SYNOPSIS:
The
Triad "Zhong Xin Yi" is a well-established gang, and
under superb management of their leader Lin Ho Lung (Sammo Hung),
has many followers. Ho Lung? wife Soso (Tien Niu), his brother
Lin Ho Tung (Simon Yam) as well as his followers were all very
loyal and helpful to him. Hence, the gang dominates the Hong
Kong? triad world. Once, their three billion illegal business
got busted, in addition to the kidnapping of one of their leaders,
"Zhong Xin Yi" has since tread onto the route of disaster?
MOVIE REVIEW:
Written and directed by Dennis Law, Fatal Move was
originally conceived as the
prequel/sequel to 2005's SPL, which had Donnie Yen and Simon
Yam pit their skills on
the side of the law against triad members played by Sammo
Hung and Wu Jing. SPL had
an interesting concept to begin with, but I guess with the
ending as it was (a cop
out in my opinion), a successful sequel with an interlocking
storyline with the
surviving characters would prove challenging. A prequel on
the other hand might not
be as engaging, as if we were to see the rise of Sammo's character
to triad boss
status, it would ring too much a bell with Infernal Affairs
2.
So
Fatal Move offers a completely new storyline, albeit with
most of the SPL main
cast coming back for another go. Donnie Yen is absent and
Simon Yam crosses over the
fence to star as the brother of Sammo's triad boss character
Lin Ho Lung. However,
Yam's Lin Ho Tung seems to be having a walk in the park (and
in fact he really
did!), as is Lin Ho Lung, because those itching to see some
serious butt-kicking
action by Sammo Hung, will have to wait until the last 10
minutes of the movie.
There are plenty of Milkyway regulars here, with Lam Suet,
Cheung Siu-Fai and Maggie
Siu on hand to lend their heavyweight support to appeal to
Westerners here who are
familiar with their works, and Danny Lee returns after a long
hiatus to play, what
else, a cop yet again.
The
storyline is nothing to bowl over, and most times seemed to
be running on a
railway track, completely fixed and one-way, chugging along
almost endlessly,
without a destination in sight. Character motivations were
unclear, and Tien Niu as
Lung's wife Soso really let it all rip in a melodramatic monologue
that contains a
lot more story in her words than all the dialogue put together
in the movie. It's
about the self-destruction of a triad gang from internal strife
from the greed of
man, but its central theme was touched upon in a rather haphazard,
messy manner that
you'd wonder if the sub-plots were just bookends for the action
sequences.
However,
despite its title, Fatal Move is severely lacking in compelling
action
scenes. You have the tired car chases, and it seems that there
was little effort in
trying to milk what Wu Jing and Sammo Hung could do. They're
martial arts exponents,
but get to handle guns most of the time, and this does not
exploit the skills they
are trained with, which you can probably employ anyone to
take over their place.
Most of the fighting sequences were courtesy of Wu Jing, who's
especially mean with
his lopsided blue-dyed hairdo and an extremely sharp sword,
but given no competent
exponent character-wise to spar with him, it all boiled down
to a one-sided affair.
Seriously I'm a fan of his and I think it's about high time
he takes over the
starring role mantle for Chinese action movie stars, instead
of getting bogged down
playing side show villains.
What
gets compensated for the uninspiring action sequences, was
blood and gore done
in CGI. I'm placing my bets that Herman Yau, as director of
photography here, would
have added some of his own pointers in this aspect, and the
camera does linger on in
some of the more violent and gory aspects, such as pumping
continuous lead into a
body, and various forms of decapitations involving limbs and
fingers, right down to
a castration. The much touted fight between Sammo Hung and
Wu Jing was the main draw
for me I have to admit, but if you were to put SPL and this
side by side, Wu Jing vs
Donnie Yen had a lot more intensity and slick moves compared
to Wu Jing vs Sammo
Hung.
But
alas despite the M18 rating in its theatrical release, the
movie was still
subjected to multiple edits and most of the gory bits couldn't
escape the censor's
scissors. What made it unforgivable, was that the much awaited
duel too became
victim, and for that, with the insipid storyline and relatively
generic action.
While the DVD is still given the same rating, the duration
of the snips seemed a
little lax, though still detectable that the scissors was
still at work.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Nil, unless you count Kelvin Tong's Rule #1 Trailer
which auto plays when you pop the disc into the player.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Decent transfer, though not the best. There are a few irks
here. First of all, the
subtitles, available in English and Chinese, are burned in.
And you can spot a few
grammatical and typographical errors too. Next, I'm still
perplexed why a movie like this had to be presented in 4x3
Full Screen. In doing so, the much touted duel loses its cinematic
energy, and you'll feel short changed because either you see
one half of each exponent in the numerous medium-shots, or
you see only one of them fighting phantoms. Should have gone
with the widescreen anamorphic format so that the probable
saving grace and talked about last scene, can be witnessed
in its full glory.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Stefan Shih
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