Genre: Drama
Director: David Gordon Green
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany, Miranda Richardson, Clancy Brown, Frankie Shaw, Maggie Castle
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/StrongerTheFilm/

Opening Day: 21 September 2017

Synopsis: STRONGER is the inspiring true story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become the symbol of hope following the infamous 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff, a 27-year-old, working-class Boston man who was at the marathon to try and win back his ex-girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Waiting for her at the finish line when the blast occurs, he loses both his legs in the attack. After regaining consciousness in the hospital, Jeff is able to help law enforcement identify one of the bombers, but his own battle has just begun. He tackles months of physical and emotional rehabilitation with the unwavering support of Erin and his family. It is Jeff’s deeply personal account of the heroic journey that tests a family’s bond, defines a community’s pride and inspires his inner courage to overcome devastating adversity. Filled with raw emotion, humanity and humor, Stronger is the inspirational real-life story of the man who became the living embodiment of “Boston Strong.”

Movie Review:

Will this movie about a Boston Marathon bombing survivor be Jake Gyllenhaal’s ticket to an Academy Award?

We sure hope so, because the 36 year old actor is one talented and hardworking actor. He played a US Marshall psychologically scarred by the horrors of war in Jarhead (2005), a code breaking political cartoonist in Zodiac (2007), a hunky fugitive with a bod to die for in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), an anti terrorist law enforcer who travels through time in Source Code (2011) and a twisted crime paparazzo in Nightcrawler (2014).

For his performance in 2005’s BrokebackMountain, Gyllenhaal was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category at the 78^th Academy Awards for playing a gay cowboy trapped in a doomed romance (George Clooney took home the prize for Syriana). He has also been nominated for a few British Academy Film Awards (he won the Best Supporting Actor for BrokebackMountain), Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

If Leonardo DiCaprio can bring home a Best Actor prize for his tortured performance in The Revenant (2015), we hope major awards will recognise Gyllenhaal’s honest and powerful portrayal of a man who survives one ordeal after another.

In this biographical drama film directed by David Gordon Green and written by John Pollono, Gyllenhaal gives it his all by playing a disabled character determined to pick his life up. This kind of real life stories can easily earn the love of juries.

Based on the memoir of the same name by Jeff Bauman and Bret Witter, the movie tells the story of Bauman, a victim of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. After losing his legs, he overcomes a series of physical and mental challenges to walk again. The inspiring tale of how a man adjusts to his new circumstances is so intimately told, it may leave sentimental viewers tearing

It wasn’t too long ago when we saw Peter Berg’s Patriots Day. While the 2016 movie focused on the unfortunate bombing incident and its subsequent terrorist manhunt, this human drama looks at how a man struggles and eventually lives becomes a symbol of strength for his home city of Boston.

Gyllenhaal delivers an engagingly touching performance, and you feel like you are right beside Bauman as he triumphs through life. There is a nice balance of sentimentality without making the movie a tear jerking melodrama. There is grittiness to the 119-minute movie, and it never resorts to convenient sappiness to manipulate your senses. The characters swear a lot, reflecting the lives of the blue collar workers in Boston. These are personalities who aren’t exactly likeable, but their flaws feel real and authentic. Anyone can tell you that that Bauman made a few bad decisions after losing his legs, but it feels real to see how he pulls himself together after life gets messy. The tale of survival and recovery is much needed in these complicated times. 

Gyllenhaal’s co-stars also deliver moving performances. Tatiana Maslany (Woman in Gold) is empathetic as Bauman’s girlfriend, while Miranda Richardson (Muppets Most Wanted) and Clancy Brown (Warcraft: The Beginning) add a humane touch as his rough talking parents. 

In its entirety, the movie is an honest tale of inspiration that does not resort to clichés. You can feel the filmmakers and cast members’ passion to tell a solid and straightforward story of how we should embrace the imperfections of life to make ourselves stronger.        

Movie Rating:

(Besides fantastic performances and a true-to-life story, this movie explores what it takes to be a hero in today’s complicated times)     

Review by John Li

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Wu Jing
Cast: Wu Jing, Frank Grillo, Celina Jade, Wu Gang, ZhangHan, Ding Hai Feng, Chunyu Shan Shan, Yu Nan, Yu Qian, Shi Zhao Qi
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 28 July 2017

Synopsis: Leng Feng (Wu Jing) was experiencing the lowest point of his life at the vast ocean near Africa. Depressed, he thought he would rather drift for his whole life. An unexpected accident ruins his plan, and he is forcefully brought into an African civil war.

Movie Review:

If you didn’t like ‘Wolf Warrior’ for its flag-waving propaganda, then you’re not likely to love ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ any better. As much as it showcased director-star Wu Jing’s awesome fighting skills, that 2015 feature-length spinoff of a TV series abundantly supported by the Nanjing military was pure unabashed jingoism. This sequel – despite stripping our lead hero Leng Feng of his rank and medals at the beginning after he accidentally kills a ruthless property developer who threatens the family of a fallen comrade – is just as filled with nationalistic fervour:

- When the female doctor Rachel (Celina Jade) he rescues from a hospital suggests that they go to the American consulate for help, Leng Feng replies sarcastically that they have all but left the civil wartorn African country;

- When Leng Feng’s nemesis Big Daddy (Frank Grillo) says that people like [Leng Feng] will always be inferior to people like him, the former says ‘that’s fucking history’;

- When their convoy of trucks bearing Chinese and African evacuees approaches a conflict zone, Leng Feng proudly unfurls the Chinese flag so they will have safe passage to the Chinese-established refugee camps behind; and

- Last but not least, just before the closing credits, the image of a Chinese passport flashes onto the screen, with a message to all overseas Chinese citizens not to fear when faced with imminent danger in a foreign country, for there is a strong motherland that will protect them. 

But if you’re willing to ignore these explicit political overtones, you’re likely to find a reasonably entertaining B-action thriller with plenty of fighting, shootouts and explosions. Reuniting with his three co-writers Liu Yi, Qun Dong and Yan Gao, Jing relocates the action to the African continent, or more specifically an unnamed fictional African country whose Government is under fire from a rebel faction known as the Red Scarfs (no kidding, because they don red scarfs around their neck) and a shady military corporation Dyon looking to profit from the conflict. Through a series of recurring flashbacks, we learn that Leng Feng was sentenced to three years in military prison after the unintentional murder, during which time his Special Forces unit commander Long Xiao Yun (Yu Nan) and lover had proposed to him but then fallen into the hands of enemy forces while on a mission. The only clue of what had befallen her was a bullet found at the scene of her capture, which Leng Feng had followed all the way to Africa itself.

The disgraced Leng Feng gets his shot at redemption when he learns of an eminent Chinese doctor and 47 other Chinese citizens trapped in the St. Francis hospital inside the country; and whether out of narrative convenience or to demonstrate that China does play by international rules (if you’ve seen ‘Operation Mekong’, you’ll know what we mean), the Chinese naval fleet at the country’s port is unable to launch its own rescue operations without an official request for assistance from the beleaguered Government and/or United Nations authorisation. Unfortunately, Leng Feng arrives too late to save the doctor; instead, with the pretty Rachel and a young African girl named Pasha whom the late doctor asks him to look after in his dying breath, Leng Feng heads to the Chinese-invested Hanbond Factory to rescue his own god-son’s birth mother Nessa, where coincidentally many Chinese workers happen to be holed up with their African counterparts amidst the rebel onslaught.

