I like to
give credit when a film tries to go for something new. Mutant super heroes
and villains. Ok, sure it has been done way too often in the West but this
is Hong Kong's crack at the genre. It is directed by Benny Chan who before
his passing in 2020 helmed some of Hong Kong's better looking action films
- Big Bullet, New Police Story, A Moment of Romance, Shaolin, Magic Crane
and the Gen-Y and X films. I have not seen the ones that he made just prior
to his death but I believe both The White Storm and Call of Heroes have a
solid reputation. I just saw Shaolin last week and came away very impressed
and so wanted to check this one out and hopefully White Storm and Call of
Heroes soon. This is a real hit and miss film - it is like a mutant not fully
formed as if Chan just didn't really know what he had on his hands or where
to go with it. Make it a romance? Make it a comedy? Make it a tragedy? Or
a CGI action spectacle? None of them really work. It is like a guy out on
a drinking binge and as the night goes along he gets stupider and stupider
until he ends up in the gutter wondering what happened the night before.
Of course, many super hero films are downright low on the IQ scale. I thought
Venom was one of the worst films I have ever seen it reeks with so much idiocy.
Aquaman was not far behind. This one is not Venom stupid but Chan gives it
his best.
It starts off reasonably good though -
Chan had nearly a solid first hour going for him before he falls off the
cliff and turns it into a laughable lachrymose mess. It is worth sticking
around to the bitter end in the nearly two hour film just to see how bad
it gets with the pièce de résistance at the very end. I just
literally shook my head in disbelief that this was made by Chan. But before
we get to that he has a few decent if overly dependent on CGI and wires action
set pieces. I thought they were quite well done and as bombastic and chaotic
as you could want. With a couple players from the old days who know their
martial arts.
Let's see where to start. In a prologue
it is 1945 in Malaysia and the Japanese are in an underground bunker trying
to create a super solider. But before they do the Brits find them and blow
the bunker up. Jump to the present time - a circus run by a terribly underutilized
Yuen Wah has some very cool acts - one is the Flying Dagger routine - throwing
knives at a person on a pinwheel from various positions. The Flying Dagger
man is played by Ngai Sing, a real stalwart of action films in the 1990s
- almost always as the villain. The MC is Aaron Kwok in a clown costume who
is slightly dimwitted until he suddenly seems smarter at the end. He wants
to do Flying Daggers because his dad wanted him to. But he is totally incompetent.
He plays his role like a ten-year old who has never been outside.
One night he sees a group from the circus
sneak off and follows them. They are looking for gold - instead they find
the chemicals that the Japanese were working with. They all including Kwok
inhale it and within minutes begin to gain powers. And in Kwok's case a ton
of weight - he must have borrowed Andy Lau's fat suit from Love on a Diet.
Later Sing may have used Andy's muscle suit from Running on Karma. They all
end up in Hong Kong where the circus boys and girl (Karen Cheung) use their
powers to go on a rampage of theft and murder. Kwok who was separated from
them gets a ride on the highway from . . . Shu Qi! Some guys have all the
luck. She takes him home as a fat man but by the next day we have Aaron Kwok
back as gallons of water have leaked out of his body. Thank goodness. He
shortly runs into Shu Qi again when she as a reporter is covering a hostage
situation. From half a mile away he sends a small stick through the glass
window that cuts into the hostage taker. She sees a story.
Back at his place she is interviewing him
when the Boys show up because they are mutating into monsters and what is
the point of having powers and money if no girls will go out with you because
you look like something they dragged up from a swamp. They want his blood.
A big action scene kicks in and into this comes Jacky Wu and his female assistant
Zhang Jing-chu. We never quite figure out who they are - but they seem to
be mutant hunters. Huh? Are there other mutants? Is that a full time job?
Shu Qi films the big fight and puts it on the Internet - and this is when
the film suddenly truly goes to hell. Kwok starts doing commercials, Sing
falls in love with Shu Qi (can any one blame him) and wants to date her,
she starts to fall for the mentally deficient Kwok. The film just dies on
the operating table. It gets so ridiculous. But wait for that ending. Yikes.
