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.The first action we see on screen is a brief scuffle between Donnie Yen and Louis Koo. Louis Koo uses Judo to take Donnie down! This soon takes the combat to the mat (the floor of a bar in this case) and Donnie yen incorporates wrestling techniques to hold his opponent down. The level of realism to the fights is unquestionable; there is no level of realism. They are real fights but obviously choreographed. All the fights display full contact MMA, it really is brutal and exquisitely shot. Kung fu, Wu Shu, Wrestling, Judo, Ju-Jitsu, kick boxing, muay Tai. We see everything from intricate Wu Shu kicking techniques to pro wrestling inspired ‘Hurricaranas’ to Ju-Jitsu wrist locks, some of which must have been hard to portray in a cinematic way as being effective, exciting and not boring to watch, I mean how the fuck do you make a wrist lock look brutal on screen! It works, it really does. Admittedly I smiled a few times at the sound effects they used. If somebody was in a headlock, wristlock, knee lock or whatever, they were always accompanied by bone crushing/snapping and cracking sound effects. But bones were rarely broken for some reason as they usually got up and carry on fighting until the ‘major beat down’ section, which of course usually see’s Mr Yen with the upper hand.
When Donnie kills the first of the 3 brothers (Yu Xing, Kung Fu Hustle) He uses the infamous ‘ground and pound’ MMA technique, this takes up around 15 seconds of continuous screen time. Donnie yen just punches this dude to death, this movie really takes no prisoners!
As far as the plot goes, The gang figure out that Louis Koo is an undercover cop and try to kill him, they fail badly (for story purposes of course). So he ends up in the hospital, he also has a girlfriend Julie (Bingbing fan, Shinjuku Incident) that we later find out is pregnant, she only knew him as a gangster, but doesn’t seem to mind too much when she finds out he’s a cop. The oldest of the 3 brothers Archer (Ray Lui) is arrested and charged and put on trial. Louis Koo, now exposed is required to testify against Archer. The Vietnamese manage to sneak a cooked chicken in a box with a bomb hidden inside into Louis Koo’s apartment. Yeah I know, you would question it, who ordered the chicken? Nobody did, the characters don’t care so hey, why should we. The bomb eventually detonates injuring Wilsons (Koo) girlfriend Julie and killing his boss. Julie is taken to hospital so Donnie Yen and another bunch of detectives decide just a little too late that both Wilson and Julie need really tight security. The Vietnamese want Wilson dead so he can’t testify against Archer, and his girlfriend Julie can obviously be used as bait to blackmail him if he remains alive. And this is exactly what happens. It is at this point, in the hospital, Wilson finds out she’s pregnant to simply add more drama to the events that follow. So the remaining 2 brothers disguised as orderlies break into the hospital, the older of the two Tony (Collin Chou, The Matrix) kidnaps Julie whilst Donnie Yen chases Yu Xing out of the hospital for an awesome chase on foot culminating in a pretty intense MMA showdown finished off with that brutal ground pound I mentioned.
With his girlfriend kidnapped, Wilson claims loss of memory in court and doesn’t testify against Archer, so he is released. But unfortunately Donnie Yen is waiting for him outside of the courthouse. Donnie Beats down on Archer who then calls Tony to tell him he has his brother, if he wants him alive, he needs to arrange a meet with and they will swap Tony for Wilsons girlfriend Julie.
This is the setup for the end scene which is by far the most awesome part of this movie. The setting reminded me of a video game scene, an abandoned group of old buildings in the middle of a rural wasteland, The buildings have that old but colourful feel to them, the set is pretty nice, it reminded me allot of the John Woo video game stranglehold. So the exchange goes ahead, which results in an intense and well designed gun battle. Donnie Yen should have been killed plenty of times with the amount of carnage surrounding him but of course all bullets manage to miss him. Some of the violence is typically Hong Kong style, incorporating allot of wire work to accompany people being shot or blown up. There is one particular cool death scene where Louis Koo crashes his car into a platform area one of the generic henchman bad guys is standing, this launches him straight up into the air, at the highest point, he takes a bullet and is shot out of the air, really cool imaginative but over the top use of wires.
The final Showdown is between Donnie Yen and Collin Chou. This is by far the most brutal and intense display of mixed martial arts this movie has to offer. This end fight is simply fucking incredible and I would suggest anybody who enjoys action films watch this movie if it’s only for this fight, it’s worth it. The impact alone you can sense just watching this, the punches and kicks are full contact but it’s the destruction with the environment that’s particularly hard hitting. These dudes crash through walls, wood, piles of debris, it’s so well put together you can feel their pain. I loved this scene.
