Underdog Knight

Ye Liu is excellent in the role of Lao San as a (somewhat) mentally-disabled former soldier who dispatches petty criminals with glee. His best friend is a child who idolises him and who helps him on his vigilante escapades, and his girlfriend only sticks around because of the memory of who he was before suffering from brain damage when he had an accident while he was a soldier.

In a way the main focus of the film is Lao San's questioning of who he is, and whether his future lies in being a vigilante. Both his mother and his girlfriend want him to put down his weapons and stop fighting, but the training he received in the military and by which he tries to live as a civilian tells him otherwise. What is he to do when he doesn't have the ability to think things through properly?

In order to resolve his dilemma, Lao San needs an external actor who comes in the form of triad leader Anthony Wong. The crossing of their paths leads to a climax where Lao San is forced to re-evaluate how he lives his life. Will he choose to be a vigilante hero or will he become a normal man for the sake of his true love?

On the whole I found this film interesting because the central character is really quite unique. Furthermore, the film isn't about his brain damage in the way Rain Man is about autism. The plot moves independently of whether Lao San suffers from brain damage or not, and we are not expected to treat him as a figure to be pitied. He is who he is, with whatever that entails. He struggles with his sense of loyalty to his military principles and his desire to become the more normal boyfriend his girlfriend yearns for. He beats up the petty criminals but stops hitting them on the condition that they'll take the kid in their gang to school. Both tender and tough, mentally handicapped, unsure with how to deal with the outside world, Lao San is one of the most interesting characters I've seen in a long time.

The rest of the movie is pretty average. Sometimes the story doesn't quite make sense, characters appear were you least expect them, they act in a way that goes against character, they say some corny lines, and all those other things Chinese action movies do so well.

The premise of the movie is a brain-damaged veteran who fights crime, drinks a lot of water, and constantly recites military jargon. The plot moves in predictable paces toward the expected conclusion, eventually focused on an antique spear on display in the National Art Museum, which is the target of the villains who intended to steal it. The chef villain (leader of the gang) is rather likable, manipulative/deceptive, intelligent, and seemed to go out of his way to avoid killing. That is contrasted by the hero who is mentally slow, have a somewhat confusing relationship with a love interest, and he seeks out crime and criminals to fight/punish.

The problem with this movie is the predictability of it. There was never any suspense on what is going to happen. The love interest angle was underdeveloped and uninteresting. The film seemed to start to explore the duality of crime & vigilantism but didn't follow through. The martial arts fight scenes attempted some level of realism, but they are nothing original and became repetitive after awhile. Overall it isn't a bad movie but it fails at creating an original plot after creating a very original hero.

I was able to view an advanced screening of Ying Han, directed by rookie Ding Sheng (according to a Chinese website, used to make commercials), written and produced by Hong Kong's Wong Jing. First of all I need to inform everyone who has seen the trailer, that most of the 'good' parts, mostly the exciting action scenes, are shown in the trailer. Ying Han is more about the story than actual action. At first when I saw the trailer I thought this was a movie where the Chinese Police force flexes their muscles, we see armored vehicles charging up some stairs and a SWAT team, but they don't really utilize their resources until the last scene. However, there are plenty of fighting scenes, which are quite well done. What impresses me about the action scenes of Ying Han is that the movie's main character, Liu San (meaning Third Brother or Old Third, because he was the third eldest sibling), he is not a kung fu master. He was trained in the PLA's Navy, which I believe is similar to US Marines, so he has a great physique and knows how to fight. So he doesn't dispatch the bad guys with unbelievable flying kicks or any wire fu at all, but effective street fighting techniques. Very realistic and never over the top.

The story is that Liu San was having a great career in the Navy, until one day one of his fellow soldiers had an accident during a training exercise and was drowning, and he jumped in to save him. The other guy recovered, but he suffered slight brain damage that forced him to retire early. He then goes around fighting bad guys, and there are lots of them in the Mainland. This is one of the first movies where they show a fairly wide variety of the cheats, the pickpockets, the counterfeit ticket peddlers, etc, in a Chinese movie. This is a rampant problem in the current Chinese society, and also one of the biggest differences between Chinese and Western society. Unfortunately in Chinese society, people tend to keep to themselves and stay away from trouble, and would rather let the police handle it. But the police force can only extend so far, and they cannot be in so many places all the time. In the West, if someone commits a petty crime like pickpocketing, even if they might be armed with a knife or backed up by several people, if everyone in a crowded area step in to give a hand and help subdue them, crime would not run rampant and criminals would think twice. In Ying Han, Liu San's life objective is to be a good person, and fight bad guys. Sometimes, people tell him not to fight anymore, as he could get in trouble or get hurt, but he insists on doing the right thing. He does have a run in with the law as Chinese police seem to frown on renegade violence, but you will have to watch the movie to find out what happens. Liu San also has a love interest and it makes for a decent subplot.

Besides Liu Ye, Anthony Wong is probably the only big name that Western audiences would recognize, and he plays a very interesting charcacter in Ying Han. One of Mainland's biggest actors, Sun Honglei, also makes a very brief cameo. All in all, Ying Han is a very nice piece of work and a great debut by Ding Sheng, and the last scene is choreographed beautifully. Let's just hope that it is the first of many modernized Chinese movies with groundbreaking styles that audiences all over the world can enjoy, and not just for the Mainland market.

I would give it a 7.5/10 but Liu Ye was really good and the movie moved along nicely, with hardly any boring moments, so it gets rounded up for IMDb.