While the Yen-Meister has yet to jump on board the production as of yet, just to know that he’s regarded as being culturally relevant enough in the U.S. to rub shoulders with the action movie legends that make up the cast of The Expendables; means a whole helluva’ lot to die-hard Yen fans like myself.
The really fun part, at least for idiots like me; is the fact that unlike a lot of people, I actually kind of liked The Expendables.
Sure, it was dumb, and it wasn’t exactly the action movie masterpiece that it represented on paper; but even so, for what it was I felt it delivered for the most part.
Anyway, truth be told I’m excited about the prospect of Donnie Yen joining the cast for the sequel, especially since Stallone has been quoted as having said the movie is intended to be a love letter to martial arts movies.
While there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll end up going to see The Expendables 2 in theaters (and quite excitedly at that), that last bit is like the icing on the cake for me.
One of the best parts of putting Donnie Yen in the Expendables, at least to me; is the fact that it’ll be a chance to see Yen in a contemporary setting, most likely acting more along the lines of his “younger” roles.
Personally, I’ve never really been a big fan of wuxia style films, and I’ve always preferred Donnie Yen in films with a more modern setting, largely because the free license it gives him in choreographing his fights, but also because I actually kind of prefer the arrogant and prick-ish Donnie Yen to the more regal and subdued one we’ve been getting ever since he did Ip Man.
Unfortunately, Jet Liwon’t be returning for the sequel, thereby squandering any opportunity we might’ve had to see him and Yen go at it one last time…. At the age of 48.
Despite this, there’s plenty of other enticing match-ups that could come from throwing Donnie Yen into the mix of an Expendables sequel.
Donnie Yen vs. Jean-Claude Van Damme is a match-up I wouldn’t exactly shit my pants over, but hell, if it were to end up in the film; you can bet I’d be excited to see it anyway.
Regardless of how miniscule or poorly written the role created for him is, I honestly hope Yen signs off on The Expendables 2.
He’s only getting older, and lord knows being in the movie would do wonders to expand his already burgeoning influence in the Western film market.
Now let’s just hope the movie doesn’t end up sucking, with or without Yen…
Okay maybe the whole Hamlet thing isn’t controversial, but that doesn’t change the fact that Kimba got raped by Disney something fierce.
Yikes! That's gonna' spark a lawsuit... Or not.
It’s funny to think that even the vastly inferior tranforming robot show, GoBots; had a rip-off in the form of a little something called Transformers.
One could argue that, due to their rather close debut dates, Transformers wasn’t actually a rip-off, but rather an odd coincidence of timing in capitalizing on the universal (though yet unknown) appreciation of transforming robots.
Piss-poor attempts at defending my childhood heroes aside, the point is, rip-offs aren’t new, but it’s rare that I see one as bold-faced as Chop Kick Panda.
Apparently released only a few months ago, the back of the box revealed to me the wondrous tale of Lu, a fat panda bastard who operates a tae kwon do gym, that unbeknownst to him houses an amulet that a pissed-off tiger wants for some reason.
Basically, all you have to do is replace the italicized words with “Po”, “Kung Fu”, “Scroll” and “Snow Leopard”, and you’ve got the plot to Kung Fu Panda.
Seriously though, tae kwon do?
What the fuck kind of fail-ass Chinese panda teaches tae kwon do in motherfucking China!?
While the existence of this film doesn’t anger me in the slightest, it does surprise me.
In looking up the cover image for this movie, I stumbled across a Cracked article that basically spelled out to me the apparently massive scale of the kid’s movie rip-off market.
As stated earlier, I had no idea this shit had gotten so bold-faced, but more importantly; I had no idea how common it had become.
From what I can tell, kid’s movie rip-offs are basically the equivalent to The Asylum films.
Y'know, the guys who make this shit.
In an age where people are always willing to entertain deals and cheap alternatives, be it in the supermarket or in the theater; I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that film companies would be underhanded enough to ask parents to give in to their inner cheapness and force their kids to settle for less.
