Released: August 2017

Director: Jesse V. Johnson

Run Time: 94 Minutes

Not Rated

Genre: Action/Thriller

Cast:
Scott Adkins: Martin Tillman
Marko Zaror: Rastignac
Juju Chan: Isabelle
Cung Le: Boon
Vladimir Kulich: Steiner
Keith David: Valentine
Charles Fathy: Amarillo
Matthew Marsden: Harrison

The first time I saw Scott Adkins in action was 2006’s Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing.  He played a violent and angry Russian named Yuri Boyka.  That is a role that has really helped launch his career as an actor.  His physicality is extraordinarily impressive.  Not only would he return to play Boyka in 2 more sequels, he would also team up with and periodically take on Jean-Claude Van Damme in several movies, including Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.  If there is a British answer to Jean-Claude Van Damme, Scott Adkins would be it.  The man brings a level of intensity that I haven’t seen since Van Damme first showed up.  While Mr. Adkins has taken on bit parts in some major movies including Expendables 2 and Doctor Strange, his particular specialty is in the low-budge and independent film scene.  He’s become one of the biggest action stars in that particular arena.  His recent film, Boyka: Undisputed, was released on Blu-Ray/DVD a couple of weeks ago and it was a fantastic film, but he also had another film released this year:  Savage Dog.

Savage Dog is set in 1959 Indochina where a group of criminals have taken control of a local village.  They run illegal fights for money and to fund their operation.  Martin Tillman, a former member of Ireland’s IRA movement and deserter is in prison, but is allowed to take part in the fights.  He’s visited regularly by a local girl, Isabelle who has fallen for Tillman.  After being freed, he goes to a local bar that’s run by a man named Valentine.  After confronting Rostignac, one of the criminals, the bar and its patrons are brutally attacked, leaving Tillman and Isabelle for dead.  The revenge thriller is not a new genre for film.  It’s been around for quite a while.  I’ve seen my fair share and they all seem to follow similar patterns.  Savage Dog is no different.  The story isn’t terrible by any stretch, but it does fall back on some pretty tired clichés.  It also doesn’t help that the film is narrated by a character that ends up dying half-way through the movie….and continues to be narrated by said character.  Your guess is as good as mine.

While the story is predictable at times, what isn’t predictable is the level of violence in the film.  Holy shit does this thing get bloody.  The moment when Tillman picks up a machete, things get dicey(see what I did there?).  Heads are lopped off, people are dismembered and heads explode.  There was more than one occasion when I was like, “JEEZ!”  It also helps that most of the blood effects and gore are done practically.  That is always a welcome thing in a movie like this.  Far too often in big-budget movies film-makers rely on CGI blood.  It’s painfully obvious and it doesn’t really do anything for me.  The action in Savage Dog is visceral and hard-hitting.  With this being a Scott Adkins film, you would expect some pretty good martial arts action, and the film does not disappoint.  You don’t see him or Marko Zaror doing any of their trademark acrobatics, but these guys are clearly skilled and do a phenomenal job.  This is the first time since Undisputed III that Adkins and Zaror have gone up against each other, and it’s just as awesome.  We also have Cung Le take on Scott, which is a pretty decent fight, but the way the fight ends may be controversial to some people.  I didn’t care for the way the fight ended, personally.  Overall, the fight choreography was really good.  No wire work or CGI was used to enhance the fights.  It was grounded in a gritty type of reality, that you usually don’t see in a lot of movies these days.  Unfortunately, the action gets let down a bit by an excessive use of slow motion.  I don’t mind slow motion being used, but it just felt like it was padding out the run time.  Had they kept the slow motion to a relative minimum, the pacing would have flowed much better.

While I don’t necessarily think that Scott Adkins will win any awards for acting, there is no doubt that he has some serious screen presence.  When he’s allowed to go crazy, he goes all in.  When I said that the guy can be intense, I wasn’t kidding.  He really brings it here and it’s actually one of his best performances.  His Irish accent isn’t that bad either.  But you won’t notice it too much, since he doesn’t have a lot of lines.  Marko Zaror has continued to impress me, not just as a martial artist, but also as an actor.  He’s really good at playing bad guys.  The guy that plays the Nazi, Steiner, Vladimir Kulich is very restrained in his role.  I really like it when villains are not played for laughs or go completely over-the-top, unless they are written that way, like The Joker.  Juju Chan plays Tillman’s love interest, Isabelle, and she’s surprisingly effective and gorgeous.  Keith David plays Valentine, the owner of the bar.  What can I say about Keith David, he’s a phenomenal actor.

