Badges of Fury: Jet Li Supervises

Jet Li’s Huang Fei Hong is sort of the Sergeant Murtaugh of the Hong Kong police.  He is definitely getting too old for this sort of thing, but unlike his Lethal Weapon counterpart, he always punches out promptly at 5:00 and disappears for long stretches.  That leaves most of the slapstick to his younger colleagues.  Seniority has its privileges.  Still, whenever Huang returns for a throw down, things perk up dramatically in Wong Tsz-ming’s Badges of Fury (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay from Well Go USA.

Huang is a crafty old salt who is more interested in his retirement portfolio than office politics.  Wang Bu-er thinks he’s all that, but has an uncanny talent for self-sabotage.  Their young, insecure team leader has paired them together in the hopes some of Huang’s mature risk aversion will rub off on Wang.  So far, it is not taking.  Wang just keeps blundering ahead, inadvertently aiding the escape of the wanted criminal Huang nearly captures in the spectacular opening action sequence.

However, Badges is not really about the fugitive Chen Hu.  Frankly, it keeps changing its mind, but the preponderance of the narrative involves the investigation of the so-called “Smile Murders.”  Each of the victims died with a strange smile plastered across their faces.  It turns out they were also all once engaged to low budget starlet Liu Jinshui.  Quickly, Liu falls under suspicion, but her half-sister Dai Yiyi appears far more dangerous, given her obvious va-va-voom.

When Badges goes for laughs, it can be painful.  However, action director Corey Yuen embraces the film’s cartooniness, unleashing his inner Itchy and Scratchy for some absolutely off-the-wall fight scenes.  In the big opener and closer, Jet Li shows he still has his mojo.  It is too bad there isn’t more of him as the steely Huang.  Unfortunately, his Ocean Heaven co-star Wen Zhang kind of stinks up the joint with his shtick.  Rising star Michelle Chen (so memorable in Ripples of Desire) is also clearly out of her element as their exasperated superior.  At least, Ada Liu vamps it up with gusto as the femme fatale sister.

As if Badges were not inconsistent enough, it also shoehorns in more cameos than the director’s cut of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Sometimes it works great, as when action star Wu Jing shows up to rumble as an insurance investigator.  Other times, it can be a rather head-scratching distraction for viewers not up on their Hong Kong reality television.  Still, it is always pleasant to see Lam Suet, Stephy Tang, Josie Ho, and Grace Huang on-screen.

When it clicks, Badges is a martial arts machine.  When it doesn’t, it is usually dabbling in romantic comedy.  Still, Jet Li and Wu Jing’s chops, Yuen’s gravity-defying fight choreography, and Liu’s sex appeal should be enough to hold HK action junkies’ interest on DVD.  Recommended for fans, but not as a Jet Li entry point, Badges of Fury is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate: Tsui Hark Does the 3D Thing

It was a time when eunuchs terrorized the land.  However, a handful of wandering knights are willing to challenge them, even at the cost of their lives.  Good multi-taskers, they will still find time for a bit of treasure-hunting in Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (trailer here),Tsui Hark’s monster 3D return to the legendary Dragon Gate Inn world, which opens a special two-week IMAX-coming-straight-at-your-head limited engagement this Friday in New York.

Sort of but not really a sequel to Raymond Lee’s 1992 Dragon Gate Inn (produced and co-written by Tsui), Flying 3D picks up three years later in movie time.  Dragon Inn burned to the ground and the femme fatale proprietress disappeared under murky circumstances, but since there was a demand for a sketchy flophouse right smack in the middle of sandstorm alley, the inn has been rebuilt by a gang of outlaws.  While they might roll the occasional guest, they are really more interested in the legend of the fabulous gold buried beneath the sands.

Two mysterious swordsmen calling themselves Zhou Huai’an will find themselves at the remote outpost after tangling with the corrupt eunuch bureaucracy.  One Zhou has just rescued Su Huirong, a potentially embarrassing pregnant concubine from the forces of the East Bureau.  This Zhou also happens to be a she and she has some heavy history with the man she is impersonating.  For his part, the real Zhou Huai’an has just barely survived a nasty encounter with the East’s top agent, Yu Huatian. 

