Undercover Punch & Gun

Are there any international waters in the South China Sea that China does not illegally claim dominion over? Apparently, Ha, an international pirate-mercenary, has found a remote quadrant of ocean that he has operated out with impunity, at least so far. However, an undercover Hong Kong cop and two maverick agents of a maritime law enforcement agency intend to take him down in Lui Koon Nam & Frankie Tam’s Undercover Punch & Gun (a.k.a. Undercover vs. Undercover), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.

Brother Bao, the drug-addled boss of a meth gang suspects the cops have infiltrated his operation, but he does not suspect Det. King Wu, because he has been dating his daughter Dawnie for quite some time. Unfortunately, it will not matter for long, because the gang is about to get caught in a crossfire, between Ha’s thugs and rogue Trident agents Eva and Magnum.

When Wu inherits Bao’s gang, Ha offers him a deal, in exchange for Bao’s mystery meth cooker. Unfortunately, things really get messy when Wu and his goofy sidekick Tiger try to corral her. They will just have to bluff their way through, even when then find themselves stranded on Ha’s cargo ship, in the middle of the high seas.

The editing throughout Undercover P&G is slapdash, herky-jerky, and at times dashed confusing, even by the standards of slam-bang action movies. It definitely feels like it was pieced together from mismatched scraps found on the editing room floor. On the plus side, there are some satisfyingly cinematic fight sequences coordinated by star Philip Ng & Chu Cho-kuen. Ng and Andy On also show off plenty of physicality as King and his chief antagonist, Ha, respectively. However, the goofy schtick of Van Ness Wu, playing Tiger, gets to be like fingernails on a blackboard.

Joyce Feng Wenjuan has pretty respectable chops as Eva too, but her backstory rather muddled. Of course, it is great fun too see Lam Suet chewing the scenery as Brother Bao and Meng Jia is surprisingly cold-blooded and sociopathic as the henchperson, “The Phantom.” Still, a little bit of Wu’s Tiger goes a long, long way.

Abduction: Scott Adkins & Andy On Fight Aliens

If you thought Communist monuments were creepy before, wait till you visit this “victory” park in Vietnam. It is not just militaristic propaganda, it serves as a portal for a sinister race of interdimensional aliens. They have kidnapped Scott Adkins’ daughter and Andy On’s wife. Not surprisingly, the action stars damn-well want their loved ones back in Ernie Barbarash’s Abduction, which opens today in Los Angeles.

When we meet Quinn, he is literally in a world of hurt. While he is fighting off drones controlled by a race of cloak-wearing alien overlords, while his daughter Lucy is trapped in a cage, wearing a lethal choker around her neck. Defenestrated by the aliens’ telekinetic powers, Quinn suddenly finds himself surfacing in the Vietnamese Victory fountain. After a few run ins with cops and doctors, Quinn discovers thirty-two years passed on Earth while he was struggling in the extra-dimensional realm.

Dr. Anna is probably the most compassionate physician on staff at the Vietnamese Belleview, but she still assumes Quinn is delusional, for obvious reasons. Then she has a chance encounter with Connor Wu. The expat American freelance hitman is slightly disappointed in the crime syndicate he was working for, because they kidnapped his wife Maya to sell to the aliens, because of some rare genetic code in her DNA. Obviously, Dr. Anna figures these two need to get together—and action fans will not disagree.

Granted, the quality of Abduction’s visual effects is unfortunate, but Tim Man’s fight choreography is as serious as a two-by-four to the side of your head. Barbarash expertly showcases the action chops of his two stars, Adkins and On, playing Quinn and Wu, respectively. Adkins also stretches a bit, going for some fish-out-of-water comedy in the first half, with mixed results. However, On really brings the seething heat as the guilt-ridden and deeply ticked-off Wu, like an alien-fighting John Wick, without the dog.

Truong Ngoc Anh (a.k.a. TNA) also has some interesting moments, especially during the wild third act, but this is definitely a manly beat-down kind of film. Believe it or not, screenwriter Mike MacLean’s Strieber-esque alien abduction material has a few interesting twists (but the SFX work admittedly does not do them any favors). Regardless, the reason to see the film is the martial arts spectacle put on by the stars and the first-class stunt team. You know its legit when both Adkins and the legendary Roger Corman are on-board as executive producers. Recommended as a surprisingly dark but highly enjoyable B-movie, Abduction opens today (6/7) at the Laemmle Playhouse 7.

Donnie Yen is the Lost Bladesman

The Guandao is the Gibson Les Paul of spears. It is named after the heroic “Three Kingdoms” General Guan Yu, even though he likely predated the weapon’s earliest documented existence by several centuries. It hardly matters. At this point, most of the stories surrounding the virtuous warrior are largely fiction, but they all boil down to him being the good guy fighting against the despised Cao Cao. However, Alan Mok & Felix Chong (best known for the Infernal Affairs and Overheard franchises) give the legend a twist in The Lost Bladesman (trailer here), which releases today on DVD, from Weinstein and Anchor Bay.

