DAMAGER is an appropriate title for a kung fu movie so bad, that it almost must be seen to believe. Almost, mind you. The film is repulsive on every level and contains not a single shred of entertainment value.
It wasn’t until halfway in that it became clear that this was actually two movies sloppily pasted together. One plot has a deposed Qing prince donning a ninja costume to hunt down two students of an acupuncturist who fled instead of trying to save the dying Emperor. The second has one of the acupuncturist students settling in Shanghai where he develops a friendship with a German physician while attempting to convince his colleagues that acupuncture is a legitimate medical practice.
There would be no action at all if not for the ninja plot. Even so, the limited choreography looks to be made up by a non-martial artist and relies on wire fu and magic elements. The editing tries to make up for the actors’ complete lack of any martial talent, but this just turns each action scene into a bewildering series of quick cuts.
The heavy acupuncture theme replaces much of what would be martial arts action as we see our hero performing numerous procedures. Actually, this could have been an interesting exploration of the traditional Chinese practice. Too bad the art is portrayed as a virtual superpower with the hero creating a visible field of energy that he shoots into his patients or simply jabs them with a needle right through clothing or a skull. Pure nonsense.
Not only is the action confusing, but the whole film is clumsily assembled. Out of sequence pasting in of scenes and awkward scene changes between seemingly unrelated action and characters makes following the story a major challenge.
DAMAGER is a complete waste of time. It’s boring, confusing, makes little sense, shows serious apathy on the part of the filmmakers, and contains nothing but amateur martial arts befitting a horrible Hollywood B-movie. In a word, it’s pathetic.
by Mark Pollard- BigTreez
- BigTreez