The doubling continues when fortune hunter Gu Shaotang shows up at the inn with her partner Wind Blade, a dead-ringer for the evil Yu.  Add to the mix a group of rowdy, hard-drinking Tartar warriors, led by their princess Buludu and you have a rather unstable situation.  Before long, sides have been chosen and a massive gravity-defying battle is underway, as the mother of all sandstorms bears down on Dragon Gate Inn.

Frankly, the 3D in Flying is so good, the initial scenes are a bit disorienting.  Tsui probably has a better handle on how to use this technology than just about any other big picture filmmaker, dizzyingly rendering the massive scale of the Ming-era wuxia world.  Flying is also quite progressive by genre standards, featuring not one but three first-class women action figures.  When the headlining Jet Li disappears from time to time, he really is not missed.  Of course, when it is time to go Mano-a-mano in the middle of a raging twister, he is the first to step up to the plate.

All kinds of fierce yet genuinely vulnerable, Zhou Xun is fantastic as Ling Yanquiu, the Twelfth Night-ish Zhou Huai’an.  Likewise, Li Yuchun is a totally convincing action co-star as the roguish Gu, nicely following-up on the promise she showed in Bodyguards and Assassins.  Yet, Gwei Lun Mei upstages everyone as the exotically tattooed, alluringly lethal barbarian princess.  Her Buludu is both more woman and more man than Xena will ever be.  In contrast, Chen Kun is a bit of a cold fish in his dual role, which suits the serpentine Yu just fine, but does not work so well for Wind Blade.

Throughout Flying, Tsui throws realism into the whirlwind and never looks back.  If you are distracted by scenes that look “fake,” many of the CGI fight scenes will have you beside yourself.  On the other hand, if you enjoy spectacle, you really have to see it.  Surpassing its predecessor in nearly every way, Flying Swords of Dragon Gate is a whole lot of illogical fun.  Highly recommended for everyone still reading this review, it opens for two weeks only this Friday (8/31) at the AMC Empire.

Reelabilities ’12: Ocean Heaven

Old beyond his years, Wang Xingchang is dying of liver cancer. Fortunately, he can rest easy, secure in the knowledge the People’s Republic will care for his grown autistic son, Dafu. No, not really. Fearing the worst, the desperate widower is planning a final exit for both himself and his son in Xiao Lu Xue’s Ocean Heaven (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 Reelabilities Film Festival.

Known as “Old Wang,” Dafu’s middle-aged father works as a handyman at Qingdao’s version of Seaworld. It would seem like a cool job to a young child. Unfortunately, Dafu is still a little boy, emotionally and intellectually. He can swim like a fish though, which is one reason why Old Wang’s attempt to let the sea take them fails. Reluctantly accepting their reprieve, he renews his fruitless search for a humane social service agency that will care for Dafu once he is gone.

Ocean relentlessly goes for the heartstrings anyway it can. While the father-son story is obviously front-and-center, perhaps the most touching scenes involve Madame Chai, the kindly neighbor Old Wang obviously loves but never pursues because of his all consuming commitment to his son. Likewise, the ambiguous friendship Dafu strikes up with Ling Ling, a clown with a visiting circus, is appealingly sweet and innocent. However, the way Ocean puts the dying father through the ringer, forcing him to endure Dafu’s tantrums and stubbornness while suffering increasingly acute physical pain, might be realistic, but it borders on the outright punishing for viewers.

Hailed as Jet Li’s straight-up no-cheating dramatic breakthrough-debut, it showcases the action star quite effectively. Indeed, Li has a genuine Tom Hanks (before he was too full of himself) everyman quality as Old Wang. So convincing as Dafu, reportedly many have erroneously assumed Chinese T V actor Wen Zhang was himself autistic. Given realities, his character can only experience the subtlest of development arcs, which he duly implies with fine nuance. Though her part is rather underwritten, Taiwanese singer-actress Kwai Lun Mei (or Gwei Lun-mei) is a luminous presence as Ling. However, the compassion and open vulnerability of Yuanyuan Zhu’s Madame Chai is truly moving, in an honest and direct way.

