In a desperate attempt to reclaim his stepson from his ex-wife and her criminal husband, an ex-Royal Marine (Anthony Wong) takes a grade school hostage. With the help of a tabloid reporter (Gigi Lai), a mainland security officer (Vincent Zhao) with a nephew in the school races to bring the boy to his father while fighting the gangster’s thugs every step of the way.

A proverbial nail in the coffin is what Fist Power amounts to Vincent Zhao’s film career. It caps a string of martial arts duds after his crowning moment in Tsui Hark’s The Blade (1995). It’s a modest budget actioner from Wong Jing that is sloppily written, an uncomfortable mix of genres, and over-edited on all of its many fight scenes. But manic pacing and the constant brawling keeps it from being a total waste of time.

A disgruntled dad and ex-Royal Marine (Anthony Wong) who is ignored by the system takes matters into his own hands in order to get his stepson back from his greedy ex-wife and her gangster husband. Joined by several military buddies, he takes a grade school hostage with demands to have his son brought to him before the boy leaves for the US. With only a couple of hours to spare and a nephew caught up in the standoff, a mainland security specialist named Cheuk (Vincent Zhao) promises to get the kid back at the airport, but becomes a suspect by the police and a target by the gangster’s hired goons in the process.

What I had expected to be a tense standoff between a man driven to extremes and a martial arts hero turns out to be more of an improbable and madcap race through Hong Kong as Vincent drags the kid about while fighting a seemingly-inexhaustible number of thugs. The story really never makes any sense and often devolves into nonsense. For instance, why would the stepfather commit a crime just to see his son for five minutes when he would be jailed for years as a result, thus changing nothing? The police never show any interest in meeting the father’s demands or even finding his stepson. Apart from a single crying kid, the film completely glosses over the hostage situation, making the victims no more important to the audience than the desks they’re sitting at. Within the span of a few minutes, the gangster is able to mobilize a small army of fighters to meet Vincent and the boy wherever they go. In one ridiculous scene, a bunch of them show up as bicyclists who attempt to snag the kid and carry him on their bikes. When Vincent gives chase they start tossing the kid back and forth between riders like a sack of potatoes. Vincent knocks a goon carrying the kid cold, resulting in a crash that looks like the kid should have suffered brain damage. Way to go hero! Shortly thereafter, the baddies manage to fabricate an entire office full of equipment and personnel where they pose as special agents to dupe Vincent. Now how in the world would a gangster have the time or the interest in doing this just to get his hands on a kid he doesn’t even like?

Being a Wong Jing production, what should be a serious action film turns into cartoonish comedy that isn’t funny. Gigi gets a funky hairdo after a fast car ride. Sam Lee gets beat with baseball bats until his face is one giant bruise and the freaked out stepson punches him in the face when he mistakes him for a “ghost.” Several kung fu legends including Cheng Pei-pei, Lau Kar-wing, and Kara Hui get in on the idiocy as Vincent’s martial arts-trained family members who show up out of nowhere (and for no reason) near the end to fight some thugs with comic flourishes. Meanwhile, Vincent is too busy showing off his wushu skills to pay any attention to acting or anything else. That leaves poor Anthony Wong adrift as he attempts to play his anguished character straight in an otherwise crooked film.

The action choreography probably isn’t bad, but it’s hard to tell with the camera cutting nearly every move into seperate shots. Honestly, I don’t ask of modern martial arts movie makers to lay out dozens of nine or twelve movement shots like they did in the good old days. But give the viewer a chance to see a couple of moves launched and connect without interruption. Instead, what director Aman Chang does to mix it up with the endless tight shots is the extreme of pulling away hundreds of feet from the roof of a skyscraper where Vincent is taking on security guards. This helicopter shot lasts for at least a full minute and shows off a lovely building, but takes the viewer right out of the action. This is amateur hour for filmmaking and if you look at Aman’s filmography you’ll see a pattern.

Vincent is still a talented screen fighter, even in a badly-edited film. He shows off his incredible dexterity and speed on numerous occasions. His split kicks give Jean-Claude Van Damme at his best cause to worry. British stunt actor Jude Poyer becomes Vincent’s main foil in two decent scuffles. But it’s Jewel Li Fei who really steals the show with her Uma Thurman-as-Mia Wallace hair and the ability to kick like a madwoman, in dress skirt and low heels no less. Too bad none of them are able to salvage Fist Power from the dusty bin of B-movie mediocrity.

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