Unlike the first movie, Leng Feng is his own man here, and by that we mean his own one-man army. The opening sequence sees him single-handedly foiling a couple of pirates attempting to rob a Chinese cargo vessel by leaping into the ocean, overturning their speedboat and knocking them out underwater. Later on, Leng Feng will also single-handedly protect his ‘god-son’ Tundu as well as a Chinese supermarket owner in the midst of a fierce street battle between the army and the rebels, even using a mattress coil to temporary stop an RPG and divert it somewhere else. Such inflated heroics are not only laughable, but also undermine the gravity of the situation we are supposed to believe Leng Feng is confronted with. Thankfully, Leng Feng finds companion by the time he arrives at the factory in the form of its head of security He Jianguo (Wu Gang), who happens to another former PLA soldier. Together with the factory owner’s overzealous son Fan (Han Zhang), Leng Feng and Jianguo form a guerrilla-like strike force to fend off a series of assaults by the rebel army and Dyon’s paid militia, the latter led by Big Daddy.

It isn’t hard to guess that Big Daddy is somehow linked to Xiao Yun’s kidnapping, culminating therefore in a mano-a-mano showdown between him and Leng Feng – similar to how the previous movie had led up to that between Wu Jing and English martial arts actor Scott Adkins. Compared to that however, Wu Jing’s supposed piece de resistance with Grillo pales in intensity and chutzpah; instead, it is an earlier MMA-style fight between Wu Jing and Aaron Toney’s unnamed baddie that is more impressive. That said, each one of the action sequences are undeniably well-coordinated by Sam Hargrave (on recommendation by ‘Captain America: Civil War’s’ Russo brothers, no less) and expertly directed by Jack Wong Wai-leung (who was also responsible for ‘Operation Mekong’) – the earlier-mentioned street war is brutal and riveting; a vehicular chase among two Jeeps, a motorcycle and a ATV mounted with machine gun through an African shantytown is rousing; the initial attack by the rebels on the factory using snipers and weaponised drones is inventive; and last but not least, the tank-on-tanks action in the elaborate finale is thrilling.

Certainly, ‘Wolf Warrior 2’ isn’t the sort of movie you should be bothered about character development or award-calibre acting, but Wu Jing does make for a suitably upright and virtuous hero. There are no shades of complexity to his character Leng Feng, so it really doesn’t matter that Wu Jing plays it straight from start to finish. Just like its predecessor, this sequel is simply an opportunity to indulge in the sort of B-action fare that Hollywood used to excel at in the 80s and 90s, albeit with a strong – and some would say, suffocating – pro-China slant. One can imagine that a large number of ‘Wolf Warrior’ fans are in fact such fervent nationalists in the first place, and it is only logical that Wu Jing decides to play to the gallery here. Like we said at the start, if you can put up with ‘Wolf Warrior’, you probably won’t mind that this movie also wears its [China] flag around its chest (not just its sleeve) – and if you love ‘Wolf Warrior 2’, well you’ll be delighted to know the epilogue that shows Xiao Yun being held hostage but still alive portends the concluding chapter of a trilogy which will see Leng Feng embark undoubtedly on his most personal mission yet.

Movie Rating:

(As unabashedly jingoistic as its predecessor, Wu Jing's 'Wolf Warrior 2's' well-executed stunts and action showpieces make it slick B-action fare, albeit with a strong - even suffocating - pro-China slant)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Sci-Fi/Comedy
Director: Benny Chan
Cast: Louis Koo, Ma Li, Liu Chu Tuan, Andy Huang
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Shaw  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 3 August 2017

Synopsis: Since ancient times, the earth has been home to aliens called MEOW. They come from a faraway planet and have transformed themselves into cats, living in every corner of the world. With their adorable appearances and clever minds, MEOWs easily became the beloved pets of humans, and are served with an endless supply of food. Some MEOWs are uninhibited, living like mafia bosses; some MEOWs are smart, they treat human like minions, and live like royalty in their homes; some MEOWs are…

Movie Review:

If you’ve ever wondered whether your family cat is really an alien from another planet, then ‘Meow’ is the movie for you. No seriously, ‘Meow’ imagines an alien planet of the same name whose feline inhabitants have been dispatched by their King to Earth for thousands of years to colonise mankind, although none have so far proved successful in their respective missions as a result of being pampered by their human hosts. Their latest attempt comes in the form of a Meowian warrior called Pudding, who is sent to Earth with a Secret Weapon in order to rally the rest of his kind. Some bad weather upon his descent however causes him to lose the Weapon and adopt the form of an orange tabby cat in order to survive in Earth’s environment, albeit in much chubbier and oversized form. And last but not least, a mix-up sees him being renamed Xixili and adopted by former-soccer-star-turned-hopeless-businessman Go-lee Wu (Louis Koo), who has agreed to babysit the cat as a favour for a potential client.

Sure enough, its absurd premise has led to much online brickbats, some of which have been lobbed at its lead actor Louis Koo as well as its director Benny Chan. But face it, is the idea of a giant, adorable alien cat any more ridiculous than say three talking, singing and dancing chipmunks? Or say a couple of talking dogs a la ‘Marmamuke’? Or better still, a fat, free-spirited orange cat whose name happens to rhyme with ‘Garfield’? Sure enough, ‘Meow’ belongs in that category of family-friendly live-action comedy films – and in our opinion, one of the more entertaining, hilarious and heart-warming ones we’ve seen. Oh yes, the man-sized feline Xixili is funny and likeable all right, but the movie’s charm also belongs to its human characters – besides Go-lee Wu, his highly-strung wife/ aspiring actress/ power mum Pearl Zhou (Ma Li) and their two children comprising an older son Yoho Wu (Andy Huang) with filmmaking ambitions and younger daughter Yoyo Wu (Jessica Liu) who suffers from a congenital skeletal anomaly in her right leg.

As conceived by writers Ho Miu-kei and Poon Jun Lam along with script consultant Chan Hing-kai, ‘Meow’ is as much about Xixili learning about the beauty of family as it is about this family of four uniting around one another. So it will go that Xixili will become intertwined with Go-lee and Pearl’s familial and marital challenges, the latter precipitated by the former given how gullible and even naïve Go-lee is – not just in his failed business ventures, but also in how he ends up chalking a two-million debt by agreeing to be guarantor to a shady individual (Lo Hoi-pang in a cameo) and then falling prey to an elaborate scam led by three career criminals (played by the ‘Grasshopper’ trio).  A fangirl crush that Yoyo’s PE teacher (Michelle Wai) has on Go-lee and a chance meeting with a former schoolmate Boss Liu (Louis Yuen) that used to have a crush on Pearl further complicates their already financially strained husband-wife relationship.

The busy script juggles two other subplots – first, the bond between Xixili and the family through a couple of amusing sequences including one where Go-lee tries to teach Xixili to play fetch and another where Yoyo brings a heavily disguised Xixili into a parent-teacher meeting; and second, Xixili’s call of duty in his capacity as Pudding, which he (unsurprisingly) abdicates after being moved by the display of family love. Amidst the character dynamics are a couple of genuinely amusing sequences – a few where Koo gladly hams it up trying to pacify Xixili; a series of endorsement shoots driven by Xixili’s accidental fame, especially a ‘Journey to the West’ spoof that has Xixili as the Monkey King, Pearl as Xuanzang and Go-lee as a demon; and last but not least Xixili’s fruitless meetings with the elder Meowian warriors turned tamed kitties who had come to Earth before him. As you may expect, it all culminates in a melodramatic but undeniably effective finale where Go-lee and Pearl rallies behind Yoyo and her fierce determination to break free of her physical impediment.