Guan Yu (Yunchang) was faithful to Shu Han warlord Liu Bei, arguably to a fault. Recognizing the loyalty and heroism Guan inspired, Cao Cao tried compromise his integrity, but he found he couldn’t corrupt a righteous man. Granted, Guan was willing to make common cause with his nemesis, under narrowly defined conditions, for the sake of the public good. Of course, he never did so at the expense of his higher principles.

Still, a devious schemer like Cao Cao was not willing to give up without a fight. Zeroing in on Guan’s Achille’s heel, the Imperial Chancellor arranged for him to escort Qi Lan, Liu’s intended consort and the love of Guan’s life, back to the Shu Kingdom, forcing them to run a gauntlet of Imperial forces and hopefully weakening them to amorous temptation.

Considering Donnie Yen will soon be even more world famous a Chirrut Ȋmwe in Rogue One: a Star Wars Story, it makes perfect sense a solid, representative 2011 Yen film would finally get a somewhat belated release. Bladesman features impressive work from Yen as both lead actor and action director. His close quarters spear battle with Andy On’s Gen. Kong Xiu is definitely worth multiple viewings. However, the real attraction is watching fellow Rogue One-co-star Wen Jiang swagger and conspire as Cao Cao. Yet, he also displays such dry wit and sly subtlety, he totally challenges and subverts preconceptions of the notorious figure. It is impossible to reduce his version of Cao Cao to an easy strawman caricature, yet he always looks like he is having a jolly good time.

Regardless, Yen is still the star and he develops some agonizingly tragic romantic chemistry with Betty Sun Li’s Qi Lan. Bladesman is all about denial and yearning rather than consummation, which makes it quite a refreshing change of pace. Although Mak & Chong are more at home in a cops-and-gangsters milieu, they have crafted a classy looking period drama. It boasts a terrific cast, but it is also fascinating the watch Mak & Chong present a complex and humanized portrait of Cao Cao, ranking somewhere between the sympathetic Chow Yun-fat in The Assassins and the scenery-chewingly villainous Zhang Fengyi in Red Cliff. Highly recommended for martial arts connoisseurs and fans of the starry cast, The Lost Bladesman is now available on DVD, from the Weinstein Company and Anchor Bay.

Shanghai: Gong Li Lights Up the Foreign Concessions

We tend to forget Japan fought with the Allies in WWI. Afterward, British and American interests were just as determined to exploit the Foreign Concession system as their Japanese counterparts. Yet, Shanghai’s complicated and contradictory multinational governance made it one of only two completely open safe harbors for Jewish refugees during the so-called “Solitary Island” period. Obviously, the city is the perfect place to conduct espionage. Unfortunately, one of America’s best agents has just been murdered, but his friend and colleague intends is out to find the killer and make him pay in Mikael Håfström’s Shanghai (trailer here), which opens this Friday in select theaters.

Paul Soames has assumed the cover of a National Socialist-sympathizing journalist, but he is really a democracy and freedom loving Naval Intelligence officer. However, his friend Conner was the true idealist. Yet, his prescient warnings about National Socialist and Imperial Japanese aggression were routinely ignored. Soames soon deduces Conner seduced Sumiko, the opium-addicted mistress of Tanaka, the police captain of the Japanese Concession and more importantly the local intelligence chief. Now suspiciously missing, Tanaka is turning the city inside out looking for her.

Soames’ search for Sumiko brings him into the orbit of gentleman gangster Anthony Lan-Ting and his society wife Anna. Lan-Ting has accepted an alliance with the Japanese for the sake of business, but his wife has secretly risen through the ranks of the resistance. Soames ingratiates himself with both Lan-Tings when he saves Anthony from an attack on Japanese officers organized by his wife, but executed without the surgical precision she had expected. She genuinely loves Lan-Ting, but like the wife of the local German military contractor, she finds Soames jolly fun to flirt with. Yet, as Tanaka cranks up the pressure, the attraction shared by her and Soames becomes more seriously ambiguous.

If you watch Shanghai soon after Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home, you will be astonished by Gong Li’s range. While she just rips viewers’ hearts out as the achingly tragic mother in Zhang’s literary masterwork, she plays Håfström’s noir heroine with all the va-va-voom you could ever hope for. She makes the screen smolder, even opposite a little twerp like John Cusack. Yet, she also compellingly projects the inner turmoil of a woman whose loyalties are divided between her husband and her country. It is a big, juicy, psychologically complex role, but Gong has the skills to pull it off.

Cusack just is not right for a Rick Blaine-ish romantic role, but fortunately, his gee whiz, fish-out-of-water persona works well enough for most of his solo scenes navigating the various intrigues. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Conner with characteristic intensity in his flashbacks (too bad he wasn’t the one paired up with Gong), but the ever-reliable David Morse is grossly under-employed as Soames’ embassy contact.