Overall, I have to say that Savage Dog is fairly impressive as an action movie, a lot more than I was anticipating, actually.  There’s a surprisingly decent, if predictable story, with solid acting involved and some pretty visceral action.  Unfortunately, the film is let down by a number of glaring issues.  One, the narration is completely unnecessary and it doesn’t really add anything to the movie.  It’s more irritating than anything else.  The excessive use of slow motion has a negative impact on the film’s pacing and some characters aren’t given enough screen time or enough material to work with.  Ultimately, I would still recommend it if you are a huge fan of Scott Adkins, like I am.  It’s at least worth a rental.  Savage Dog is currently available only digitally on Amazon Video and iTunes.

My Final Recommendation: Pissing off a character played by Scott Adkins is generally not a good idea.  7/10

Greetings, fellow Space Cadets, I have a very special interview for you today.  Today, we have stuntman/actor Brahim Achabakkhe answering a few questions for us.  Mr. Achabakkhe is a stuntman who has done stunt-work for movies like The Scorpion King 3, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, Ninja: Shadow of a Tear, Tekken: Kazuya’s Revenge(He was also the fight choreographer for this film), and Dragon Blade.  He has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry including Jackie Chan and doubled for actors like Scott Adkins and Jean-Claude Van Damme.  As an actor, he has had some small roles in films like Man of Tai Chi, Dragonwolf, Kill ’em All, and Tekken: Kazuya’s Revenge.  His first real big starring role came in the form of Boyka: Undisputed 4, when he starred opposite Scott Adkins in the role of the vicious MMA fighter, Igor Kazmir.  Let’s have a chat with Brahim Achabakkhe!

Before we get into Boyka: Undisputed 4, I would like to get a little background into your experience as a stuntman.  How did you get into the business and what was your first big project that got you noticed?

As a teenager I was practicing different martial arts and also gymnastic. After high school, I went into Law school for a year but I felt that was not gonna be the career I wanted to pursue and I also did not have the money to pay for books or the school. So I told myself well you can do all those martial arts and flip so why not pursue your passion and try to make it in the movie industry as a stuntman. So with a few friends in France we started doing tv shows, live shows and one day we took a trip to Thailand to cast for Ong Bak 2. When we came to Bangkok, it was like the mecca of martial arts movies so many talented people were already on the spot trying to get into the movies. It was basically the new Hong Kong like when back in the 80’s 90’s you had all those foreigners working as stunt actors in the HK action movie industry. All my friends left after the casting and I stayed even though I did not book anything on Ong Bak 2. My instinct told me it was the right choice so I started working in the local action film industry in 2007 doing commercials and films. I did everything that I was getting offered to make a living and also to make a name for myself. In 2012  a producer and casting director called Mike Leeder asked me to send him my demo reel for the film Man of tai chi directed by Keanu Reeves. That’s after booking this project that I felt things were going in the right path for me. Acting, stunting, stunt coordinating and fight coordinating has been my only jobs since 2007 and I am glad I followed my instinct to follow my dreams. 

How many styles of the martial arts have you studied and is there a particular style that you would like to explore?

Released: July 2017

Director: Luc Besson

Run Time: 137 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Distributor: STX Entertainment

Genre: Science Fiction/Action

Cast:
Dane DeHaan: Major Valerian
Cara Delevingne: Sergeant Laureline
Clive Owen: Commander Arun Filitt
Rihanna: Bubble
Ethan Hawke: Jolly the Pimp

You know, it takes a special kind of director to craft a film that is so wild, so imaginative, so creative, and yet, so vapid and shallow that it defies all sorts of logic.  Of what movies do I speak?  There have been several, the most recent being Jupiter Ascending.  It was visually distinctive, imaginative, and original.  It was also boring.  The problem was that there was no substance beneath the visual flair of the film.  The acting, the characters, and the lousy pacing sank what could have been a fantastic film.  Sadly, that is exactly the same problem I saw with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