Yup, originality isn’t exactly the film’s strong suit, what with obvious elements from ‘Men in Black’ and ‘Forrest Gump’. Still, the veteran Chan, in a marked departure from the action genre he’s made his name in (think ‘New Police Story’ or ‘The White Storm’), keeps the tone light and the pace brisk so that the movie on the whole remains enjoyable and engaging. Rather than compare to his other films (and he’s made some bad ones like ‘City Under Siege’ mind you), Chan’s contribution is better appreciated in how ‘Meow’ could have been much worse under a lesser director. Chan also brings along here his regular collaborator Koo, who throws himself dignity be damned into the role, and assembles an equally game cast in Mainland comedy actress Ma as well as lovely child actors Liu and Huang. There is real chemistry among them as one dysfunctional family, and you’ll no doubt be rooting for them by the time the saccharine-dripped climax comes along.

It must also be said that ‘Meow’ represents a technical achievement of sorts for Chinese cinema in the CGI work behind Xixili. Comparisons to Hollywood are unjustified, given the size of the budgets no less, but Xixili is unexpectedly well-animated particularly in the close-up shots emphasising his luxurious orange fur. And if it isn’t obvious by now, let’s just say that we were pleasantly surprised by ‘Meow’, which could have easily turned out messy, infantile and embarrassing as many have unfairly criticised it to be. Like any of them Hollywood live-action family films, this is surely intended to be family-friendly entertainment – and on that account, is just as, if not more, delightful than ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’, ‘Marmaduke’ or ‘Garfield’. That’s still not enough for it to qualify as a family classic, but for a weekend family outing to the movies, ‘Meow’ will have the kids grinning in agreement. 

Movie Rating:

(More delightful than we expected this to be, 'Meow' is family-friendly entertainment with some wacky laughs, consistent cheer and a heartwarming affirmation of family love) 

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Jonathan Li
Cast: Max Zhang Jin, Shawn Yue, Wu Yue, Lam Ka Tung, Janice Man, Chang Chia Nien, Yasuaki Kurata, Cecilia So, Kumer So, Derek Tsang
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 30 November 2017

Synopsis: Reckless police inspector Tung (Zhang Jin) is on a mission to crackdown on criminal Shing’s (Shawn Yue) gold smuggling scheme, yet fails to arrest him. As Tung continues his manhunt, he discovers Shing’s involvement with triad boss Blackie (Yasuaki Kurata), who hides on a casino cruise ship on the high seas. Shing has been involved in a power struggle within the smuggling ring, and is forced to kill his adoptive father. He also loses his share of gold in the smuggle to Blackie. To get even, Shing appears on the cruise, but Tung is there to hunt him down…

Movie Review:

It may not carry the ‘SPL’ brand name, but Jonathan Li’s filmmaking debut would have fitted right in – not least because its action director Li Chung-chi was also responsible for the hard-hitting brawls in the middle instalment.

Here, both Lis have teamed up for a gritty crime thriller that uses the ocean and those who ply their trade in it as a unique thematic backdrop. At the heart of the story is a gold smuggling ring run by a crew of fishermen, masterminded by a Big Boss whose lair is a floating gambling cruise liner.

Among the crew is Jiang Gui Cheng (Shawn Yue), who early on the film is established as a cold-hearted mercenary. The adopted son of former ringleader Shui (Tai Po), Gui Cheng murders Shui’s entitled son Sheng (Derek Tsang) by gutting him in front of his father after the latter tries to eliminate him. Shui gets to live a little longer only because he is the sole point of contact among the crew with Boss Kui (Yasuaki Kurata), and the former needs to locate Kui in order to ensure that he can properly usurp the lucrative illegal enterprise.

Pitted against Gui Cheng is the hot-headed cop Cheng Sai Gau (Zhang Jin), who in the film’s opening minutes is seen taking down suspects like punching bags before letting one of them resisting arrest plunge several storeys to his death. Despite this, Sai Gau is supposed to be the film’s moral centre, one whose ruthless ways are but service to a strict moral code that abhors greed and thinks that jail time is ultimately scant punishment for his accused’s abhorrent acts.

Six months after getting suspended for unwittingly killing a fellow officer in the midst of that earlier drug bust, Sai Gau receives a tip from his erstwhile partner A-de (Wu Yue) about a possible smuggling operation at Ma Wan Village next to the sea, hence placing him in the crosshairs of Gui Cheng. Both are clearly pitted against each other as equals – or to be more precise equally aggressive – and what differentiates one from the other is simply which side of the law they are fighting on.

Like most such Hong Kong thrillers, the focus is on the elaborately choreographed action showpieces; and sure enough, they do not disappoint. From a one-against-many fight along a narrow alley, to a chase through a crowded indoor fish market in Jordan, to a one-on-one with a knife-wielding assassin in an open car park, to an underwater brawl, and last but not least a climactic three-way fight on board a fishing trawler in the middle of a raging storm, Li Chung-chi’s direction keeps the action visceral and thrilling, complemented of course by Zhang Jin’s martial arts prowess.

Oh yes, this is Zhang Jin’s showcase through and through, the supporting star from ‘The Grandmaster’, ‘SPL II: A Time for Consequences’ and ‘Ip Man 3’ finally getting leading man status. To be sure, Zhang doesn’t disappoint at all – not only in terms of his moves but also in the acting department, by carrying the more mawkish moments with surprising conviction. On the other hand, Yue fares less encouragingly playing against type as a stony-faced villain, coming across somewhat stiff and bored. It doesn’t help that he isn’t and is not depicted as Zhang Jin’s fighting equal in the movie, relying instead on a pocket harpoon gun to do his killing and Janice Man’s underdeveloped assassin/ girlfriend to bail him out time and again.

These flaws are made more glaringly obvious in a script by Li Chun Fai (who also penned Soi Cheang’s ‘Dog Eat Dog’ on which Jonathan Li was assistant director) that is all too content to let the fights take centre stage. There is not much by way of plot except as filler in between the action, and what is there appears too patently obvious like genre clichés – you know that something bad will befall A-de when he keeps telling Sai Gau that he simply wants to lead a different life and go off to Europe on holiday; or that Sai Gau’s boss Chan (Gordon Lam) whom he pays no heed to will eventually join forces with him but end up suffering some misfortune too. There is even less to say about characterisation or character development for that matter, especially given how clearly and perhaps simplistically the lines between hero (read: Sai Gau) and antagonist (read: Gui Cheng) are drawn. 

And yet, if one simply focuses on the action, then there is little doubt that ‘The Brink’ does deliver. It deserves mention too that first-time director Li has a strong grasp of location setting, and together with veteran cinematographer Kenny Tse, makes great use of the grimy side of Hong Kong one wouldn’t normally see (such as the remnants of its fishing trade and wet markets). It’s not easy working with and on water, which only proves the effort Li and his crew took to get the underwater fight scene and the turbulent finale right. So even if the story and characters aren’t as compelling as they could have been, fans of old-school action will still find a lot to love about this hard-hitting thriller. After all, in this day and age, such genre films are probably the hallmark of Hong Kong cinema. 