By the way, Chop Kick Panda averaged 1 star on Amazon.com.
He was recently in Kung Fu Panda 2, The Eagle Path; which he directed, is coming out this October, he’s got anotherUniversal Soldier movie in the works, (supposedly co-starring Dolph Lundgren, Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White) and let’s not forget that he recently starred in perhaps the MANLIEST, and most thought provoking beer commercials of all time:
Aside from all of that however, The Van Daminator also happens to have another movie with Scott Adkins in the works called Assassination Games.
Lame title, but pretty much every other vaguely action-like word has likely already been used in conjunction with the title “Assassination” at this point.
Anyway, as seems to be the case with every Scott Adkins movie, I’m excited, but ultimately know the movie is going to suck.
As talented as the man is at hitting people, his filmography speaks for itself.
And no, The Bourne Ultimatum doesn’t count, as all he did in that was hold a gun and look constipated.
Regardless, I’ll likely pick up a copy of it just to see the (numerous) scenes in which people get kicked in the head.
The other movie that Van Damme’s got on the docket as of now, is a Russian comedy by the name of “Napoleon Kaput,” or at least whatever the Russian equivalent to those 2 words happens to be.
Truth be told, the trailer gives me the impression that The Muscles from Brussels only has a cameo in the movie, but regardless; it looks kind of a fun in a brainless sort of way.
It does put a smile on my face to see IMDB list him as playing “himself” though.
I have a great appreciation for the director’s work, in particular The Wild Bunch and The Getaway; but for whatever reason I just never got around to watching it.
Despite this, The Killer Elite was a film that had a surprising amount of presence in my youth, entirely in the form of my dad telling me about it all the fuckin’ time.
He made it sound pretty cool, always making sure to point out how graphic the violence was for the era; a trademark of Peckinpah’s style.
The funny part is, my dad’s taste in movies has proven to be more than a little hit and miss over the years, so in all honesty; I really don’t know if The Killer Elite was actually a good movie, or just one that he remembered being good.
Below is an example of a film my dad remembered being quite a bit better than it actually was:
Anyway, as you might have guessed, given the ongoing trend of Hollywood, and the very recent trend in Jason Statham’s career; The Killer Elite is getting the remake treatment, though for whatever reason the “The” in the title has been axed.
Oh well, at least they didn’t “streamline” the title down to an acronym or some shit.
*ANYWAY* from what I can tell from the trailer, the movie involves a 70′s porno-stached Clive Owen wanting to kidnap/kill/have kinky bondage sex with Jason Statham, and in-between it all Robert De Niro gets dragged into things and mayhem ensues.
While the remake will no doubt have difficulty measuring up to the original, but in terms of straight-up mindless fun factor; I’d like to think it looks pretty solid.
Think about it:
You have Jason Statham hitting people.
You have Clive Owen and his dirty mustache hitting people.
And to top it all off, you have an aging Robert De Niro going all Liam Neeson/Mel Gibson on people.
The only thing that could make it better is if everybody in the cast had dirty porno staches.
I wouldn’t count on that happening, but one can hope…
I’ve always said that any film that features Liam Neeson punching someone is worth my time, (Gangs of New York being the sole exception) and while Bobbie D isn’t at all an analogue for the lanky Irishman; truth be told I think the novelty actually carries more weight given the awesomeness of the man that is Bobbie D.
If Bobbie D can do half of the above, I will be satisfied with Killer Elite.
Truth be told, if the movie ends up being little more than a handful of people shooting at and punching each other, I honestly wouldn’t mind.
Action movies tend to get cluttered these days with melodrama and extraneous ancillary characters, which is part of why I think old fashioned manhunt/man vs. man movies will always hold a certain degree of appeal.
A big dumb action movie need not have an epic “save the world” plot.
Sometimes all you need is a handful of people with beef, and a story that lets them do horrible things to each for 2 hours.
