindy Miranda, and the addition of Ronnie Lazaro is a welcome one, playing the retired assassin trainer now running a bar (what is it with assassin trainers running bars when they retire!?), who gets pulled back into the world he left behind.
Really though, Maria sells itself on the promise of action, and to that end, it delivers. Before the credits have even rolled we witness Reyes sneak into a mansion, taking out numerous bodyguards with a karambit blade, and it’s a solid sign of what can be expected. The training Reyes has put in is visibly on show, as is the work by Sonny Sison and the Red Line Action Team. This is probably the best flow and edititing I’ve seen in a Filipino action movie, with each movement and impact executed with purpose, and none of the pulled punches or hesitancy that plagued other recent productions on display. The editing may rely on quick cuts, but it doesn’t hinder the rhythm of the action on display, and it also isn’t afraid to get bloody either.
Action director Sonny Sison had expressed his admiration for the action on display in Korean movies like Oldboy and The Man from Nowhere when I interviewed him in 2017, and the influences of both can be felt in a couple of Maria’s key action beats. One has her take on a stream of attackers in a warehouse that takes place in a makeshift corridor, echoing Choi Man-sik’s infamous hammer hallway fight in Oldboy, and the other takes The Man from Nowhere’s bathroom fight as its template. Pitting Reyes against Jennifer Lee for a knockdown dragout brawl, and dressed to impress, their faceoff ends on a suitably wince worthy note. In an action movie landscape which is dominated with male bathroom fight scenes, it’s taken until 2019 to give us a worthwhile female centred throwdown. The moral of the story? You don’t need urinals to create a great bathroom fight scene.
Sison himself gets in on the action for a rare onscreen appearance in recent years, cameoing as Padilla’s MMA trainer in a sparring match that quickly escalates (look out for the patented Sammo Hung back-kick!). Outside of the bladed action and open handed fights, Maria also crams in a worthy amount of gunplay, featuring pistols to semi-automatic weapons to sniper rifles, who ever thought John Wick would have a rival in the Philippines!? The gun fights are efficiently executed, and I particularly liked how they still played a part in the action even when the bullets ran out, whether it be to club someone in the face or strangle with the strap, small touches like this indicate the amount of thought that’s gone into the action design.
Sure Maria isn’t perfect, the script veers from being incredibly cool (there’s a great line involving Cain and Abel) to incredibly cheesy with reckless abandon, and one fight scene features one of my pet hates – a song plays over it, which serves as a distraction rather than a compliment. But these are minor gripes in what is essentially an 85 minute lean and mean action movie that wastes no time getting down to business, and pulls no punches. I ended my review of Nilalang by saying it showed “plenty of potential for the future of Filipino action cinema.” With Maria, that potential has been realised.
On July 16th, 2019, Shout! Factory is releasing the Blu-ray & DVD for Abduction (aka Twilight Zodiac), the latest actioner from martial arts sensation Scott Adkins (The Debt Collector) and director Ernie Barbarash (Pound of Flesh).
Quinn (Adkins, Triple Threat), a member of a SWAT unit, steps out of a park fountain in an Asian city with no recollection of who he is or where he came from. As he pieces together clues from his past, he vaguely recalls his young daughter, who has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Conner (Andy On, Zombie Fight Club), a former military operative turned gangster-for-hire, discovers that his wife has also disappeared mysteriously in the middle of the night. These two men, with little in common, realize they must work together to find their loved ones and thwart their mysterious abductors.
The film is produced by Hong Kong film figure, Mike Leeder (Ultimate Justice), Henry Luk (Pound of Flesh) and Adam Ren Yuchen – and executively produced by the legendary Roger Corman.
According to AFS, the sequel is taking a budget cut (around 13M$, down from the first film’s 28M$). It’s currently not known if Yuen Woo-ping (Miracle Fighters) will be returning to the director’s chair.
As the police launch a full-scale crackdown on organized crime, it ignites a national yakuza struggle between the Sanno of the East and Hanabishi of the West. What started as an internal strife in Outrage has now become a nationwide war in Beyond Outrage.
The film also stars Tomokazu Miura, Ryo Kase, Akira Nakao, Shigeru Koyama, Toshiyuki Nishida, Sansei Shiomi, Katsunori Takahashi, Fumiyo Kohinata, Yutaka Matsushige, Hideo Nakano and Kenta Kiritani.
Director: Zhang Yimou Writer: Zhang Yimou Cast: Deng Chao, Sun Li, Ryan Zheng Kai, Leo Wu, Wang Qianyuan, Hu Jun, Guan Xiaotong Running Time: 116 min.