Given the subject matter, one can hardly be shocked by Ocean’s brazenly manipulative nature. Still, it is a highly polished production, featuring the typically straight forward yet evocative cinematography of Australian expat Christopher Doyle.

It must be fully acknowledged Jet Li rises to the challenge of such a tear-jerking role. Action fans will also be interested (or frustrated) to know Jay Chou performs one of the soundtrack’s featured songs. Kwai performs the other main theme and adds a serious dose of cuteness to the proceedings. The results might be predictable, but Ocean delivers a real emotional payoff nonetheless. Sheepishly recommended for Kwai’s loyal fans and those curious to see Li flex his acting muscles, Ocean screens again tomorrow (2/11) at venues in Manhattan and Staten Island, as well as this Sunday (2/12) at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, during this year’s Reelabilities Film Festival.

Counter-Revolutionaries: The Warlords

Despite their crypto-Christian apocalyptic ideology, Mao held up the Taiping Rebellion as a forerunner to the Socialist revolution. However, attitudes towards the often brutal Taiping forces have evolved in China to the point where a Hong Kong-Chinese co-production could focus on military commanders loyal to the empire. Featuring plenty of hack-and-slash action and three of Asia’s biggest action stars as blood brother-generals combating the Taipings, Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s The Warlords (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

General Pang Qingyun is not lucky to be alive. Knocked unconscious and buried under a pile of corpses, it is his eternal disgrace to be the sole survivor of his army. Trudging aimlessly, he takes refuge in an abandoned hovel with Lian, a mysterious girl. Eventually, he finds her again in a peasant enclave under the protection of two bandits, Zhao Er-Hu and Jiang Wu-Yang. Obviously a tough customer, the outlaws want to send him on his way, lest he attract trouble. Unfortunately, trouble shows up independently when the army of Pang’s old rival starts pillaging the outlaw community.

Swearing a blood brother oath, the three men organize their remnant into a makeshift army to obtain firearms and the ostensive protection of the Imperial court. With nothing to lose, they bring the fight to the Taiping rebels, winning battles despite their inferior numbers and arms. The future starts to look bright, but there are storm clouds on the horizon as Pang struggles to suppress his attraction for Lian, who he has since discovered is the lover of his blood brother-comrade Zhao.

While not as long in the tooth as Jackie Chan, Jet Li is well into his forties, which makes grizzled action hero roles like Pang wise career choices. He still packs plenty of punch in the action scenes, but he looks credibly world-weary as the veteran warrior. Actually, his character is something of a contradiction. At times, he sounds like an idealist, fighting for freedom and western notions of democracy, yet he also makes ruthlessly cold-blooded battlefield decisions. However, Li largely sells both sides of Pang’s persona.

Deliberately glammed down, popular mainland actress (and at one time the world's top ranked blogger according to technorati) Xu Jinglei also brings a restrained but forceful screen presence as Lian. In truth, the love triangle subplot is better than it has to be in a film like this, which at its core is really about Braveheart style combat sequences. The fighting here is realistically old school, with strategy taking a backseat to brute force, as opposing armies simply hurl bodies at each other.

Megastar Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro (recently seen in John Woo’s Red Cliff) are perfectly credible as Zhao and Jiang, but it is Li’s film. He carries it quite well despite the often distractingly overwrought “if I had known then” narration. After all, this is a Chinese historical drama. Everyone expects a tragic ending coming in.

Though it cannot compete with Cliff’s truly epic battle sequences, Warlord delivers plenty of gritty fight scenes and perhaps Jet Li’s strongest dramatic work to date. A more than satisfying fix for fans of Asian action films, it opens this Friday (4/2) at the Cinema Village.