Anyway, this one is probably going to suck hard, and barely make a splash at the box-office; but truth be told, I might go see it.
Hell, it’s not every day you get to see Bobbie D beat the shit out of someone with his bare hands.
Most of the time he prefers to use a Mag Lite:
Note: Heat is an awesome movie that features Mag Lite on Man violence.
Evaluating an opinion on a movie purely based on pre-release materials is tricky business.
Inevitably, one’s decision making process ends up relying on one’s knowledge of the various actors and director’s track records, but at the end of the day; sometimes a really good (or really bad) preview can end up shaping one’s opinion quite handily.
Despite some spotty pieces in his filmography, the man has proven that he knows how to make awesome movies, and in that sense; I never completely lost confidence in the possibility of Green Lantern upsetting it’s poor marketing campaign and turning out to be legitimately good.
In the case of Green Lantern, and as you’ll later read, Donnie Yen’s recently released film, Wu Xia; my apprehension about the film’s integrity was culled through viewing a brief preview clip of the film in it’s unedited state.
Though it’s uncharacteristic of me, I sat down and watched a (publicly available HERE) 1 minute clip of Green Lantern in hopes of finding a reason to go see it.
Said clip involved Hal Jordan desperately attempting to fend off what I’m guessing is supposed to be Parallax (who doesn’t seem nearly as “bug-like” as he did in the comics).
THAT'S fuckin' Parallax!
The action in this clip was nowhere near mindblowing, but unlike in the trailers; it at least seemed like how it plays out in the comics.
Green Lantern has always been a story about “space cops,” though in recent years the scale and severity of the violence in the comic has evolved to something more along the lines of “space soldiers.”
In short, sprawling splash pages of Lanterns hurling variously colored constructs at each other en masse are quite common in Green Lantern comics these days.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!
Green Lantern combat isn’t about guys throwing progressively bigger and more elaborate constructs at each other; it’s about speed, precision, and who gets their shit off first.
In other words, it’s more like a hectic galactic gun fight as opposed to something overblown or drawn out like Dragonball fighting.
I saw a hint of this in the clip I watched, and as such; my opinion of Green Lantern has changed from “skeptical” to “somewhat optimistic.”
Which brings me to the recently released Peter Chan directed Donnie Yen vehicle, Wu Xia.
Hmm, SOMEBODY had a degree in graphic design...
Given that Wu Xia stars Donnie Yen and Takeshi Kaneshiro, one can assume I was psyched for this one from day 1, right?
WRONG.
When I first saw the teaser for Wu Xia, my initial reaction was basically to let out one big-ass, slightly pompous sigh.
Okay, maybe “slightly” pompous isn’t the right word.
More like “IMMENSELY.”
I’m not big on Mandarin films, and for whatever reason; the teaser for Wu Xia just didn’t do it for me.
Then I watched an 8 minute clip of the movie that popped up on Twitchfilm.com, and suddenly I found myself intrigued.
By the way, if you go by Twitchfilm, and see all the Legend of the Fist ads; don’t buy into the hype.
Well, at least this part was kind of funny... In the "good/bad" sort of way.
Anyway, said clip of Wu Xia revealed it as being kind of like Rashomon or Hero in the sense that it’s a story potentially told from an unreliable viewpoint.
Though I don’t understand Mandarin, the visuals of the clip were very clear in establishing that Donnie Yen’s character, while portrayed as feeble, but lucky; in one instance, may actually be a martial arts master hiding in plain sight.
While I didn’t care much for this storytelling device in Hero, (nor did I care much for the movie itself) it’s cleverness combined with Peter Chan’s beautiful cinematography leads me to believe Wu Xia could be a lot of fun.
I don’t expect Donnie Yen’s “Donnie Yen-ness” to be front and center, but the story seems to have legs; and Takeshi Kaneshiro is pimp-as-fuck, so I’m fairly optimistic.
PIMP. AS. FUCK. Too bad he's basically full-time Chinese now...