By Paul Bramhall
In a year that saw the Chinese film industry more concerned with ensuring its finances where in order than it was with actually making any films (thanks Fan Bingbing!), fifth generation director Zhang Yimou’s latest production Shadow arrived in a decidedly understated manner, with little fanfare or promotion. It’s been 30 years since the world was introduced to Yimou’s distinct style with 1987’s Red Sorghum, however for many western audiences their introduction would have been through his 2002 wuxia epic Hero. Made at a time when foreign audiences were still very much receptive to flying swordsman and chivalrous musings, thanks to 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the blending of Yimou’s eye for luscious visuals applied to the wuxia genre was a stunning one.
The success of Herosaw the director stay within the world of wuxia for his next 2 features, with 2004’s House of Flying Daggers and 2006’s Curse of the Golden Flower making what would become known as his Wuxia Trilogy. Now after 12 years, Shadow makes the first time for Yimou to return to the wuxia genre. In the time in-between he’s directed the opening and closing ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, dabbled in the war genre (2011’s The Flowers of War), romantic melodrama (2014’s Coming Home), and of course, most recently Matt Damon versus monsters in 2016’s The Great Wall. Perhaps most notably though, is that Shadow also sees the auteur responsible for the script, for the first time since Curse of the Golden Flower.
It seems to make a difference when Yimou is directing from his own pen, as Shadow is a classical return to form to his early – mid 2000’s work, striking the balance between sumptuous visuals and an enthralling story. Indeed the whole aesthetic calls to mind a Chinese oil painting which has been brought to life, with a charcoal hued palette that eschews the glowing red lanterns and luscious greenery of his most famous work. While the ranges of colors may have been muted, what’s onscreen is no less beautiful, with the permanently rain soaked landscapes and palace interiors that the plot takes place in, captured in such a way that every detail of the production design feels like a deliberate brushstroke.
Shadow opens with onscreen text, explaining how, in ancient China certain high ranking military officials secretly trained a double – a commoner chosen because of their resemblance, so that should anything ever happen to the real official that could destabilize the palace, the double (or ‘shadow’) could take over. Shadow is the story of one such commoner. Using the revered Three Kingdoms saga as its inspiration, there’s unrest in the palace when a powerful adversary captures a strategically important city nearby. A respected Commander (Deng Chao, The Mermaid), insists they must fight to regain control of the city, however the cowardly king (Zheng Kai, Peace Breaker) would rather maintain the peace, even going to far as to offer his sister (Guan Xiao-Tong, The Guillotines) to marry the son of the adversaries leader.
Unwilling to accept the kings proposal, Chao arranges for a one-on-one duel with the leader of the opposing forces, a General who’s known to be unbeatable with a guandao (Hu Jun, Red Cliff). However there’s a catch – Chao isn’t really the Commander, as the real Commander already fought with Jun previously, and suffered debilitating injuries which have forced him into hiding inside the palace’s secret chambers. The real Commander (also played by Chao), through closely collaborating with both his wife (Sun Li, Fearless) and his double, have colluded to have his shadow successfully take his place in court. So the stage is set for a tale with stakes which feel on one hand intimate and personal, while on the other epic and far reaching, often both at the same time.
Shadow explores a lot of territory within its ticking clock framework to the shadows duel with a superior opposition. On the surface is the basic need for the real Commander to develop a strategy that can defeat the deadly thrusts of Jun’s guandao, however Yimou’s storytelling is equally interested in the dynamic between the trio who are central to the plot. With a weakened military commander whose thoughts grow increasingly ambitious, a double wrestling with his own insecurities, and a wife who finds herself spending more time with her husband’s surrogate than the man she married, loyalties soon start to grow fractured. Yimou develops an underlying tension into proceedings, which creeps in so quietly you don’t notice it until it’s already there, as the question arises to if the king has noticed his trusted commander isn’t the same one he was speaking to before.
Tonally there are echoes of Hero that reverberate through certain moments in Shadow. While in the former Jet Li played a character simply referenced as ‘Nameless’, here the shadow may be just as much lacking an identify, however as the audience we get to know both his name and his backstory, providing us with more details than many of the characters he interacts with care to know about. It’s these details which allow the viewer an understanding into the events that unfold, and the reasoning behind them, making Yimou’s latest an intriguing study into the follies of human nature.
Like his famed Wuxia Trilogy, Yimou doesn’t neglect the action, bringing on board action director Ku Huen-Chiu (who also worked on fellow fifth generation alumni Chen Kaige’s Monk Comes Down the Mountain) to craft some of the most beautifully shot action scenes in recent memory. Heavily incorporating the principles of yin-yang, even the smallest action sequence is a feast for the eyes and ears, as bamboo poles cut through the rain drenched surface in slow motion, and arrows slice through the air towards their targets. There’s a distinct nod to the Shaw Brothers movies of old, specifically 1978’s The Flying Guillotine Part II, with the introduction of a bladed umbrella to defeat the opposing armies style, and the way they’re incorporated into a siege on the town is like nothing you’ll have seen in martial arts cinema before.
