REVIEW: ‘Two Tigers’ (2007)

There are bad action movies and then there is TWO TIGERS, an embarrassingly dreadful attempt at making an erotic femme fatale actioner in the tradition of NAKED WEAPON and NIKITA that fumbles badly over a poorly conceived, sluggish and under-developed plot that could have been reduced to a 10-minute short and still felt vacuously bereft of content. In addition, it delivers bad acting and awkward attempts at scintillating erotica made only mildly palatable by leading lady Andrea Osvart’s perfectly sculpted frame. Worst of all, the film is marketed as a martial arts-type actioner yet contains only small doses of quite possibly the most poorly choreographed and edited fight sequences ever committed to film. (Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer.)

TWO TIGERS dispenses with the recruitment and training often seen in other female assassin movies and begins with our anti-heroine already at the peak of her abilities. Gilda (Osvart) is a notorious and elusive international assassin that Detective McWilliams (Matt Patresi) has been trying to capture for two years. She works for an agency that sends her to Shanghai for a series of hits. While there, she becomes romantically entangled with a Chinese man who takes an unusual interest in her. Meanwhile, Gilda also befriends her neighbor, a high-priced prostitute named Lin (Selena Khoo). As McWilliams draws closer, Gilda’s feelings come into conflict with her work when the agency instructs her to assassinate Lin and her lover.

I’m going to skip further mention of the general film fluff and focus on what should matter. The pacing and editing on this supposed action movie are atrocious. It must take effort to make assassinations seen in this movie as boring as they are. It’s almost as if director Sandro Cecca is trying to create some sort of artsy action film by someone like Wong Kar-wai with lots of reflective, moody sequences but either way it’s a failure.

Action falls into one of two categories save for a bloody BASIC INSTINCT moment near the end of the film. We either see Osvart standing around a window with a sniper rifle or we see a rapid mess of horribly framed and cut close-up shots of Osvart supposedly in a fight, although it could actually be just about anything given the completely amateur nature of the presentation that obscures any real action going on beyond all measure. Honestly, I never thought that the quick cut style of action editing could look so bad. It’s as if Cecca took a handful of split-second shots, tossed them into the air and inserted them into the film in what ever random order they landed in. The only thing I can tell is that there is no real stunt work at all in this “action” movie.

I cannot recommend TWO TIGERS, even on a “so bad it’s good” level. If the boring story and bad acting isn’t enough to keep you away then the total of maybe five minutes-worth of incomprehensible “action” should. Let me put it this way. I stopped watching the movie 20 minutes in and fast-forwarded through the rest of it. It’s not worth anyone’s time.