TheGrimReaper
09-11-2011, 02:34 PM
It was a bad omen to watch two bad movies one after another - I was just getting myself coming out of the shock from the abomination named "Choy lee Fut" and yet another example of the same lineage came on screen.
But before diving in my own pool of hatred, I would like to have a little chat about a particular sub-genre in martial arts world. Geung si (or Jiang shi in Mandarin) is indeed a popular article between all other different sections of the martial arts movies, and one of the most recognised artist impersonatin a Taoist priest is without doubt the late Lam Ching Ying - star of such classics as "Mr. Vampire", "The Prodigal son", "Magic Cop" and many more.
His career has been put to a stop by liver cance, however he is one of the most distinguished actors in martial arts department.
This movie, which I'm about to disect is probably something completely different in scales and in quality - apparently after the world wide success of Twilight franchise, many other people (or companies) thought that it would be cool to follow their steps and creating something watchable for the audience. Well, mixing martial arts (or more precisely wire-fu) with such dramatical relationships as described in Bella Swan & Edward-Ambilight-Cullen is a hybrid strictly avoidable from any Asian filmmakers for years to come. In my cinematic experience the last decent "vampire" picture was Twins Effect, where the carefully incorporated action choreography by Donnie Yen and watchable directing, not to mention the extended cameo by Jackie Chan himself, were put pretty good together.
The last bad example of this sub-genre was Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters and as I thought I couldn't possibly see any worse a new challenger appeared in the face of "Vampire Warriors" a tale of swords and soul eternally be told (oops that was form another game), actually a tale of teeth and ugly faces, put together by some sloppy camera work, pretty visible wires and dialoges which can mentally disable your brain receptors for a certain period of time (for a quick erase of this malware, drink plenty of alcohol). As I no longer drink you can imagine the scale of damage done to my alpha and beta brain waves... However in life you have to sacrifice something for the sake of others and this is what carried me on towards protecting any potential readers to stay away form this vampire fest without the festivities.
Let me start with the story first - it begins with a few couples trying to make out after scandal involving flying dishes and sauce pans - apparently it turns out that the female company is actually a vampires, which sole purpose in life is to suck dry any male object - talking about feminism and emancipation here... Very wrong indeed - as the sharp teeth are about to turn the skin into air conditioning our main hero Ar (played by Jiang Lu Xia - starred in Coweb, Bad blood and True Legend), a vampire hunter having a strange realtionship with a vampire. Anyone seen the glimpse of originality here - no, well let's get on with it then. As you can guess Ar gets rid of the bad (vibrations) people from a dark world, she then returns to her vegetarian vampire friend (Twilight nod much?) to retell the battle in full details. Then we meet our main protagonist - played by the old and odd looking Yuen Wah (who seemed to have subscribtion to every bad movie made in HK recently) as the Big Bad Vampire who kills each and everyone in his way, thus gaining enough energy to become The One or something like it - absorbtion skills were taken from The Matrix I'd guess.
Nothing interesting so far - and the story continue to be more dull and embarassing - the vegetarians were trying to kill themsleves drinking water (WTF???) and jumping from high places, the vampire hunter throws ocassional kicks and punches with no effect on my martial arts spirit, and the Vampire keeps killing people standing in his way with such ease as they were some kind of amateur football team from fourth league. Lame and quite laughable, except that I wasn't amused at all - I was gathering anger and hatred towards all the people involved into this movie, which evolved into a hideous hybrid having all the chracteristics of bad movie - stupid plot, non-distinguished characters, plenty of bad wire-fu, dialog with one liners and flat words, nothing really to care about in it.
I was again bittered by inappropriate casting and wasted talent - in this case both Chin Siu Ho (The Tai-chi Master, Fist of Legend) & Yuen Wah are misused (or abused) by the film makers - I do not know what is going on with martial arts movies recently despite some of the bright names on the poster. Even Donnie Yen's "Legend of Chen Zhen" was mediocre (in my eyes) and totally boring, about Choy Lee Fut I do not have anything more to add, The Lost bladesman was somehow not very well structured and a bit chaotic, and all the actors involved there were either misplaced or ruined from a movie perspective. Anyway I shouldn't distract myself from the current article, which is about love between vampires and is it a good foundation for a strong family relationship. As the movie progressed we get to meet the new Adams family - all the relatives of the vampire girl, including an anabolic brother with emo issues, another sister (I think) with high self esteem and father who can't really keep the little guy (S.S. Johnson) into his pants within 10 seconds time period.