The real joy for martial arts fans though will be the way in which strategy and technique plays a crucial part of the action. Yimou opts for an action aesthetic which is more in line with the grounded displays seen in Curse of the Golden Flower, than the flights of fancy found in Hero, allowing the permanent downpour to play as much a part in the bloodletting as the blood that runs through it. The esoteric weapons, and realisation that a more feminine style of fighting is the best way to defeat the enemy, mean that the action still remains highly stylised, but the sense of danger is never sacrificed. With the elaborate costumes allowing for every thrust of the blade to look like poetry in motion, Yimou’s work as a cinematographer shows through in every frame, a timely reminder that a minimalist approach can be just as enthralling as a million CGI pixels splattered all over the screen.
For every question that Shadow poses, none of them have an easy answer, with every end only signalling a beginning to another power struggle, whether it be between kingdoms, or a man and a woman. While some audiences were turned off by what they saw as Hero’s pro-China message (it’d be interesting to see what those same audiences think of some of China’s output now!), Shadow appears to opt for a different approach, instead subtly pointing out that the more you try to control someone, the more you’re destined to fail. Whatever the case, Yimou concludes his latest by leaving us to figure out what that means to the wider world, and each viewer may have a different perspective. Put simply, Yimou’s return to the wuxia genre is a resounding triumph, respecting the influence of the past while also setting the bar for the future, Shadow is pure cinema.
Director: Jiang Wen Cast: Eddie Peng, Liao Fan, Jiang Wen, Zhou Yun, Xu Qing, Kenya Sawada, Li Meng, Yuan Shanshan, Ding Jiali, Shi Hang, Paul Morris, Junichi Kajioka, Chen Xi Running Time: 137 min.
By Paul Bramhall
While for many Jiang Wen may be most recognizable as that guy who threatened to act Donnie Yen off the screen whenever they appeared together in 2011’s The Lost Bladesman, he’s also one of the most multi-faceted talents to emerge from the world of Chinese cinema. An established director, writer, actor, and editor, Wen’s most accomplished achievements are arguably his bombastic Republican China set epics Let the Bullets Fly, and Gone with the Bullets, from 2010 and 2014 respectively. Sharply crafted and executed with a deft wit, Wen showed just how entertaining Chinese cinema can be if you’re smart about it, and in 2018 he returned to make it a loose trilogy with Hidden Man.
While Let the Bullets Fly set itself in Sichuan, and Gone with the Bullets in Shanghai, Hidden Man sets itself in Beijing, giving each entry its own unique visual aesthetic. Like Let the Bullets Fly, Wen has opted to adapt a novel as Hidden Man’s source material, using author Zhang Beihai’s 2001 opus Xiayin as a source of inspiration. It’s taken a while to hit the screens though, when a cameo by Kevin Spacey in a small but important role was decided to be re-shot, after he was accused of sexual misconduct by various actors. His role was eventually replaced by Steven Schwankert.
Whereas Wen was very much front and center of the previous two, here he takes a step back to play a crucial supporting character, but gives us the closest thing to a lead in the form of Eddie Peng. I confess I’m not Eddie Peng’s biggest fan. Granted, I haven’t seen every one of his movies, but those that I have (Rise of the Legend, Operation Mekong, and Call of Heroes) failed to convince me he was leading man material. There’s an element of trying too hard in his performances, which somehow emanates off the screen, kind of like someone who wasn’t quite ready for the big screen yet is desperately trying to convince us he is.
However here those same traits have been used to the narratives advantage, with Peng playing the grown version of a child whose adopted family is murdered, when the father refuses to hand over his land for growing opium. Rescued by an American doctor and Chinese businessman (Wen), he’s sent to San Francisco in the U.S. to study medicine, however also moonlights as a special agent working for a shadowy organisation. When he’s ordered to return to Beijing to complete a mission, the chance to exact revenge on those that killed his adopted family, is too much of an opportunity to turn down. So begins a distinctly different fish-out-of-water tale, as Peng returns to Beijing to find that one of the murderers has become the police chief, played by Liao Fan (Black Coal, Thin Ice), and the other a Japanese general, played by Sawada Kenya (yep, the same Sawada Kenya from Thunderbolt and Extreme Crisis).
Like both Let the Bullets Fly and Gone with the Bullets though, what appears straight forward on paper, onscreen plays out as a series of escalating double crosses, hidden agendas, double entendres, and veiled threats. Wen has a flair for comedy, and Hidden Man wears its comedic ambitions on its sleeve more than any of his previous work. Peng’s father is played by the Beijing born Andy Friend, allowing for once an actor who can deliver an effective performance in both English and Mandarin, and the pair go at it in a number of energetic verbal exchanges, seamlessly switching between the two languages. Everything about it shouldn’t work considering how annoying such switches usually are (Michael Wong, we’re looking at you), but here it not only feels natural, but also hits the desired comedic notes.
