Anyway, my vacation is almost over. Everything is going great here. Nice cheap food and I bought lots of toys and clothes... plus a bunch of DVDs, including Yuen Biaos On the Run!
Saw Tom Yoon Gung in the theatre on opening's day: GREAT FLICK. If you thought Ong-Bak was good, TYG is at least twice as good, action-wise. Looks like Tony has listened to all the criticism that was aimed at his first movie, and really did something about it.
I'm sure most of you are already familiar with the story so I wont waste my limited online time discussing it... (Story is so-so, treating sidney like it's only a few square miles big, since the characters keep running into eachother...)
The first fight-scene is in Thailand where Tony goes to battle with the gangsta's responsible for kidnapping his elephants. Very hard, kick-ass action, although it only lasts maybe a couple of minutes, it's pretty sweet and raw. It's followed by a boat-chase scene which is OK, and has a funny moment in it as well when the boat jumps through a billboard... but the ending CGI (I think it was CGI) was a lil unconvincing. Not that it really bothered me.
After the boatscene tony heads to sidney, where he quickly runs into the gang responsible for importing his stolen elephants. after a brief streetfight on/near the pier, in which he get's kicked around a bit, he enters the warehouse where the gang is, and has a jackie-chan style gang-fight, taking on tons of opponent who come in on bikes and skates. It's a jackie chan style fight, with tony jumping and hopping through and making use of the environment, and it's totally kick-ass. Tony outdoes Jackie here. There's also a nice Dragons Forever style shot, where he makes a backflip which is filmed from above (Remember the Yuen Biao flip in Dragons Forever?) where he takes out a guy on a motorcycle. Anyway, the action is really sweet.
AFter that scene there's some story blahblah...
anyway, there's a big scene where he enters the restaurant and Tony tries to outdo the brilliant one-shot, one-take John Woo (Hard Boiled action scene, in which he moves through the building, takinng out MANY bad guys, without a cut, which is really impressive since there are some heavy falls and some stunts etc involved. The fightsequences are pretty basic which is understandable, considering the complecity of the whole scene. Very VERY impressive, and extremely ambitios for such a young film-maker. Really shows he cares for giving his fans something special and new... which is great news ofcourse
When he's at the top of the building, the camera finally cuts and we get a very nice fight between Tony and a chinese guy, who is kinda like the ringleader. He has some good skills, although he keeps doing the same (very nice looking) move a bunch of times...
First Tony gets kicked around a bit, then he gets angry and starts beating up 'Johnny' or whatever his name was... and a few henchmen join the fight. Good fight.
Story blahblah...
Burning budhist temple, sprinkler has sprayed the ground FULL of water. First fight is between Tony and a black Capouira guy. Extremely impressive fight. One of the best in martial arts movie history, considering the moves and the water. Cinematography is very good.
It's followed by a wushu guy witha sword. Also pretty good, dont really remember much of it but that's cause Im usually not that interested in weapon fights.
After that fight, the big TROY dude comes in, using the ancient martial art called Bob-Sapp-Do, which consists of storming forward, grabbing, and using haymakers etc. Dont remember much of that eather, except Tony scarring the guys forhead with the Ong-Bak move where he jumps on the guy's shoulders and the using both elbows on his head...
In the end-fight he takes on a zillion guys in black suits (no idea why they were in the building btw...), including a really really short cameo by Ron Smoorenburg, where he (Tony) uses Hapkido style grab-and-breaks, which is kinda like Jet's first fight in Fist of Legend (although I probably like Jet's fight better simply because it's a lil bit 'cooler', although I'm being very biased here ofcourse, and this fight in TYG is MUCH longer and more impressive action- and choreography wise...
After the zillion guys, the TROY guy returns, aided by his 2 brother Huey and Louie ... plus the main bad villainess (havent really mentioned that transvestite before... mainly cause there wasnt a need for it...) who uses a whip and a leather suit. It's OK. I really dont care much for these kind of fights where the main villains lack martial arts skills, since it kinda limits the choreography.
Anyway, action of the movie was GREAT. Sadly, the version I saw didnt have english subs (Gee, I wonder why...). Story-wise it was pretty basic, but I guess we're all kinda expecting that from these movies anyway. There are a bunch of plotholes (like 'Johnny' returning just to kill the main bad white guy, then never even returns in the movie...), and it's a shame that the soundtrack isn't anywhere as special or memorable as Ong-Bak's.
There's also a
Really looking forward to seeing it again, though Im sure it will be a while considering the shit that has been going on with Ong-Bak thusfar...
Anyway, I'll tell more about my HK vacation when I'm back home (in a few days), just wanted to share the TYG stuff now that I finally found some time to be on a PC...
Greetings from a very wet HK,
Yi
edit: shit... not really 'short', issit!?