Movie Rating:

(With brutal visceral fights thanks to Li Chung-chi’s direction and Zhang Jin’s superb execution, ‘The Brink’ delivers the action as a straightforward gritty crime thriller)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Fruit Chan
Cast: Max Zhang Jin, Anderson Silva, Stephy Tang, Kevin Cheng, Annie Liu
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 20 May 2019

Synopsis: Once upon a time, an undercover agent with a dragon tattoo, Kowloon (Zhang Jin), continually helped the police to solve mysterious cases, and he was known as a rising star. However, his impulsive personality caused him endless troubles. He got himself into fights with a detective (Kevin Cheng) from Macau, as well as an American army veteran, Alexander (Anderson Silva), who has a secret relation to Kowloon’s background…

Movie Review:

If you haven’t yet heard of Max Zhang, you should know that he is probably one of the most promising martial arts actors of our generation. It is therefore with much anticipation that we had awaited ‘Invincible Dragon’, which promised an epic action-packed showdown between him and Brazilian mixed martial artist Anderson Silva. And yet, after close to a two-year wait, this much-hyped match-up is sure to disappoint anyone expecting it to be gritty, intense and thrilling.

In fact, even as their climactic mano-a-mano takes place against the backdrop of the iconic Macau Tower, it is really nothing to shout about, marred by poor camerawork, choppy editing and over-the-top posturing. The same can be said of their warm-up round inside an old police station at the top of a hill, which while promising the intensity of a close-quarter fight, fizzles out long before they take a pause with Silva’s former US soldier rolling down the hill.

Despite boasting the choreography of Hong Kong veterans Stephen Tung and Jack Wong, the action is utterly underwhelming, devoid of much suspense, thrill and payoff. It doesn’t help that these scenes are also diminished by poor CGI, which further compounds how unnecessary they are in the first place. Instead of just concentrating on a one-on-one between Zhang and actress/ Taekwondo athlete Juju Chan, their scene on board a speeding light rail train has to end with a terribly CGI-ed shot of it spinning upside down out of control; ditto their Macau Tower fight, which has them freefalling off the top of the tower to dreadful CGI.

None of those embellishments should be needed in an authentic martial-arts based thriller, but clearly constructing his movie on that basis alone is too unambitious by director Fruit Chan’s standards. That is probably not surprising for those familiar with Chan’s oeuvre, whose acclaimed social commentaries sit alongside more uneven entries best forgotten. Chan’s name behind such an ostensibly mainstream crime thriller is undeniably surprising, and whether out of artistic conviction or the sheer compulsion to be different from the rest, he has so fashioned such a genre-defying movie full of disparate, even clashing, elements that you’ll be hard-pressed to even take it seriously.

Oh yes, rather than as police procedural or revenge thriller or both, Chan throws fantasy into the mix, such that the titular dragon is not simply metaphorical but literal, rearing its head in a twist at the end that is nothing less than preposterous. Take that as fair warning, because you probably won’t be suspecting that magical turn of events, even with a prologue that narrates how Max Zhang’s police detective named Kowloon had a childhood encounter with a nine-headed dragon and therefore believed his fate would be intertwined with the creature. Co-written by Chan and his regular screenwriting partner Jason Lam Kee-to, the story has Kowloon investigating a string of murders involving female police officers in Hong Kong’s New Territories. After his own team member and fiancé Fong Ning (Stephy Tang) is killed, Kowloon follows the case to Macau, where a policewoman had been murdered under similar circumstances, teaming up with local cop Tso (Kevin Cheng) in the process.

Truth be told, the story is a half-baked mess, complete with dead ends and random flashbacks that will leave you more vexed than intrigued. Same goes for Kowloon’s motivations, which are as murky as his behaviour is erratic, leaving you wondering if he is out to avenge his late fiancé or just to prove to himself that he had not lost the dragon spirit. There is also a whole bevy of inconsequential supporting characters – including Silva’s Iraq War veteran Alexander Sinclair, Tso and a Chinese medicine practitioner (Annie Liu) smitten with Kowloon – that are so sketchily defined you’d wonder why they even needed to be in the movie.

Far from being invincible, ‘Invincible Dragon’ is a laughable mish-mash of elements from different genres that add up to an incomprehensible whole. It’s not clear what Fruit Chan had in mind when he had conceived this project, and much as we are ultimately let down by its promise of a gritty match-up between Zhang and Silva, that is probably the best thing the movie has going for it. The fault isn’t of either star, although we wonder if the latter is better off sticking to his UFC day-job than branching out into acting, but that of Chan for thinking up such an illogical and incoherent piece of nonsense. Especially if you’re looking forward to some stirring hard-on action, we’d advise you to spare yourself the disappointment and go watch Zhang in ‘SPL II” or ‘The Brink’ or ‘Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy’ instead.  

Movie Rating:

(There is only illogical, incoherent and irascible with this laughable mish-mash of genres, that fail even on its basic premise of delivering gritty, hard-hitting action)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Crime/Thriller
Director: Kam Ka Wei
Cast: Simon Yam, Jordon Chan, Philip Ng, Sabrina Qiu, Eddie Cheung, Waise Lee, Oscar Leung, Lam Suet
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Drug Use)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 7 September 2017

Synopsis: Hong Kong has entered its darkest era. Gambler Wallace (Simon Yam) and his protégé Sky (Philip Ng) are ordered by their gang leader, Slaughter, to murder Robert, the son of mob boss Nigel. In order to fulfill the mission, Wallace puts together a team consisting of Sky; space racer Lily (Sabrina Qiu); explosive expert BBQ; boxing champion Tyson, and the up-and-coming star of the mob, Superman. As the members begin to suspect there are moles in the team, trust no longer exists among them. Wallace gradually realises that a huge conspiracy hides behind the mission.

Movie Review:

You have to give credit where it’s due. Hong Kong filmmaker Wong JIng may have made movies which snobbish cinephiles will not approve of (1983’s Hong Kong Playboys and 1992’s Naked Killer come to mind), but he has his place in Hong Kong cinema. The son of respectable film director Wong Tin Lam, the 62 year old is known for making crowd pleasing movies. Since starting his career in the 1980s, the hardworking man has directed, produced and written close to 200 titles.

Wong is a versatile filmmaker. Depending on what the viewers want, he can deliver slapstick and toilet humour, sentimental dramas, parodies of well known Hong Kong and Hollywood movies, and the two most sellable elements, sex and violence. This is the man who introduced viewers to the Young and Dangerous movies in the 1990s: almost every secondary school boy during that era looked up to the suave Chan Ho Nam (played by Ekin Cheng) and the loyal Chicken (played by Jordan Chan).

More recently, he is the man responsible for 2014’s From Vegas to Macau and its two sequels: From Vegas to Macau II (2015) and From Vegas to Macau III (2016).

You would have lost track of Wong’s output, as his name is tagged to countless movies and movie stars (Chow Yun Fat, Andy Lau, Stephen Chow, just to name a few) to attract audiences into the cinema. Marketed as Wong’s final entry to the “Colour” series (2003’s Colour of the Truth and 2004’s Colour of the Loyalty were the preceding movies), this crime thriller produced by Wong and directed by Kam Ka Wei features a familiar ensemble cast. The actors are household names which anyone who grew up watching Hong Kong movies in the 1980s and 1990s will approve of.  