Of course, Gong owns the film, but Ken Watanabe basically walks away with every scene she is not in. He is hardly another Captain Renault, but he is no Maj. Strasser either. Watanabe rather keeps us guessing, humanizing Tanaka, while playing his extremes to the hilt. Strangely, Chow Yun-fat is the one most conspicuously short-changed for screen time, but you can rectify that by watching The Last Tycoon, a natural companion film that focuses on a similar gangster-turned reluctant patriot. Unfortunately, Rinko Kikuchi is just squandered as the seldom seen Sumiko.

Attentive eyes will also spot future-star-in-the-making Andy On as one of Anna Lan-Ting’s comrades-in-arms. His appearances are brief, but his screen presence and action chops still come through loud-and-clear. Also look for Benedict Wong, who is quite good in the small but significant role of Juso Kita, Soames’ informer.

Håfström shifts gears from big historical set pieces to noir intimacy relatively adroitly. Hossein Amini’s screenplay intelligently incorporates the circumstances of the Foreign Concessions, as well as the events leading up to Pearl Harbor. Although he is clearly riffing on Casablanca, he wisely avoids paralleling the Bogart classic beat-for-beat. As a result, it all works quite well, in a pleasingly old fashioned kind of way.

Frankly, it is rather baffling why Shanghai’s release has been so long-deferred. In the intervening time, On’s star has risen, but Cusack’s has fallen, yet Gong remains on top of her game. She is more than enough reason to see Shanghai, along with Julie Weiss’s elegant costuming, Watanabe’s slyly villainous turn, and an unusual deep and accomplished supporting cast (blink and you miss Downton’s Hugh Bonneville). Recommended for fans of historical espionage thrillers, Shanghai opens this Friday (10/2) in key markets.

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai: Ma Yongzhen is Back, on DVD

Ma Yongzhen is one of China’s favorite Robin Hood-ish gangsters. Film and television versions of his story (including the Shaw Brothers’ Boxer from Shantung) often transplant Ma to the wild and woolly Republican 1930s, but the first film version of the Nineteenth Century bumpkin-turned racketeer was the 1927 silent Shandong Ma Yongzhen. A new supercharged remake/reinvention of the 1972 Shaw Brothers fan favorite takes even more liberties with Ma’s story, but if he has any surviving descendants, they are not likely to object to the heroic portrayal of the martial artist in Wong Ching-po’s Once Upon a Time in Shanghai (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay, from Well Go USA.

Ma Yongzhen came from the dirt poor provinces to make his fortune in Shanghai. Ironically, he has exactly the sort of skills to make it in the go-go city, but he promised his sainted mother he would never become a gangster. To remind him to temper the power of his iron-fist, she gave him his only valuable possession: a jade bracelet.

Living in a slum watched over by the kindly Master Tie, Ma quickly gets a lay of the land. Through a series spectacular sparring sessions, Ma earns the trust and a legit job from Long Qi, a gangster-club owner more closely resembling the historical Ma Yongzhen. The brash Long Qi has taken over a sizable portion of the Ave Gang’s territory, but he is asking for trouble with his outspoken anti-Japanese sentiments. When the Axe Gang and the Japanese form an alliance, Ma will be pulled into the fray to protect everyone halfway decent.

OUATIS is definitely following the buddy movie playbook, but screenwriter Angela Wong somewhat inverts the formula, by having the naïve country boy stay strong and start to reform the hedonistic crime lord. Even so, the narrative is rather simplistic, but the film’s grit and tragic vibe will appeal to genre audiences nonetheless.

The martial arts sequences choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping and Yuen Cheung-yan are obviously the important thing here—and they deliver. Fortunately, Philip Ng and second lead Andy On have the skills and bearing for the often brutal but wildly cinematic beatdowns. There is no question they can carry this stuff off. Veteran martial arts stars Sammo Hung and Chen Kuen-tai (the 1972 Ma Yongzhen) lend the film further street cred.

After working his way up through a series of increasingly prominent supporting roles (Lionel, the undercover cop stepson in From Vegas to Macau), Ng gets his shot playing the hero here. His turn as Ma is not exactly a bases-clearing homerun, but Ng is not bad at all. He has a strong presence, develops some reasonably believable romantic chemistry with Michelle Hu’s Tie Ju (the somewhat judgmental daughter of Master Tie), and excels in the fight scenes. Although Andy On goes a bit over the top with Long Qi’s outrageous preening and weird bursts of laughter, it sort of works anyway, because this is a genre that rewards attitude, which he brings in generous servings.

Indeed, most action enthusiasts will want to see more of Ng and the more established On after Wong’s Ma Yongzhen reboot, which says a lot. If you are looking for impressive martial arts action and can easily overlook some predictably excessive anti-Japanese propaganda, than it is a safe bet. Recommended for martial arts and historical gangster fans, Once Upon a Time in Shanghai is now available for home viewing from Well Go USA.