The film opens with a montage of astronauts greeting each other.  Over the years, the space station grows and aliens begin to show up.  400 years later, the Human Federation is in command of Alpha, a massive structure built to house hundreds of species from across the entire universe.  Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline have been tasked with retrieving a particular object from a nearby planet.  The story here get so damned convoluted that you generally have no idea what’s going on.  As soon as you do figure it out, the movie is nearly over and it’s so thin, that it’s a miracle that anybody even bothered with a story.  There’s so much going on with betrayals and intrigue and all sorts of shenanigans.  The problem:  None of it means a damn thing.  It’s essentially Valerian rescuing Laureline and vice versa.  Not only that, you have what is arguably one of the lamest love stories ever written.  Was this movie written by human beings?  It certainly doesn’t seem like it.

Like Jupiter Ascending, this film is a perfect example of style-over-substance.  Luc Besson, the director, has proven that he can direct visually spectacular films, but he doesn’t have the first damn clue about writing a decent story or characters.  It’s a problem that’s haunted him since The Fifth Element.  I loved The Fifth Element personally, but that’s mostly because he managed to get a stellar cast for the movie, which made the film better than it should’ve been.  Valerian isn’t so lucky.  I’m not saying the actors are bad, but they’re not given anything substantial to work with.  Dane DeHann plays Valerian while Cara Develingne plays Laureline.  There really is no chemistry between the two.  DeHann uses this voice that really sounds forced trying to make Valerian sound more tough than he is.  Cara fares a bit better, but she’s still hamstrung by a terrible script.  Clive Owen is clearly there for the paycheck.  You can see his character arc coming a mile away.  Subtlety has never been Besson’s strong suit, but you have a character that may as well have “villain” tattooed on his forehead.  The actors that play the humans aren’t served very well.  The aliens on the other hand, are absolutely fantastic.

That leads me into what is easily the best part of the film:  The visuals.  Make no mistake about it, this is a gorgeous movie.  The CGI and the characters are superb.  It’s very clear where the production money went.  The creature designs and the costumes are really phenomenal.  The ships and the planets are also stunning.  This is easily one of the most visually interesting movies that I’ve seen in years.  On the same token, the action is pretty good.  All the fights and gun battles are staged well with decent camera work so you can see what’s going on.  It’s got big explosions, chases, mass destruction and an epic space battle.  What more could you possibly want?  Well….a movie that at least tries to make some kind of sense, actually.

You can have all the bad-ass action sequences you want in a movie.  You can also have the best visual effects that money can buy.  None of that means a damn thing, if there’s no solid story or characters to hold all that up.  Basically, what we have here is an expensive fireworks show.  Luc Besson is a visual director, this much is clear.  When it comes to visuals, there aren’t a lot of people that can do it the way he can.  Unfortunately, his ability to write solid stories and characters has not been very impressive lately.  This feels like his attempt at creating a Star Wars-type universe, but considering who poorly received Valerian has been.  I don’t think we’ll ever see another movie in this particular universe.  I can’t honestly recommend this movie to anybody but the die-hard Besson fans.  Even then, I would say, wait until it’s in a dollar theater or something.  It’s not worth it.

My Final Recommendation: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Blahs.  5/10

Released: August 2017

Director: George Nolfi

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 103 Minutes

Distributor: WWE Studios

Genre: Action/Drama

Cast:
Phillip Ng: Bruce Lee
Yu Xia: Wong Jack Man
Billy Magnussen: Steve Mckee
Simon Yin: Vinnie Wei
Ron Yuan: Tony Yu

When people ask me what kind of martial arts movie to recommend, I pride myself on being extremely knowledgeable about the subject.  I love the martial arts and it is the same with the movies.  I can tell you which ones are amazing and which ones to avoid.  I can say that with confidence and…mostly without ego.  That is why I can tell you without any doubt to avoid Birth of the Dragon.  Why?  Three words: Bait-and-switch.  “What is that?,” you may ask.  Bait-and-switch is when you promise one thing, but deliver something else entirely.  In my opinion, it is an extremely dishonest form of marketing, bordering on false advertising.