The movie is headlined by Simon Yam (The Tenants Downstairs), who plays an old-time gangster who has to lead a team to settle a dispute. The members include Jordan Chan’s (Buddy Cops) ex convict, Philip Ng’s (Once Upon A Time in Shanghai) up and coming mobster and Sabrina Qiu’s (Skiptrace) badass motorcycle mechanic. Oh, and she is Yam’s daughter as well. Elsewhere, you see trustworthy veterans like Lau Siu Ming (Turning Point: Laughing Gor Returns), Waise Lee (Cold War 2) and Lam Suet (Three) playing supporting roles.

The story written by Wong has it that the team keeps hitting obstacles in their attempt to execute a rowdy gangster, which leads to them believing that there is a mole within them. There are also cops hot on their heels – meaning that there may be an inside man in the group working for the police.

Having seen other Hong Kong triad dramas, this one offers nothing new. You get the feeling that the filmmakers are trying to squeeze in too many things in the movie’s 104 minute runtime. There are car chases, explosions, bloodshed and dramatic rain showers accompanied by a soulful Cantonese tune. It is reminiscent of the gangster 1990s movies we were fond of.

There are also distracting moments which may induce guffaws in the audience. We know wearing white makes the team look cool, but is that the most practical thing to do when you’re trying to be stealth? Is hiding a tracker in a woman’s cleavage really the smartest thing to do? And why is Yam sporting a wig throughout the show?

That said, most viewers would pay to watch the cast on the big screen – and their solid performances do not disappoint. One memorable scene sees Yam, Chan, Ng and Qiu confronting Lam at a dinner table. Lam forces himself to gorge down several bowls of rice (we lost count), while the rest wait for an answer to why they have been betrayed. And things don’t turn out pretty.

When the movie ends with a melodramatic revelation of its Chinese title (translated to “Black and White Maze”), you can’t help but commend Wong for pulling off yet another commercial flick that will earn a decent (but not magnificent) amount of profit at the box office. 

Movie Rating:

(This melodrama may not be the most original gangster movie you’ve seen, but you’ll be comforted by the solid performances delivered by Simon Yam, Jordan Chan and other familiar faces in Hong Kong showbiz)

Review by John Li

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Herman Yau
Cast: Louis Koo, Julian Cheung, Charlene Choi, Charmaine Sheh, Lam Ka Tung, Law Lan, Lam Suet
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 2 November 2017

Synopsis:  David (Julian Cheung) was drunk and lost control of his car to the opposite lane. The off-duty police officer, Sam (Louis Koo) and his wife Ah Si (Charmaine Sheh), were able to avoid the collision and kept safe by switching their steering wheel immediately. David’s car smashed Patrick’s car on the opposite lane eventually and Patrick was killed. Ms Xiao Hung, after breaking up with her boyfriend, committed suicide by jumping off a building and hit exactly on top of Patrick’s car. The crematorium worker, Zhi Qiang (Gordon Lam), steals a pair of 24k gold bracelets from funerary objects for paying his debts. Patrick’s wife, Yu Xin (Charlene Choi), would like to fulfil her husband’s last wish in running the vacation house. However, a series of strange cases keeps on happening in the house. Jamie’s vinyl keeps appearing at Sam and Ah Si’s apartment even though they have thrown it away a few times. Those people who were involved in the car accident are tied to strange events.

Movie Review:

The ‘Troublesome Night’ series has long been held up as an emblem of modern-day Hong Kong horror, though that should not be mistaken for a reflection of its quality. Indeed, few of the 19 films which bear the title were watchable, and those that were tended to be the earlier ones that starred a then young and cherubic-faced Louis Koo and directed by one of the territory’s most prolific directors Herman Yau. It was Yau and producer Nam Yin that started the series in the first place, before the latter milked the franchise thoroughly for what it was worth on the home video circuit. That bit of nostalgia is worthwhile keeping in mind if and when you intend to watch this latest in-name addition, which comes 20 years after the first film was released. In fact, though written and directed by Yau himself, ‘Always Be With You’ has only nostalgic value, for it is otherwise quite shockingly devoid of any other worth, be it artistic/ creative or entertainment.

Like all the other films in the series, this one consists of three loosely connected stories. The first revolves around Keung (Gordon Lam), a crematorium worker who robs a dead young woman Siu Hung (Ava Yu) of a pair of 24k gold bracelets in order to pay off his gambling debts. As you can imagine, things don’t go well for him – not only does he end up in a freak accident that causes him to break his left leg, he is also haunted by the spirit of the lady who had committed suicide. The second concerns a bereaved fiancé Yu Xin (Charlene Choi), whose soon-to-be husband Patrick dies just one week before their wedding date. To honour him, Yu Xin buys a three-storey apartment building they had intended to run as a seaside resort, but a high-profile double suicide case dooms the place on the first day of its opening. Feeling guilty for having caused the accident which claimed Patrick’s life, David (Julian Cheung) offers to stay at the resort and help her out where possible. Last but not least, there is Sam (Louis Koo) and Ah Si (Charmaine Sheh), a husband-and-wife pair of police detectives whose happy union is threatened by a secret which the former is keeping from the latter.

The glue that connects these disparate characters? A freak accident caused by a drink-driving David who was feeling indignant after being told that he is suffering from terminal lung cancer, coupled by the suicide of Siu Hung at the same spot at the same time. That same accident also binds an older couple played by Lam Suet and Kingdom Yuen, who happen to be passing by during that fateful moment. To be sure, not all of them are in their respective predicaments because they deserve it; rather, as series stalwart Law Lan intones at the start, people are sometimes confronted with problems with no good solutions and how we respond to these situations may inevitably result in pain and suffering for others. That is certainly an intriguing theme to explore, but one which is hardly done much justice no thanks to a meandering narrative that doesn’t quite know where it wants to go, what it wants to do with its characters, or for that matter what it wants to say in the first place.

Only the first half hour that sees Keung meeting with a series of unfortunate events has any discernible purpose, which leaves the rest of the hour-plus duration of the movie a pointless slog. What is the point of Yu Xin’s perpetual bad luck – from losing her fiancée, to spending her savings on a place that was haunted from the start, to attracting one depressive character after another looking to commit suicide within its rooms? What is the point of David’s re-appearance amidst Yu Xin’s string of miseries, other than to saw up the dead body of one such successful suicide taker and dump his parts into the sea? What is the point too of portraying the loving union between Sam and Ah Si? Or for that matter, their run-in with the spirit of a young budding singer Jamie, whose debut album Ah Si had accidentally picked up while shopping for second-hand records? Other than Keung’s morality tale (you shouldn’t borrow or steal from the dead, stupid!), there is hardly any takeaways from the other two story arcs, which also unfold without any sense of narrative momentum.

Even more frustrating is how the movie as a whole is consistently bereft of any actual scares. There is none of that gumption which Yau displayed earlier this year in his R-rated shlocky horror ‘The Death Curse’; instead, a fleeting image of Siu Hung dressed in traditional red wedding garb, an implied scene of David sawing a body and a brief glance of Jamie’s head spinning atop a turntable is the best that Yau can muster here. That dumbed-down horror sensibility is no doubt an unfortunate outcome of ensuring that his latest gets past Chinese censors (seeing as how it has already secured a release in China), but the consequence is utterly disappointing for his fans. Worse still, Yau’s attempts at wringing emotion out of Yu Xin or Sam’s respective predicaments end up in cringe-worthy melodrama that not even the respectable actors can execute with credibility.

