Jacky Wu Jing

 

Boy meets girl. Girl leads boy into Hong Kong's underground street fighting circuit. Boy loses girl. Boy goes on psychotic killing frenzy in gangsters' hideout. It's an age old biblical story with a contemporary twist, or in the case of Fatal Contact, a spinning kick.

 

The film's title is not a reference to the brutal underground sport that the hero competes in but instead to his fateful meeting with a girl who uses him to her own ends. Eve leads Adam into temptation and you can be pretty damned sure there is going to be some serious punishment meted out.

 

In his first leading role, national Wushu champion Jacky Wu Jing plays poor Olympic kung fu fighter Kong. Both want to be the next Jet Li. "I want to be the next Jet Li", he tells Tin played by Theresa Fu. Like Jet and Donnie Yen before him, Wu Jing was a member of the Beijing Wushu Team.

 

 Spinning kick!

 

Tin wants an easy life (which seems to embody eating out at restaurants a lot) and the gangsters controlling the world of illegal gambling promise easy money. Egged on by her, Kong is drawn into an escalating circle of violence and sepia-toned flashbacks.

 

Fortunately for Kong he has a furious temper and mad fighting skills. The 3 on 3 fight on the deck of a container ship is particularly memorable. As the combat becomes ever more bloadsoaked and viscious, can Kong escape and restore his humanity before it's too late? Guess again.

 

I wouldn't go as far to as to say writer and director Dennis Law subverts a well worn genre completely but he does his best to lull you into a false sense of security with an all too predictable and cheap looking first half. As the movie looks oddly ever more expensive, Law goes all out to burst some cliches. If I told you how it would only spoil it for you. I may already have said too much.