The story of Birth of the Dragon is supposed to be about the legendary fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man.  The details of the actual fight are sketchy at best, since only a handful of people were witness to it.  The movie was supposed to be about the battle between these two legendary martial artists, which would determine whether or not Bruce would be able to continue teaching Kung Fu to non-Chinese.  While we do get that, the focus of the film is centered on one of Bruce’s students, Steve Mckee.  Instead, the story tends to gravitate more towards Steve and his quest to win the heart of a girl who is enslaved to a Chinese gangster.  A good chunk of the film is essentially Steve trying to get Bruce and Wong to help him free the girl.  If the film makers had gone for the same approach that Wilson Yip did with Ip Man, it would’ve been a much better movie.  Sure, you can have a fictional story set around Bruce Lee, I don’t think anybody’s really opposed to that, except maybe Shannon Lee, his daughter, but they would’ve needed to keep the character as true to the real life Bruce Lee as possible.  But they didn’t do that here.  Instead, they ended up trying to make the white guy the hero.  Again.

You know what’s funny about all this?  There was actually supposed to be LESS Bruce Lee in the film.  If true, that would mean that the fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man would’ve been a secondary plot point.  In a movie that was advertised to be about the actual fight.  Apparently, early screenings of the film were disastrous with people being pissed off at the lack of Bruce Lee.  It was so bad, the director was forced to re-edit and add more Bruce Lee into the film.  If that’s true, the director fucked up royally.  Evidently, he didn’t have approval from Shannon Lee, who is the executor of the Bruce Lee estate.  So, in addition to not getting proper authority from Shannon Lee, the director had audacity to try and push Bruce Lee to the sidelines.  The idea was that this fight was going to be seen through the eyes of one his students.  That didn’t need to happen, and it shouldn’t have happened, because it didn’t work.

So, with the story being botched, what else got screwed up?  For a movie about the greatest martial arts superstar in film history, Birth of the Dragon is rather boring.  I don’t understand how that could’ve happened.  When you have a movie titled Birth of the Dragon, you would expect to some pretty decent action.  A martial arts movie should NEVER be boring.  That is a cardinal sin that most action movies try or should try to avoid.  I could honestly forgive the story for being not up to par, so to speak if the rest of the film was more lively.

The action that we DO get is actually pretty good.  The fights were choreographed by Cory Yuen, who is second only to Yuen Woo Ping.  The fights are well staged with solid camera-work so you can see what’s going on.  There is some wire-work, but it’s mostly grounded in reality with Bruce Lee using Wing Chun and Yu Xia using a mix of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Xingyiquan, and Northern Shaolin.  Phillip Ng, who plays Bruce Lee is absolutely phenomenal in these fight scenes.  He’s an expert in Wing Chun, so it’s used quite well.  Yu Xia gives Wong Jack Man a very noble and sentimental performance as a man who is essentially searching for redemption.  I loved that, actually.  I like the fact that Wong Jack Man isn’t portrayed as a villain, because in real life, he wasn’t a villain.  The battle between the two is as much a clash of ideas as it is a fight between two men.  The fight scenes are really good and the performances across the board are pretty decent.  I have to say, Phillip Ng really does look the part and he gets Mr. Lee’s mannerisms down to a tee.

While there are aspects of the film that I really do like, namely the fight scenes and the performances and some of the philosophical discussions, I can’t forgive the film makers for such a blatant and disrespectful account of one of the most interesting aspects about Bruce Lee’s life.  Yeah, the acting and fights are pretty good, but the film that’s built around them is NOT good.  I have to be honest:  If you want to see a movie about Bruce Lee himself, watch 1993’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee story.  Yeah, it definitely takes some liberties with the man’s history and background, but it’s entertaining and it focuses on Mr. Lee himself.  That’s a much better film, and the director didn’t have to pull a bait-and-switch with his movie.  What you see is what you get.  Maybe George Nolfi could learn something from that movie.

My Final Recommendation:  This one deserves a one-inch punch. 5/10