As a movie therefore, ‘Always Be With You’ is sloppily written, poorly executed and ultimately shockingly inept. It is not only one of the year’s worst releases but also one of Yau’s worst in his entire filmography (keep in mind that Yau exited the ‘Troublesome Night’ series before it became horrible). If there is any raison d'être for its existence, it is only for the sake of nostalgia – you get Law Lan as the wise old lady dishing out words of advice for those who do not respect the spiritual/ supernatural, and for what it’s worth, the sight of Louis Koo as a ghostly apparition doing a slow wave to the audience. Yet nostalgia alone can only excuse its shortcomings so much, and even if you’re willing to endure it for old time’s sake, there is no way in heaven or hell that this movie will revive the franchise that was not dormant but dead.

Movie Rating:

(Unless you're feeling utterly nostalgic about the 'Troublesome Night' series, there's no reason to sit through this otherwise poor excuse of a horror movie that is bereft of scares, purpose or any sort of storytelling merit)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Crime/Action
Director: Wong Jing, Jason Kwan
Cast: Donnie Yen, Andy Lau, Kent Cheng, Philip Keung, Yu Kang, Wilfred Lau, Kent Tong, Felix Wong, Michelle Hu, Ben Ng, Raquel, Bryan Larkin, Lawrence Chou, Niki Chow, Philip Ng, Kenneth Tsang
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Some Drug Use)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website:

Opening Day: 5 October 2017

Synopsis: In 1963, illegal immigrant Ho (Donnie Yen) snuck into Hong Kong. Equipped with guts and combat skills, he plunged into the underground world. After many adversaries, the once good-natured man is physically crippled and transforms into a monster more atrocious than the most corrupted cops and ruthless drug dealers. Finally, Ho emerges as the most powerful Drug Lord under the control of the Chief Chinese Detective Sergeant, Lee Rock (Andy Lau). With the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974, Rock is forced into premature retirement, but Ho still would not be stopped, as he is determined to become the sole dictator of the drug empire

Movie Review:

Just when you’ve come to hate him more than love him for truly frustrating duds such as ‘From Vegas to Macau 3’ and ‘Mission Milano’, Hong Kong’s most prolific filmmaker Wong Jing compels you to take him seriously once again with the best gangster drama we’ve seen in a long while.

Written, produced and co-directed by Wong Jing, his latest period epic charts the rise and fall of two of Hong Kong’s most infamous real-life characters from the 60s and 70s – the one-time most powerful drug lord in Hong Kong Ng Sik-ho (or better known as ‘Crippled Ho’) and the notoriously corrupt detective Lui Lok (or otherwise known as ‘Lee Rock’). Both were subjects of iconic films in the early 1990s – the Ray Lui-starring ‘To be Number One’ and the Wong Jing produced ‘Lee Rock’ and ‘Lee Rock II’ – but only now have both been brought together in the same movie, and this is a gripping saga of their intertwined fates.

Perhaps because he had already previously told Lee Rock’s story, Wong Jing anchors this movie around Sik-ho (Donnie Yen), who first steps foot in Hong Kong in 1960 as an illegal immigrant from Chaozhou with his three buddies (Philip Keung, Wilfred Lau and Kang Yu) and younger brother Peter (Jonathan Lee). Although engaged in odd jobs, the quartet find more lucrative means of employment by being paid to make up the numbers in street fights.

One such fight is that purportedly between rivalling triad heads Comic (Jason Wong) and Grizzly Bear (Ricky Yi), which turns out to be an intentionally staged confrontation between local triad head Grizzly Bear and his right-hand man Willy (Lawrence Chou) to disrupt the birthday proceedings of the well-connected Tsim Sha Tsui police district head Sir Ngan (Ken Tong). Unfortunately, the fight turns ugly with the arrival of the riot police led by the British Superintendent Hunter (Bryan Larkin), and before the night is over, Sik-ho ends up in a run-in with the arrogant and supercilious ‘gwei-lo’.

All that is witnessed by Lee Rock (Andy Lau) and his right-hand man Piggy (Kent Cheng), who spies Sik-ho’s superior fighting skills and decides to recruit him and his buddies while they are in lock-up. Lee wants Sik-ho to help him uphold a rules-based system, which he believes is integral to maintaining the peace (so that the British officials will continue to cast a blind eye) and therefore keeping the gravy train of gambling and drugs chugging smoothly.

As circumstances would have it, in order to save one of his buddies caught stealing from mafia boss Bro Chubby (Ben Ng), Sik-ho will end up working too for the former, running his drug business within the legendary Kowloon Walled City. It is within this hotbed of lawlessness that Lee will venture into one day in order to uphold the balance he holds dear – just as he had plotted for Grizzly’s right-hand man Willy to murder the latter and take his place, Lee now wants triad elder Master Dane (Chan Wai-man) to remove his rowdy nephew Comic and has brought a generous bribe in gold to seal the deal.

Things go south obviously, and the subsequent turn of events binds Sik-ho and Lee in a complex brotherhood embrace – deciding to repay the favour for saving him from Superintendent Hunter previously, Sik-ho springs to Lee’s rescue but ends up caught in the crosshairs of another parallel ambush sprung by Sir Ngan in collusion with Chubby. In the ensuing scuffle, Chubby breaks Sik-ho’s right leg as punishment, thus birthing a hardened and even more driven ‘Crippled Ho’ upon his discharge from hospital.

Sik-ho’s transformation comes at the midway point, and it is in the second hour that he truly comes into his own. Not only does he resist Lee’s manoeuvres to alter the state of play (instigated by the latter’s British superiors to split the pie four-ways instead of just between Ho and Willy), Sik-ho takes matters into his own hands against Lee’s better advice in order to exact his own vendetta against Superintendent Hunter. There is a lot of plot crammed into a slightly-past-two-hour runtime, but its machinations consistently revolve around the dynamic between Sik-ho and Lee; an especially poignant scene near the end has a visibly embittered Sik-ho pointing out squarely to Lee the personal costs and consequences of the latter’s actions over the decade plus on the both of them, and the duo coming to recognise how little of life, death, or anything in between they can truly control.

Oh yes, the movie is equal parts plot and character-driven, and Wong Jing’s (rare) achievement is how he balances both perfectly to deliver a sprawling but constantly spellbinding account of the fates and fortunes of his two key male protagonists. Equally notable is the fact that Wong Jing has in the same movie established some solid supporting parts in Piggy, Sik-ho’s trio of loyal chums and even Sir Ngan, not simply using each for narrative convenience but developing each to sufficient depth and distinction. Due credit also goes to his co-director cum director-of-photography Jason Kwan, who not only brings a vivid cinematic feel to the visuals but also imposes rigour in crafting and building up several pivotal sequences, both of which are too often lost on a frequently sloppy Wong Jing.

