They all came to America. To make action films.
John Woo got Jean-Claude Van Damme, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage and Tom
Cruise. Ringo Lam got Jean-Claude Van Damme - three times. Tsui Hark
got Jean-Claude Van Damme twice and Dennis Rodman. Leung Po-chi gets Steven
Seagal and Wesley Snipes. Where the hell was Jean-Claude Van Damme? Jean-Claude
would have lifted this film from bad to mediocre I would guess. He has something
that comes close to a personality. Something that Seagal gave up on a long
time ago. He basically sleep walks through this dressed in black to hide
his growing bulk. Leung Po-chi, you got the short end of the stick. Not that
Leung Po-chi was known for action in Hong Kong. More suspense or horror but
the producers probably thought since he came from Hong Kong, he did action.
In his TV film Walking Shadow in 2001, Leung showed some flair, a few quirky
shot scenes - none of that here. Just go through the motions of the script.
Still I admit to not being bored really - just recognizing that it was no
worse than so many of the low budget action films that go by us unnoticed.
I thought it was my imagination but just read that it was true - for parts
of the film Seagal's voice was dubbed by someone else - someone with a slight
whispery accent - and in other parts not. This was due to changes after the
film was shot. It was probably a great film before this was done. But don't
look for the Director's Cut any time soon.
Let's give this some credit though. It is basically Taken four years before
Taken. Could this have been the inspiration for that film? It shows what
a budget and a good actor can do to the same idea. Seagal's character is
ex-something for the government. Now retired and a Forest Ranger who spends
his days wandering the forest looking for injured animals. He has had an
ongoing correspondence with a 14 year old girl (Ida Nowakowska) in an orphanage
in Poland. He sends her codes to break. Later that helps when she makes a
code out of a sushi plate at a fancy reception. The orphanage turns out to
be a recruiting place for trafficking. At 14 they get moved out and auctioned
off. When Seagal gets a letter saying his girl can no longer correspond with
him, he packs his bags and off to Poland he goes.
It takes him about fifteen minutes to figure that all is not well in Poland.
Especially, when they come to kill him. He teams up with a female Polish
cop (the lovely Agnieszka Wagner) and they start killing the bad guys. So
yes, Taken. But a lot stupider. Some very nice location shooting in Warsaw
though. And kind people. The Madam of a fancy bordello allows Seagal and
the female cop to use her place of business for a big shootout and a lot
of dead bodies. Afterwards I imagine her telling her scantily clad employees
- let's clean up this mess, get rid of the bodies, we have customers to please.