The father is played by Chin Siu Ho - talented person, but here he is like taken out of some mental institution (not to mention the weird outfit) and put on some strong drugs (or sedatives) to play such one side, flat nosed character, who is not amusing even. At least they could throw some comedy in it, not trying to make it quite serious as a soup drama, made to entertain the housewives between noon and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The sets are so limited and confined as the money were really short of budget and all we get is some urban ladscapes, plus a final battle in a warehouse (or docks) at night. All the dialog scenes are put into rooms and corridors and you don't get any chance to see any daylight (with a few exceptions) and it seemed to me like a cheap version of "Blade" with some crappy martial arts sequences.
Yuen Wah was doing nothing different than killing other vampires without any facial expression, however this doesn't made his character more cool, just more dumb and empty. In comparison with Twins Effect - at least there we had a bit more money put into it, had some very funny cameos and scenes, nicely crafted martial arts sequences (by Donnie Yen) and overall the production was more detailed and crisp, having characters which I found interesting, not too cartoonish and not too standard. Here with Vampire Warriors we have quite the opposite - I won't repeat myself over and over again - you could spot the differences right away.
About Jiang Lu Xia - in Coweb she was a bit static, but then she showed here skills in Bad Moon (although she played a numb girl with no lines, and it was made by the same director), and the cameo in True Legend was a plus. Here she just kicks and hits - no acting abilities, no emotions, no little feminine touch - she kinda look to me as more appropriate for girl-on-girl action in the late night programs, and that's it. Maybe she had instructions from the director to act cold as ice, but it was just too pathetic to watch. I didin't really cared much about any of the characters and the plot, or the martial arts scenes (they are simply awful), so the whole movie was in the list of "pointless" titles.
As I try and search for something positive - well at least after seeing Choy Lee Fut before this one, I just watch it with a vacant expression and that's it - although I was a bit angry it wasn't on the same levels as before. I guess I'm just getting older.
A final judgement - as I saw some nice moves from JIang Lu Xia, I'll add a half point to the rating (am I not a good guy):
1/10 (close to total disaster) - but still stay away from this movie :)
Sincerely Yours: The Grim Reaper
P.S. The full review can be found here: http://martialartsmoviesstation.blogspot.com/2011/09/vampires-are-back-on-stage-twilight.html#more
Thank you in anticipation.
But before diving in my own pool of hatred, I would like to have a little chat about a particular sub-genre in martial arts world. Geung si (or Jiang shi in Mandarin) is indeed a popular article between all other different sections of the martial arts movies, and one of the most recognised artist impersonatin a Taoist priest is without doubt the late Lam Ching Ying - star of such classics as "Mr. Vampire", "The Prodigal son", "Magic Cop" and many more.
His career has been put to a stop by liver cance, however he is one of the most distinguished actors in martial arts department.
This movie, which I'm about to disect is probably something completely different in scales and in quality - apparently after the world wide success of Twilight franchise, many other people (or companies) thought that it would be cool to follow their steps and creating something watchable for the audience. Well, mixing martial arts (or more precisely wire-fu) with such dramatical relationships as described in Bella Swan & Edward-Ambilight-Cullen is a hybrid strictly avoidable from any Asian filmmakers for years to come. In my cinematic experience the last decent "vampire" picture was Twins Effect, where the carefully incorporated action choreography by Donnie Yen and watchable directing, not to mention the extended cameo by Jackie Chan himself, were put pretty good together.
The last bad example of this sub-genre was Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters and as I thought I couldn't possibly see any worse a new challenger appeared in the face of "Vampire Warriors" a tale of swords and soul eternally be told (oops that was form another game), actually a tale of teeth and ugly faces, put together by some sloppy camera work, pretty visible wires and dialoges which can mentally disable your brain receptors for a certain period of time (for a quick erase of this malware, drink plenty of alcohol). As I no longer drink you can imagine the scale of damage done to my alpha and beta brain waves... However in life you have to sacrifice something for the sake of others and this is what carried me on towards protecting any potential readers to stay away form this vampire fest without the festivities.