More prominently, ‘Chasing the Dragon’ has been sold as a showcase of Donnie Yen’s acting chops, and sure enough, Yen doesn’t disappoint; in fact, as Sik-ho, Yen probably makes the most significant breakthrough of his career since ‘Ip Man’. His portrayal of Sik-ho is understated, nuanced and impressively authentic, especially in depicting his character’s transformation from underdog to kingpin. Yen and Lau don’t share as many scenes together as we’d have liked (though, having said that, it also means Lau has some great punchy moments with Kent Cheng instead), but the duo have great chemistry when they do, embodying the genuine camaraderie between their characters as well as the seeds of distrust, suspicion and resentment sowed by their own respective ambitions, egos and greed. Because the story unfolds from Sik-ho’s point of view, it is inevitable that Lau comes off somewhat playing second fiddle to Yen, but the veteran actor’s natural screen charisma is undimmed in his third time round at playing the colourfully corrupt police sergeant Lee.

It should also be said that this gangster tale is always careful not to glorify its socially deviant protagonists – principally for fear of running afoul of Chinese censors – and is therefore less unhinged than the early 90s flicks of Sik-ho and/or Lee. In fact, Yen and Lau aren’t playing so much criminals as they are anti-heroes, so not only are there redeeming qualities about their characters in this movie (for example, Sik-ho as a loyal ‘big brother’ to his buddies and Lee bravely standing up against his racist British superiors), both will come in an epilogue set thirty years later to realise and regret the folly of their ways. Yet these politically (and commercially) savvy considerations aside, Wong Jing’s latest is still a solid and solidly entertaining example of the genre that is bloody, violent and thrilling.

And so, as the first full-fledged collaboration between Donnie Yen and Wong Jing, and as the first time that Yen and Andy Lau are starring in the same film together, ‘Chasing the Dragon’ is a more than worthy milestone both ways. We would add a third; it is the best Wong Jing movie in a very, very long while, and considering the output from the director, that is saying a lot. Indeed, there is much to enjoy in this period gangster epic, from the storytelling to the characters to the actors and as well to the richly detailed sets of Tsim Sha Tsui, Wan Chai and Kowloon Walled City. This dragon is one you won’t mind chasing from start to finish, and we guarantee you it will leave you on a visceral high. 

Movie Rating:

(Featuring Donnie Yen in his most significant acting breakthrough since ‘Ip Man’, this compelling gangster drama is his and Wong Jing’s best in a long while, and will likely go down as a classic of the former genre staple from Hong Kong cinema)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Sci-Fi/Actionn
Director: Leo Zhang
Cast: Jackie Chan, Show Luo, Nana Ouyang, Erica Xiahou, Tess Haubrich, Callan Mulvey
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 22 December 2017

Synopsis: Chan stars as a hardened special forces agent who fights to protect a young woman from a sinister criminal gang. At the same time he with feels a special connection to the young woman, like they met in a different life.

Movie Review:

Jackie Chan is at an enviable yet unenviable zenith in his acting career. On one hand, his legacy in the annals of action cinema is firmly cemented, and that honorary Oscar he received last year simply confirms it. On the other, that success has brought him to an inflexion point, begging the question of ‘what’s next’ for the 63-year-old star. Should he continue to make straight-up cop thrillers like ‘Police Story’, or Indiana Jones-type adventure thrillers like ‘Armour of God’ and its unofficial sequel ‘CZ12’, or goofy cross-cultural comedies like this spring’s ‘Kung Fu Yoga’? Or should he attempt new breakthroughs in hitherto untapped genres, like his most recent dramatic outing in the revenge-fuelled political thriller ‘The Foreigner’? To his credit, Chan hasn’t exactly rested on his laurels, which is also why while his latest foray into the realm of science-fiction may not be as impressive in execution, it is certainly laudable in spirit.

In Leo Zhang’s sophomore feature, Chan plays the special forces agent Lin Dong who finds himself pitted against a ‘super-soldier’ Andre (Callan Mulvey). The unintended consequence of a biogenetic experiment gone wrong, Andre is a former GI given a mechanical heart and regenerative abilities. Unfortunately, the ‘bio-roid’ has also turned against its creator Dr James (Kim Gyngell), whom Officer Lin and his team is assigned to protect at the start of the film. A fierce firefight at the end of an extended opening – that also tries to establish Officer Lin’s young daughter Xixi on the brink of death in hospital from leukaemia – ends with Officer Lin sustaining serious but not life-threatening injuries and Andre weakened to the point of needing to be confined in a sterile cage. Fast-forward thirteen years later, or the year 2020 to be exact, Dr James’ secret research has been adapted into a wildly popular novel by an Australian writer, thereby setting the stage for the re-emergence of Lin and Andre, both of whom are keen to find out just how its author had found his inspiration in the first place.

Their feud becomes entwined with a young teenage girl named Nancy (Ouyang Nana) suffering from increasingly vivid nightmares involving the late Dr James, as well as with the mysterious stranger Leeson (Show Luo) conducting his own parallel investigation into the origins of the titular novel. It is no surprise that Nancy is somehow related to Lin and Dr James, or for that matter, how she is linked to both these individuals. As narrative convention would have it, Nancy also holds the key to Andre’s recovery, leading to a series of cat-and-mouse pursuits between Lin and Andre’s henchwoman (Tess Haubrich) from downtown Sydney to the suburbs of Xingan in Jiangsu. Thankfully, Andre happens to have a gigantic flying aircraft carrier that looks suspiciously similar to the Avengers’ Helicarrier, thus allowing him to cross between the two cities without any seeming trouble from the authorities in either.

It is also within Andre’s own lab on board this aircraft carrier that the climactic showdown unfolds, but those looking for some signature Jackie Chan action will undoubtedly be disappointed. Not only is he content to do most of the fighting via some stun guns, he also leaves a good deal of the duelling to Leeson and his stalwart police teammate Susan (Erica Xia-Hou). Aside from a vehicular chase along a coastal road (because there’s nothing Jackie does in that besides spinning the wheel), there are but two other action sequences in the film – one is the opening firefight that sees Jackie doing a lot of running, ducking and being thrown about from multiple explosions; and the other is much-touted face-off at the Sydney Opera House, which is frankly an even bigger let-down because of all that hype.

Oh yes, that pièce de résistance is in fact an extended sequence between Lin and the Woman in Black (I kid you not; that’s how Haubrich is credited at the end) that begins on one of the performance stages within the Opera House, continues through its backstage corridors and culminates on its rooftop. To be sure, it begins humorously enough with Jackie’s use of some ‘magic show’ props and builds entertainingly through his characteristic misdirection; alas, it fails spectacularly at the back – not only is the camerawork more interested in getting overhead shots of the landmark than our two protagonists duelling below, it ends up being absolutely content on simply capturing Jackie tumbling down the side while holding onto a cable and sliding down to the ground safely. There is little death-defying about it, and even by Jackie’s recent standards in ‘CZ12’ and ‘Kung Fu Yoga’, it is most certainly a cop-out.

As much as we’re willing to appreciate just how Jackie’s age has constrained his physical moves, there is little else in ‘Bleeding Steel’ which compensates for it. The sci-fi is C-rate, ripped from a premise we’ve seen in countless other Hollywood B-movies and given a perfunctory treatment in service of (well) the action. The storytelling is predictable from start to finish, polished no doubt by veteran Jackie Chan collaborator Tony Cheung’s assured cinematography and yet another veteran Kwong Chi-leung’s skilful editing. The humour is awkwardly cutesy, though kudos to Luo for being such a game performer even if he means humiliating himself like dropping his pants and cross-dressing. Last but not least, the budding romance between Luo and Nana is cloying rather than endearing, so much so that the film is better without it.

