Heart of the Dragon (1985)

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Heart of the Dragon (1985)

Sammo Hung‘s first serious attempt at an against-type dramatic film may lack the subtlety of a Hollywood melodrama, but at least it remains true to its central, earnest promise, despite starring two giants of Hong Kong slapstick. There is plenty of emotion on display and, surprisingly, this brings out the best acting from Jackie Chan, who adds a loving humanity to his hard-edged cop persona. Sammo is also a revelation, playing a mentally ill 30-something with the mind of a child. He plays Jackie’s brother – both his crutch and motivation – who is kidnapped by jewel thieves as a …

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Special ID (2013)

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Special ID (2013)

Donnie Yen is really good in this – a textbook undercover cop movie from Clarence Ford (Naked Killer, The Iceman Cometh), beautifully photographed by Peter Pau and with action scenes which (for the most part) are free from wires. Yen plays a brash, uncouth Hong Kong policeman sent to Nanhai to work undercover with the straight-laced cops on the Mainland – personified by Sally Jing Tian, playing the gifted but cosseted antithesis to Yen’s Cantonese rebel. Of course, in predictable fashion, they eventually bond following the gangland assassination of one of Donnie’s hoodlum chums, and soon they are chasing the …

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X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

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X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

The First Class team return (Singer, Vaughn and Goldman) for another X-Men sequel-prequel which attempts an almost-convincing plot contrivance in order to fit the original cast members into the same film as all the newbies. With famous people everywhere – many of which spend considerable time blowing something up – it’s essentially an X-Men version of Marvel’s Avengers Assemble. But it’s not just celeb-spotting; there is some real substance here. In an apocalyptic future, humans and mutants are losing the war against an army of giant, genetically-modified uber-killers, called Sentinels, who have caused the likes of Magneto, Professor Xavier and Wolverine …

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The Green Hornet (2011)

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The Green Hornet (2011)

During the two-decade development hell of bringing this radio show superhero to the big screen – which included involvement from five major studios and innumerable script writers, plus escalating budgets and casting alterations – it was announced that Jay & Silent Bob director Kevin Smith would take the helm. Yet, quite incongruously, it is music video and pop art extraordinaire Michel Gondry who settles into the director’s chair – the man responsible for the spellbinding Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The frat-boy popcorn nature of the film does little to suggest Gondry’s stamp but rather the remnants of Smith, …

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Bruce Lee, My Brother (2010)

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Bruce Lee, My Brother (2010)

Rose-tinted, highly romanticised Hong Kong biopic focusing on the early life of Bruce Lee, which makes a neat companion piece to the rose-tinted, highly romanticised American biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Whereas the latter film – based on a book by his widow, Linda – portrayed Lee as the immigrant-made-good in a divided 1960s America, this film is based on a book by his brother, Robert Lee (who also introduces the film with their sister, Phoebe), which takes the story up to his departure for San Francisco at the age of 18.

His formative years were fascinating. He was a …

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Ninja Assassin (2009)

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Ninja Assassin (2009)

A collaborative, gross-out fight-fest from leading cult intellects Silver Pictures and the Wachowskis. This ramps up the ninja film with baroque levels of bloodshed. Digital effects assist in lavishly savouring every severed limb and gush of the red stuff, with each exploding head acting to nullify the senses – the first of which happens even before the main titles. This graphic set-up introduces a 1000 year old Japanese ninja sect – the whereabouts of which is unclear – who are under investigation from a plucky pair of Europol agents due to a high number of prominent political murders. One of …

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The Fearless Hyena Part II (1980)

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The Fearless Hyena Part II (1980)

This was a last ditch attempt by Lo Wei to trade on the rising stardom of his former contract player Jackie Chan, who had absconded to Golden Harvest when this hodgepodge was put together. It’s a horrible cash-in that mixes original scenes of Chan with that of a double (much like Ng See-yuen’s ‘new Bruce Lee‘ film Game of Death II), creating a strange sequel that bears scant resemblance to its predecessor (again, like Game of Death II). Some actors return – Yen Shi-kwan appears to have come back from the dead – with a story concerning the Heaven and Earth fighters …

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Dragon Eyes (2012)

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Dragon Eyes (2012)

Gritty urban decay film, captured with great atmosphere by John Hyams (son of Timecop director Peter Hyams), who stages handheld slug-fests to slow motion and guitar feedback, and drenches cavernous film sets in pools of shadow and spotlight – all very effectively. The story takes on a familiar unknown-avenger bent akin to Yojimbo and sets the action among the contemporary gang warfare of a tough, fictitious inner-city neighbourhood called Saint Jude – the patron saint of lost causes. Vietnamese MMA fighter Cung Le plays the evangelical figure of Hung, fresh from the clink and on a messianic mission to clean up this …

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Little Big Soldier (2010)

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Little Big Soldier (2010)

Given his huge involvement in this film (including producing, choreographing and writing the script), an intriguing maturity has crept into the work of Jackie Chan as he enters his later years. China make a lot of dramas set during the Warring States period, but very few comedies. Although Chan is effortlessly likable, the film is still no less aggrandising than, say, A Battle of Wits, or Hero, or The Emperor and the Assassin, or any other film dealing with the tumultuous story of a pre-unified China. All tell of a bloodthirsty struggle, the influence of the every-man, and the compassionate …

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Kamui (2009)

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Kamui (2009)

Overwrought ninja movie based on a comic book which uncomfortably combines dramatic pretensions with some very silly violence. The bad computer effects not only undermine the film’s shock value but appear to have been lifted from a completely different movie. The results are distracting and take the cartoon-like extremities of a film like Ninja Assassin to new heights of absurdity. Two sequences stand out: a tree-hopping ninja duel and a remarkably crass shark-hunting scene, both of which look horrendous. Kamui (Matsuyama) is a renegade ninja, escaping his former life in a simple fishing village where he has befriended an opportunistic bounder. His buddy …

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