Flash Point

This one is a Hong Kong action movie starring kung fu master Donnie Yen, also another one teaming Donnie (also the action director ) with director Wilson Yip (IP Man, Dragon Tiger Gate). It’s pretty cool, but was slow to really kick off. It builds the pieces of the story by introducing us to a smuggling gang of 3 Vietnamese brothers, Donnie Yen as the cop on their case, and Donnie Yens partner Wilson (Louis Koo, Dragon Tiger Gate) as an undercover cop working with the Vietnamese brothers. I think this story has been told thousands of times, its generic & unoriginal and I think it’s just an easy vehicle on which to base some fucking incredible action scenes.

The movie is very well played, the acting is excellent, Louis Koo’s performance clearly stood out as that of a solid actor, he’s been in allot of movies I haven’t seen but I think he’s better known in Hong Kong as a serious actor as opposed to an action star. The best thing about this movie is by far the action. The fights are incredible, the gun play is well designed, coherent and enjoyable to watch. The movie combines these two styles of action fairly evenly. When the action becomes hand to hand combat it goes one step ahead of being a kung fu fight. Donnie Yen uses MMA in this sucker! Mixed Martial Arts! These are techniques we see in the ring, in the UFC. The amount of fight styles we see on screen is incredible. I got to be honest and say I wasn’t sure exactly what some of the different styles were by name, but watching the extras on the blu ray told you allot about what they were trying to accomplish. The fighting is noticeably different from Donnie Yens usual approach.

Sherlock Holmes

Being unfamiliar with the source material or previous interpretations of Sherlock’s adventures on film kind of put me somewhere near the bottom of the list of people really looking forward to this movie. I kind of knew who he was, but I couldn’t have told you a thing about him. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional British detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unorthodox in approach to his investigations, a bit crazy eccentric, dark and mysterious, insecure maybe even homosexual, I didn’t know he was a cocaine addict but that too. The suggestions that were made about the character Sherlock Holmes in this Guy Ritchie flick lacked any real depth, seemed to purposefully avoid the hard facts and at times were ambiguous, because this is a family fun film.

Fatal Move (Duo Shuai)

Typically gangster flicks deal with many characters. They usually have large families and a hierarchy of ranks and responsibilities within the enterprise. Fatal move is the story of a Chinese Triad gang led by ‘Big Bro’ Sammo Hung. It’s a solid gritty and violent movie, the plot is pretty standard for most of the film. Gang loses territory-has to take it back from rival gang-cops are onto them for gang type illegal activities-drug shipment raided by cops-gang divides and sub sections fuck each other over for money, That kind of stuff. But I couldn’t help but actually find myself slightly confused as to who was on whose side as the film came to a close, I think a second watch would make this clearer, but the double cross element of the movie ended up a little on the convoluted side. This isn’t usually a major problem I bump into when watching subtitled films, but once Sammo’s gang divided, all the names I’d associated with characters all of a sudden started to not match up to who I thought they were, this may not be a major flaw in the movie, it probably isn’t, I actually think it’s just one of the few problems with not understanding the language the film is performed in, subtitles are fine or pushing the story along, but having to deal with 20 or so Chinese names, putting them to faces, learning who they were with, who’s side these dudes eventually end up on, they (the subs) actually held me back a bit here. But it didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie.

A Bridge Too Far

The amount of times I’ve made a mistake, no matter how huge, and I’ve stood there for a second and tried to justify why I made it, the reasons, what went wrong eventually trying to persuade myself it wasn’t actually my fault. Kind of makes you feel better sometimes, but when it involves the lost lives of thousands of allied soldiers, I’m not sure I could forgive myself that easily. A Bridge too far tells the epic story of the largest airborne military operation in history, codenamed operation market garden. The plan was pretty much to end the war early with this huge allied invasion. The beginning of the movie sees Dirk Bogardes’character Lieutenant General Browning briefing his generals (Sean Connery, Ryan O Neal, Gene Hackman),  with the plan, apparently conceived by future US president General Eisenhower (the highest ranking officer in the allied forces during WW2) and his two top generals, Patton and Montgomery. Sir Dirk Bogarde shows, on a map exactly what’s going to happen, and he makes it sound so simple. The German armed forces are beginning their decline, at this point of WW2 (1944) they were fighting in the east of Europe, in Russia, in north Africa, the German war machine is spread thin, supplies are low, so is ammunition, and so is morale, which is obviously just as important as food & bullets. So the allies plan to fly 35,000 men and drop them something like 30 miles behind enemy lines in Holland, then capture 3 bridges and hold them, then the advancing land forces, heavy armor (tanks) and infantry can push forward eventually into the “industrial heartland of Germany”. Sounds plausible, if it works the war could be over and everyone gets to come home, happy days! But there were a number of problems that makes this outcome extremely unlikely, as I’m watching a movie I can obviously see what the Germans are currently up to in Holland, the allies couldn’t, they had to rely on reconnaissance and intel. At the beginning you are given pretty detailed exposition regarding the intentions of both sides, the overly ambitious allies, and the weakening Germans.