So there you have.
2 instances where an otherwise skeptical moviegoer had their opinion reshaped through spoiler clips.
I guess I’ve come a long way from being the fat little 10 year old that shunned all media outlets in hopes of seeing the American Godzilla movie in theaters before having the monster’s appearance spoiled for him..
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I spent this afternoon pounding out an idea for a Jackie Chan “dream project” with my buddy Mencius.
It all started when I asked my buddy:
“If you had Jackie Chan in his physical prime, what movie would you put him in?”
Surprisingly, my answer to this question was rather straightforward and simple, being that of Armour of God III or something like it.
To be honest, I’d still like to see a 3rd Armour of God, as I’ve always felt it could be a good “farewell” movie for Jackie.
Getting back to the matter at hand, my buddy Mencius had something a little more off the wall in mind, something more unique; at least when it comes to Jackie Chan movies.
Mencius’ idea was that of a time travel adventure film where Jackie, playing a kung fu expert/dopey non-hero that accidentally finds himself hurtling through exotic time periods and locales.
Okay maybe the plot isn't totally unique. But The Myth sucked, so it doesn't count.
While I was initially turned off by the idea, largely due to it’s lack of a concrete source of conflict, I found myself revisiting the idea throughout the day, constantly feeding Mencius ideas that I thought could make for a fun movie.
The first idea I felt needed to come into play, was that of a group of villains chasing Jackie through time.
Basically, Jackie is like a janitor in some time travel laboratory, and then a bunch of thieves break in trying to steal the time travel gear; whereupon Jackie accidentally activates the device and gets lost in time.
Using a device with extremely limited time travel capability, the bad guys chase Jackie through time, showing up for action beats throughout Jackie’s adventures.
Mencius and I didn’t really get around to finalizing anything for this idea, but at the end of the day we came up with at least 2 locations the film would visit, namely ancient China, and Victorian England.
Naturally, Jackie would run afoul of plenty of thugs and bad guys in these places, leading to much brawling, yelling of “I don’t want any trouble!”, and weaponization of household items.
In my mind, given that this in fact a “dream” project, and can really include as many stars (in their physical primes) as I’d like, the cast of the movie would be fucking epic.
Somewhere along the line, Jackie meets a rotund butcher played by Sammo Hung, and his fiery cohort, played by Yuen Biao.
Pictured: Comedy and Action, GOLD.
Naturally, they all become buddies.
At the end of it all, Jackie, Sammo, Yuen and Jet Li all join forces to take on the local Axe Gang, every member of which is played by a notable Hong Kong villain actor.
While many have bashed The Expendables as being little more than a sub-par action film populated with a Towering Inferno style cast of notables, I actually kind of enjoyed it.
Sure, it was hardly one of the best films any of the actors had been in, and yeah the action was not quite as awesome as most of us were expecting; (digital squibs = sad panda) but at the end of the day I found it to be a big dumb action movie that succeeded in being just that: a big dumb action movie.
Pictured: A movie that FAILED at being big and dumb.
Despite how crummy the movie may have been in some areas, it gave us Dolph Lundgren vs. Jet Li, and Stallone vs. Stone Cold.
Any movie that does that, no matter how utterly average the fights within which may actually have been, deserves at least some credit, if only for the sake of film history.
ANYWAY, based on what I can recall, Van Damme’s role in The Expendables was likely to have been either that of Randy Couture’s character, or that of Gary Daniel’s villain role.
I’ve read rumors that suggest Van Damme’s ego got in the way,in the form of making him reject the Gary Daniel’s role due to the fact that his character would lose a fight on-screen, most likely to Jet Li.
At the same time, I’ve also heard rumors that the Muscles From Brussels turned down the roles offered to him due to him being in the process of trying to “legitimize” his acting career based on the success of movies like JCVD.
In either case, and for better or worse, Van-Damme didn’t appear in The Expendables, and I for one was kind of disappointed.