Indeed, there is little raison raison d'être to ‘Bleeding Steel’ besides Jackie, who in turn cannot quite find a compelling proposition for the film aside from his trademark action. At least in his previous ‘The Foreigner’, Jackie showed greater emotional depth than we’d ever expected, and there was some engaging political intrigue in the plotting. There is little redeeming quality to the film, which only manages to pass muster if you’re expecting a Wong Jing type ‘Future X-Cops’ abomination. On one hand, our heart bleeds for Jackie, whose time, energy and effort would surely be better spent on a more worthwhile enterprise; on the other, we sense this is no more than a cold hard steel cash-grab among his legion of Asian and international fans. Like we said at the start, Jackie’s spirit in trying to forge new genre territory at his age is commendable, but let’s hope we get more ‘The Foreigner’ in future than say ‘Bleeding Steel’. 

Movie Rating:

(Hardly even B-rate science-fiction and severely lacking in his signature daredevil action, 'Bleeding Steel' is best - and probably only - appreciated as Jackie Chan's foray into new genre territory)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: David F. Sandberg
Cast: Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Philippa Anne Coulthard, Samara Lee, Tayler Buck
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Horror)
Released By:  Warner Bros 
Official Website: http://annabellemovie.com

Opening Day: 9 August 2017

Synopsis: In “Annabelle: Creation,” several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a doll maker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home. They soon become the target of the doll maker’s possessed creation, Annabelle.

Movie Review:

In case you don’t make it to the end of this review, here’s the quick lowdown: if you can’t already guess from its self-evident title, Annabelle: Creation’s a prequel, which means even if you haven’t caught the first Annabelle movie, you won’t have trouble following this one (although its ending, which directly connects to a scene in its 2014 predecessor, should be a welcome flourish for those who’re familiar with the first flick). Secondly, if you haven’t seen the trailers yet for this film, don’t – scares of this sort obviously work better without the benefit of foreknowledge – although even if you have, don’t fret as there’s still plenty left to go around. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all however – considering the mediocrity of its forerunner, Annabelle: Creation’s actually pretty enjoyable as a whole.

This fourth instalment in James Wan’s The Conjuring horror universe about its titular grotesque doll opens off with happier times. Mr. Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) lives with his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) and daughter Bee (Samara Lee) in an idyllic mansion more than a couple of notches too large for their family – a luxury apparently afforded by the successes of his doll-making career. The set-up itself is cleverly established with eerie portent – Mullins’s playing a game of hide-and-seek with his daughter which involves a series of scribbled notes, creepily still curtains and a dense air of dread. Because this is a horror flick, happy o’clock doesn’t last for long and tragedy soon strikes the family.

Fast forward to 12 years on – the Mullins decide the world could do with a little more charity and their home a little more cheer, so after an orphanage shuts down, they invite a Catholic nun, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman), and six young orphan girls under her charge to live with them. It’s these kids who steal the show from this point onwards, in particular the fearless Janice (Talitha Bateman), who sports a leg brace due to polio, which compromises her mobility, and her best friend Linda (Lulu Wilson), who’s sworn that any prospective foster parents will need to adopt them both. Ostracised by the other girls, the friendship between these two bolsters the film with some tender moments in a movie that otherwise, on paper at least, consists of a plotline that borders on featherlight in the weight category and characters who’re for the most part incompletely realised.

Essentially, and without any further spoilers, the rest of the film deals with how one of the girls inadvertently (and literally) opens the door to the demonic forces that act through Bee’s doll, Annabelle, and precipitates the havoc wrecked on the house’s inhabitants. Questions are raised and answers are gradually revealed: who the ones responsible for bringing forth the evil in the first place are and why Mrs Mullins has been reduced to living away from the rest in the confines of her bedroom. If the story’s a little banal, that’s ok, because director David F. Sandberg’s sophomore feature-length film (after last year’s Lights Out) shows he’s able to convey the scares, which is what we really needed anyway. In his inky style, cheap jolts are eschewed in favour for an expert build-up of uneasy atmosphere; lighting and sound effects go hand in hand like a delectable wine and cheese pairing to deliver a frightfully good time. We quite literally hold our breaths as lightbulbs flicker, shadows loom and rooms go still.

Unlike the first Annabelle movie directed by John R. Leonetti, which sagged in parts due to its protracted telling of a story that wasn’t particularly engaging as well as its uneven parsing of terrifying moments, Sandberg knows what horror audiences are seeking. Returning to The Conjuring’s success formula by grounding the action in a spooky, sprawling house and maximising all of its elements – from its endless rooms, claustrophobic dumbwaiter and malfunctioning chairlift to a nearby well and dollmaking shack – practically nothing is spared from being the setting of your worst nightmare. By the time weird stuff starts to happen, there’s hardly a scene which plods along for too long before it culminates in some kind of scare. Night after night, as the girls inexplicably tempt fate and the inexorable descent into mayhem unfolds, fright-inducing scenes are pumped out with increasing alacrity (until it becomes possible for bad stuff to start happening even in the day), nearly all of them packing a masterful punch before it all escalates into the film’s deliciously heart-stopping climax.  

The film’s choice of a kid-centric cast is also played to its favour in a number of ways. We almost forgive the ludicrously poor decisions made by the girls to open forbidden doors and play in places they aren’t supposed to, because, well, blame it on immaturity and youthful insouciance. Children also make for a friendly fit in claustrophobic spaces – pretty much perfect for a horror flick. A toy gun with a retractable projectile becomes a kid’s weapon of choice against evil, but it also becomes the filmmakers’ tool for raising hairs when its projectile launches into the dark and fails to return. Bateman and Wilson also demonstrate their precocious acting talent by breathing life into their roles and generating believable chemistry as the plucky duo Janice and Linda – we do feel for them. The physical handicap written into the character of Janice predictably ends up a liability for her, and while this is milked by the director for maximum effect in chilling sequences when she tries to bolt from the diabolical entity pursuing her, we can’t help but feel more than a pang of sadness when she resignedly says it’s come for her because she’s the weakest of the kids.

At the end of the day, there is precious little in Annabelle: Creation that is novel and this will probably be the biggest bone of contention for critics, but Sandberg’s well-played old-school psychological tricks and polished renderings of horror tropes deserve praise. It’s to his credit that he understands that less can be more, from the seemingly lifeless Annabelle doll popping up in unexpected places and switching positions after the camera pans back to it, down to eyes that faintly glow in dark photographs. Talking about spooky pictures, watch out for the scene where Sister Charlotte shows an old photo of herself with her convent sisters – an additional ghostly figure in the background reveals itself when the picture is held at a certain angle – surely a reference to the next spin-off, The Nun, slated for a 2018 release. It’s probably high time to retire the Annabelle line of sequels, but if the quality of Annabelle: Creation is anything to go by, we’d like to see what the upcoming Conjuring production brings to the table. 

Movie Rating:

(Compared to its predecessor about the cursed doll, Annabelle: Creation marks a return to form which, while hardly breaking any new ground, should offer a satisfying time for horror fans looking for a dependably scary time)

Review by Tan Yong Chia Gabriel