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04 julio

Fatal Contact - Is Jacky Wu Jing the next Jet Li?

 
FatalContact_pic1 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.
 
FatalContact_pic2 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.
 
FATAL CONTACT is released on DVD on July 21st.
10 junio

Ong Bak is back

OngBak2poster 

Tony Jaa, star of surprise Thai martial arts hit Ong Bak is making his directorial debut with a film under the 'working title' Ong Bak 2. Well, I don't know if you can describe a film as having a working title once poster artwork has started to leak out!

Jaa will once again take the lead role.

The  original Ong Bak is set in modern day Thailand, sort of a Thai version of Kickboxer with some unbelievable Jackie Chan stunts. Despite its title, the sequel it seems is anything but. Instead it's a historical action movie,  and is a revival of an never released low budget film Ai Noom Saraphad Phid (Venomous Boy) co-written by Jaa.

Ong Bak 2 will feature martial arts based on the scared masked Thai dance Khon.

21 abril

Jet and Jackie's Forbidden Kindom is No. 1 in America

 

Forbidden Kingdom

The first ever big screen collaboration between Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the Martial Arts fantasy The Forbidden Kingdom, is the Number 1 movie in the USA in its first  week of release, taking $20 million in its opening weekend. I'm still waiting for news on the UK release date. Check my Gallery section for pics and posters from the forthcoming blockbuster.

More on The Forbidden Kingdom