As decent a guy as Randy Couture is, the man simply cannot act; and in that sense I would’ve loved to have seen Van-Damme stand in for him.
Do I really need an excuse to use this pic?
Similarly, as fuckin’ awesome and hilarious as Terry Crews can be, he was criminally under-utilized in The Expendables; and came across as the big black dude that was there just to be a big black dude.
Regardless, next time around they need to let the big black guy be more than just scenery with a gun.
‘Cause y’know, racism and n’shit.
Anyway, it makes me happy to know Van-Damme is gonna’ be in the sequel, which for the love of all that is holy; better be a decent step-up in terms of overall quality.
The basic premise does, and always will have potential, and I have confidence in Stallone in delivering the goods the second time around.
I would appreciate it if he’d reduce the meathead quotient just a little bit, and in turn dial up the nostaligia factor; but that’s just me.
Alrighty boys ‘n girls, it’s been a long time coming, but today we’re finally kickin’ off a new Top 10 list.
This time around we’re gonna’ be venturing into the depths of MANLY cinema to dig up the Top 10 Manliest Man Moments in movie history.
Better buckle your ass down, ’cause for the next 10 days, testosterone levels are gonna’ shoot through the roof, energy drinks will be consumed en masse, fake boobies will be squeezed, Tapout gear’ll be worn 24/7, and no opportunity to apply the principles of infighting will be missed out on.
Okay, maybe things won’t get that meatheaded around here; at least I hope not…
Pictured: The poster boy for a generation...
In any case, expect much violence, feats of strength, and epic acts of selfless heroism to be the core subjects explored over the next 10 days.
That being said, while things may in fact get a little meat head-y in the immediate future, bear with me, ’cause believe me; this shit’s gonna’ be awesome.
Anyway, let’s get the ball rollin’ with the first entry in our list, the 10th Manliest Man Moment as seen in Hokuto No Ken: The Movie:
To the sad few that might not be aware of it, Hokuto No Ken takes the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max, re-casts a Japanese Bruce Lee as the main character; and features (numerous) instances of him blowing people the fuck up by TOUCHING THEM as it’s core plot point.
If that’s not fuckin’ MANLY, then I don’t know what is.
Oh wait, THIS:
Anyway, the main character of Hokuto No Ken is an insanely powerful martial artist named Kenshiro.
Kenshiro is essentially your basic Yojimbo-esque silent do-gooder, albeit one that dispenses justice with the body exploding martial art of Hokuto Shinken as opposed to say, a six-shooter or katana.
Throughout the series, Ken kills an ungodly number of people; almost always in horribly gruesome fashion.
While any one of said kills could easily be ranked as one of the Manliest Man Moments in movies, or at least the goriest; such instances of bone-crunching blood fuck-ery occur in Hokuto No Ken with such alarming regularity; that it kind of loses it’s luster after awhile.
I hate to say it, but you can only see a guy’s intestines fall out, or his head explode so many times before it starts to seem routine.
Dude, Neutrogena. Look into it.
Well okay, maybe not routine; but you know what I mean.
Anyway, as weird as it may sound, perhaps the most badass thing Kenshiro ever did in Hokuto No Ken actually involved no maiming or butchering.
Well, “very little” maiming or butchering anyway…
You see, perhaps the most awesome thing Ken ever did in all of Hokuto No Ken and it’s spin-offs, was get his ass whupped and grow a pimp-ass fuckin’ beard:
Pictured: The beard equivalent to Sam Elliot's mustache.
While that is indeed perhaps the pimpest beard in all of existence, I have to admit; simply bearing it isn’t enough to constitute a slot on this list.
Thankfully, Kenshiro manages to one-up the awesomeness of his newly bearded visage almost immediately by, you guessed it; turning some grossly outmatched thugs into salsa waterballoons.
Not only that, he does so after essentially RETURNING FROM THE FUCKING DEAD.
