(no subject)
here comes the hobo brigade
Who's looking at who?
The most heinous crime committed in War is turning a potentially spectacular Li vs. Statham showdown into an epileptic MTV seizure. In fact, there are no action scenes in this film that aren't completely obfuscated by a barrage of cuts, wild pulses of light, and every other visual trick in the book. It's disorienting and eventually, boring, because it's impossible to tell where anybody is in a scene and what is actually happening. Jet Li and Jason Statham are great screen fighters, but they exhibit so little actual martial arts skill here that they can be played by virtually anybody. It's a crying shame.
The majority of War's screen time goes towards developing an inane, convoluted plot with more holes than swiss cheese. The filmmakers obviously attempted to make this a genuine Asian experience as possible. War contains: Triads, Yakuza, teahouses, ninjas, Kendo, decapitations, naked women covered in sushi, bad Chinese dialogue with English subtitles, bad Japanese dialogue with English subtitles - and Devon Aoki as the daughter of a Yakuza boss, which should be an indicator of how culturally authentic War really is.
In War, Li's character has major muscle damage and has undergone facial reconstructive surgery, so now he actually has an excuse to look cool and act emotionless. Meanwhile, Statham does the bitter cop routine and goes around brutalizing people in uninspired ways. This is the kind of movie where the response to the line, "In Japan, you'd be dead," is exactly what you'd expect.
Even then, you don't expect the filmmakers to cheat the way they do - by not actually showing the ending.
(NONE out of five)
Who's looking at who?
The most heinous crime committed in War is turning a potentially spectacular Li vs. Statham showdown into an epileptic MTV seizure. In fact, there are no action scenes in this film that aren't completely obfuscated by a barrage of cuts, wild pulses of light, and every other visual trick in the book. It's disorienting and eventually, boring, because it's impossible to tell where anybody is in a scene and what is actually happening. Jet Li and Jason Statham are great screen fighters, but they exhibit so little actual martial arts skill here that they can be played by virtually anybody. It's a crying shame.
The majority of War's screen time goes towards developing an inane, convoluted plot with more holes than swiss cheese. The filmmakers obviously attempted to make this a genuine Asian experience as possible. War contains: Triads, Yakuza, teahouses, ninjas, Kendo, decapitations, naked women covered in sushi, bad Chinese dialogue with English subtitles, bad Japanese dialogue with English subtitles - and Devon Aoki as the daughter of a Yakuza boss, which should be an indicator of how culturally authentic War really is.
In War, Li's character has major muscle damage and has undergone facial reconstructive surgery, so now he actually has an excuse to look cool and act emotionless. Meanwhile, Statham does the bitter cop routine and goes around brutalizing people in uninspired ways. This is the kind of movie where the response to the line, "In Japan, you'd be dead," is exactly what you'd expect.
Even then, you don't expect the filmmakers to cheat the way they do - by not actually showing the ending.
(NONE out of five)