This approach will likely mean those who were hoping Hidden Man would follow in the tradition of Wen’s previous entries could be disappointed. The epic feel and similar themes (a bunch of characters all trying to double cross each other) are still there, but Hidden Man feels much pulpier in its tone, sometimes almost feeling like a live-action cartoon. Characters partake in verbal banter, firing off double meanings and hidden threats at each other in a barrage of rapid fire exchanges that are a joy to watch, and every character feels well fleshed out (well, except for Sawada Kenya, whose Japanese general is evil and Japanese for all the reasons we know he needs to be).
Liao Fan is clearly having a hoot. He first came on my radar in 2014’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (although, unknowingly, I’d seen him before in Assembly and CZ12), and has yet to disappoint in any role I’ve seen him in since. From playing a Wing Chun master in 2015’s The Final Master, to a low-level gangster in Ash is the Purest White, this is an actor who, much like Song Kang-ho in the ought’s, seems unable to put a foot wrong. Here his villainous police chief with a connection to Peng’s past allows him to ham it up as much as the narrative will allow, and his turn is an entertaining one. He gets to flex some of the same kung fu muscles he showed in The Final Master, while also having to deal with (what feel like) such important matters as his mistress having her posterior stamped as property of the Japanese general.
Indeed the 2 women of Hidden Man light up the screen whenever they’re on it, adding a certain zest and depth to proceedings. Frequent Wen collaborator (and understandably so – they’re married) Zhou Yun plays the town seamstress, who has a hidden agenda of her own, while Xu Qing (League of Gods) practically drips sexuality off the screen in her flirtations with Peng, despite being 13 years his senior. Yun has a strong presence onscreen, and as the object of Peng’s affections, their time onscreen together sometimes allows for Peng’s weaknesses as an actor to shine through. His handling over the dramatic moments is decidedly one-note, and whenever he’s called to emote it fails to resonate.
What he does do however, is handle the action scenes well. Like Wen’s previous entries, Hidden Man isn’t an action movie by any stretch, and those clocking in hoping for a fight fest will need to reach the 80 minute mark to receive a small dose of gratification (involving a delightfully painful usage of chopsticks). However Wen pays attention to the action when the narrative calls for it, leveraging the talents of Donnie Yen action team members Tanigaki Kenji (Big Brother) and Yan Hua (Special ID). There are times when Hidden Man even indulges in some playful Bruceploitation, with Peng mimicking the Little Dragon’s footwork, and a Bruce Lee joke so preposterous it had the intended effect of making me laugh out loud.
Much like Let the Bullets Fly and Gone with the Bullets,Hidden Man’s setting serves an ulterior motive. Taking place in 1937 on the brink of the Second Sino-Japanese War (the Marco Polo Bridge Incident is referenced, for those who enjoy their history), the fact that the events are taking place before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, allows for some additional leeway with the notorious Chinese censors. There’s not too many movies these days which allow for lines like “brain dead China”, however Hidden Man’s script gets away with certain liberties thanks to its time period, usually to comedic effect.
If Wen’s latest hits all of the marks it’s aiming for is debatable. Certain characters story-arcs seem to aim for poignancy, however the breezy pace of the narrative means it comes across as unearned. However as a confident piece of quick witted entertainment, it doesn’t put a foot wrong. Throwing in everything from selfies to bullet dodging to sly swipes at film reviewers (I swear I’ve seen every movie I’ve reviewed!), this is the kind of filmmaking that makes you appreciate cinema. Like Wen’s previous efforts, some may see Hidden Man as absurd, some may see it as a reflection of his arrogance, and some may see it as all of those things, and still have a great time, I just happen to be one of those.
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray for the Michael Dudikoff (American Ninja) Double Feature release of Aaron Norris’ Platoon Leader (1988) and Louis Morneau’s Soldier Boyz (1995).
In Platoon Leader, a young officer, just out of West Point is sent to Vietnam, where the men don’t respect him until he gets wounded and returns to be a wiser soldier and a better commander. Also starring Robert F. Lyons (Death Wish 2), Michael DeLorenzo (Alive) and Jesse Dabson (Death Wish 4).
In Soldier Boyz, a group of prisoners are going to Vietnam to rescue the daughter of a V-I.P. The Ones who survive get their freedom back… but hell awaits them. Also starring Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Tekken 2) and Don Stroud (King of the Kickboxers).
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Today’s Deal on Fire is the 
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