At the beginning of the movie, we’re treated to a sequence wherein Ken gets his ass handed to him by a blond douchebag named Shin.
And of course by "ass handed to him" I mean he got 7 holes poked into his torso by Shin's fingers.
Flash forward sometime later, and we find a couple of kids named Bat/Bart and Lin/Rin (sorry, Japanese is weird like that…) being attacked by some Road Warrior thugs.
Literally seconds away from being mudhole stomped to death by a biker dude, Lin/Rin throws on a PURPLE FUCKING AURA and summon her random fuckin’ psychic powers to call out to Kenshiro, who just happens to be nearby.
From there, Ken’s second appearance in Hokuto No Ken: The Movie sees him literally RISE FROM HIS GRAVE to save the kids looking like Swamp Thing or some shit.
Now, while that may not sound that awesome, bear in mind that Mr. Kenshiro then proceeds to absent mindedly knock a couple of skyscrapers down WITH HIS FISTS.
Not only that, one of said buildings actually falls on Mud Man Kenshiro’s head, and he justs keeps right on walking like nothing happened.
Hell, the building even waits for him to walk out from under it to finish falling over!
Immediately following this, Ken struts his way up to the thugs; shedding his Mud Man getup along the way to reveal:
An awesomely pimptastic hood and beard combo!
BAM! Stylish!
As awesome as the “Deployment of the Beard” was, the real icing on the cake is the fact that this magnificently MANLY entrance sequence is wasted on a handful of some of the lowliest and most puny thugs in the entire Hokuto No Ken universe.
Despite having just seen the man-mountain before them RISE FROM THE GRAVE and KNOCK FUCKING BUILDINGS DOWN WITH HIS BARE HANDS, in classic kung fu movie fashion; the thugs proceed to pull knives and crossbows on ‘ole Ken.
10 bucks says Ken's dick is sharper than that knife...
Not only that, during all of this the motherfucker that was stompin’ a mudhole on little Lin/Rin doesn’t even think to take his boot off of her.
The girl put up a PURPLE FUCKIN’ AURA while you were stomping her and then a muddy fuckin’ Juggernaut came back to life, started wreckin’ buildings n’shit, and then proceeded to march straight towards your ass with GLOWING RED FUCKING EYES.
Even if the dude failed to make the connection between the Mud Man and the girl, you’d think he’d at least, y’know; stop doing what he was doing, or better yet, RUN THE FUCK AWAY.
Regardless, rest assured the dude that made with the stompage is the first to get it… BAAAAAAAAAADDDD….
Yeah, pretty sure your eye's not supposed to do that...
From there, Ken proceeds make goopy cherry Jell-O out of the rest of the gang, caving in faces and the like.
This isn’t the most creative of Ken’s beatdowns in Hokuto No Ken, given that it favors speed and efficiency over brutality and rage; however for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure none of the bad guys make it out of the fight able to wear hats anymore.
Oh yeah, and none of them lived either, which is a plus.
You see they ain't got heads no more, so hats would be... Yeah, dumb joke; I know...
As mentioned above, this sequence was far from the most brutal moments in Hokuto No Ken history, however the awesomeness of the entrance; coupled with the ultra-rare appearance of Beard-Shiro put this one high on my list in terms of badass moments in movies.
Well, #10 anyway…
That being said, this was just the beginning of the Azn Badger’s Top 10 Manliest Man Moments in movies.
Check back tomorrow for more MANLINESS as we move on to Manly Moment #9!
A long time ago I wrote that I felt that director Wilson Yip was probably the best thing to ever happen to Donnie Yen’s career.
First teaming up in 2005 for the cop drama/action flick SPL, the 2 would end up collaborating on 5 consecutive films.
With the sole exception of the somewhat lackluster Dragon Tiger Gate, all of said films were of stellar quality; easily ranking as some of the best in Mr. Yen’s career.