Let me start with the story first - it begins with a few couples trying to make out after scandal involving flying dishes and sauce pans - apparently it turns out that the female company is actually a vampires, which sole purpose in life is to suck dry any male object - talking about feminism and emancipation here... Very wrong indeed - as the sharp teeth are about to turn the skin into air conditioning our main hero Ar (played by Jiang Lu Xia - starred in Coweb, Bad blood and True Legend), a vampire hunter having a strange realtionship with a vampire. Anyone seen the glimpse of originality here - no, well let's get on with it then. As you can guess Ar gets rid of the bad (vibrations) people from a dark world, she then returns to her vegetarian vampire friend (Twilight nod much?) to retell the battle in full details. Then we meet our main protagonist - played by the old and odd looking Yuen Wah (who seemed to have subscribtion to every bad movie made in HK recently) as the Big Bad Vampire who kills each and everyone in his way, thus gaining enough energy to become The One or something like it - absorbtion skills were taken from The Matrix I'd guess.
Nothing interesting so far - and the story continue to be more dull and embarassing - the vegetarians were trying to kill themsleves drinking water (WTF???) and jumping from high places, the vampire hunter throws ocassional kicks and punches with no effect on my martial arts spirit, and the Vampire keeps killing people standing in his way with such ease as they were some kind of amateur football team from fourth league. Lame and quite laughable, except that I wasn't amused at all - I was gathering anger and hatred towards all the people involved into this movie, which evolved into a hideous hybrid having all the chracteristics of bad movie - stupid plot, non-distinguished characters, plenty of bad wire-fu, dialog with one liners and flat words, nothing really to care about in it.
I was again bittered by inappropriate casting and wasted talent - in this case both Chin Siu Ho (The Tai-chi Master, Fist of Legend) & Yuen Wah are misused (or abused) by the film makers - I do not know what is going on with martial arts movies recently despite some of the bright names on the poster. Even Donnie Yen's "Legend of Chen Zhen" was mediocre (in my eyes) and totally boring, about Choy Lee Fut I do not have anything more to add, The Lost bladesman was somehow not very well structured and a bit chaotic, and all the actors involved there were either misplaced or ruined from a movie perspective. Anyway I shouldn't distract myself from the current article, which is about love between vampires and is it a good foundation for a strong family relationship. As the movie progressed we get to meet the new Adams family - all the relatives of the vampire girl, including an anabolic brother with emo issues, another sister (I think) with high self esteem and father who can't really keep the little guy (S.S. Johnson) into his pants within 10 seconds time period.
The father is played by Chin Siu Ho - talented person, but here he is like taken out of some mental institution (not to mention the weird outfit) and put on some strong drugs (or sedatives) to play such one side, flat nosed character, who is not amusing even. At least they could throw some comedy in it, not trying to make it quite serious as a soup drama, made to entertain the housewives between noon and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The sets are so limited and confined as the money were really short of budget and all we get is some urban ladscapes, plus a final battle in a warehouse (or docks) at night. All the dialog scenes are put into rooms and corridors and you don't get any chance to see any daylight (with a few exceptions) and it seemed to me like a cheap version of "Blade" with some crappy martial arts sequences.
Yuen Wah was doing nothing different than killing other vampires without any facial expression, however this doesn't made his character more cool, just more dumb and empty. In comparison with Twins Effect - at least there we had a bit more money put into it, had some very funny cameos and scenes, nicely crafted martial arts sequences (by Donnie Yen) and overall the production was more detailed and crisp, having characters which I found interesting, not too cartoonish and not too standard. Here with Vampire Warriors we have quite the opposite - I won't repeat myself over and over again - you could spot the differences right away.
About Jiang Lu Xia - in Coweb she was a bit static, but then she showed here skills in Bad Moon (although she played a numb girl with no lines, and it was made by the same director), and the cameo in True Legend was a plus. Here she just kicks and hits - no acting abilities, no emotions, no little feminine touch - she kinda look to me as more appropriate for girl-on-girl action in the late night programs, and that's it. Maybe she had instructions from the director to act cold as ice, but it was just too pathetic to watch. I didin't really cared much about any of the characters and the plot, or the martial arts scenes (they are simply awful), so the whole movie was in the list of "pointless" titles.
As I try and search for something positive - well at least after seeing Choy Lee Fut before this one, I just watch it with a vacant expression and that's it - although I was a bit angry it wasn't on the same levels as before. I guess I'm just getting older.
A final judgement - as I saw some nice moves from JIang Lu Xia, I'll add a half point to the rating (am I not a good guy):
1/10 (close to total disaster) - but still stay away from this movie :)
Sincerely Yours: The Grim Reaper
P.S. The full review can be found here: http://martialartsmoviesstation.blogspot.com/2011/09/vampires-are-back-on-stage-twilight.html#more
Thank you in anticipation.