While Yen’s incredible longevity allowed him to effectively outlast the majority of his contemporaries, namely Jet Li and Jackie Chan; and his innovative fighting performance and choreography skills certainly put him ahead of the pack, this writer would argue that Wilson Yip’s cinematographic skills and eye for detail had just as much to do with his rise to prominence as any of the aforementioned factoids.
Besides, any man that makes shit like Bio Zombie clearly knows what theyre doing. No sarcasm intended.
That being said, it’s now 2011; and while he’s been detached from Wilson Yip ever since the production of Ip Man 2, Donnie Yen is still the reigning king of Hong Kong screen fighters.
So, why am I not happy?
I’m just about as big a Donnie Yen fan as you’ll ever meet, but truth be told; as much as I like the man’s work, like most screen fighters he’s made an alarming number of shitty movies.
In fact, if you don’t count Blade 2; a movie he choreographed by held maybe 5 minutes of screen time in, I don’t think I’ve genuinely liked a non-Wilson Yip Donnie Yen movie since Shanghai Affairs back in ’98, and even that kind of sucked.
Sadly, now that Yen doesn’t seem to have any projects lined up with Wilson Yip in the foreseeable future; I’m left feeling like things are going to go back to the way they were, with Donnie Yen steadily churning out crap movies with decent fights.
...Or in the case of the Twins Effect movies, crappy movies with crappy fights. Thats Jackie Chan on the right by the way.
Despite an astoundingly well cut trailer for it’s U.S. release, make no mistake Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen, Yen’s first film of the “Post Yip Era”; is most assuredly hot garbage.
I own a Hong Kong blu ray of Legend of the Fist, and while Yen’s physical performance was actually pretty amazing, as detailed here; the movie itself was one of the most boring kung fu movies I’ve seen in a long time.
I’ve purposely decided to forego any mention of the most recent All’s Well, Ends Well, as while it does in fact include Donnie Yen in it’s cast; no force on Earth could make me see it as a “Donnie Yen film.”
Yeah, not exactly high on my "must see" list...
Anyway, The Lost Bladesman sees Donnie Yen taking on the role of famed Chinese general and folk hero Guan Yu in a wuxia film.
Trailers for this one have been popping up pretty regularly as of late, with most of the footage doing little to light a fire in my pants.
Sure, it has Donnie Yen.
Sure he’s hitting people while sporting a pimp beard and guan dao.
Even so, the production values seem a little below standard, and the cinematography and choreography seem about on par with the mediocrity of Yen’s own 14 Blades.
For those that may be unaware, any film that draws comparisons to 14 Blades has it’s work cut out for it in terms of not sucking.
Pictured: Donnie Yen squaring off against Captain Jack Sparrow.
That leaves 2012′s The Monkey King as the one Yen movie to bear the weight of making up for the past couple of years of “meh.”
While it’s certainly far off in terms of being released, in all honesty; The Monkey King actually seems like it might be worth the wait.
No footage exists as of yet, but given that the story is a retelling of the Journey to the West, essentially the Chinese myth of myths; and given the incredible assortment of talent involved in the production, I’ve got a good feeling about it.
Sure, it’ll probably be CGI’d to shit and make Donnie Yen look like a complete goof ball; but the art style of the poster and Cheang Pou Soi’s involvement as director will likely make up for it.
I don't know about you, but if you ask me that's a pretty awesome fuckin' poster.
Seriously man, if the same Cheang Pou Soi that made Dog Bite Dog and Shamo shows up for this one, we’re in for one helluva’ ride.
Despite all the pessimism of everything mentioned above, let it be known; I remain hopeful for Donnie Yen’s career.
In many ways, I think my “disappointment” in some of his recent projects spawns from my general lack of enthusiasm for mainland China productions as compared to Hong Kong ones.
Wuxia works when it works, but for the most part it’s not what you’d call my favorite genre.
Whatever the future holds for Mr. Yen, I only hope that whatever crappy or mediocre productions he’s involved in continue to be the fault of writers and directors as opposed to Donnie Yen himself…
