Reviews

The MCU is too bizarre to be grounded. The movies are fast paced, fun and not something to dwell on. Dont think about Thanos's weird plan, just roll with it. The Netflix marvel shows just barely acknowledged the events of the MCU even happened, and were successful for it. Falcon tries to do a deep dive on the blip and unblip, and its just territory not meant to be explored. They tried to frame it as a parallel to Israel-palestine, or syrian refugee resettlement, and then clumsily brought in issues of being black in america...but the infinity saga is really not built to meaningfully tackle these issues.

The writing is really poor in the first few episodes as well, and that really doesnt help. Conversations seem to go nowhere. Falcon offers a pardon to a character for help, the character takes offense to using livelihood as a negotiating tactic. Falcon then relents and offers to try to get the pardon anyway, then the character says she doesnt want charity and will help in exchange. What was even the point?! There are so many examples of these small, pointless conversations that seem to waste time, early on. Individually theyre not that bad, but collectively it makes following the story pretty tiresome.

The action set pieces are a cut above almost any TV series; especially when an aerial falcon is involved. I think that saves it from being too boring to watch, but its ultimately super forgettable.

The majority of the first season leans into a thriller/mystery around missing children, which can be a little boring. There isnt much meat to the story at this point and important developments are slow to happen. By the end of the 1st season it starts getting really crazy with some additional dimensions added, literally. The story goes totally off the walls and can be challenging to follow, but the mind F is uniquely rewarding.

The music and sound are amazing and really carries the slow beginning.

The real reason anyone will see fatal contact is for the action. With that in mind, you may have to forgive a little bit of the jumpy and clichéd story telling.

The action sequences are frequent, and well choreographed. It's an interesting combination of brutal and flashy. Wu Jing will throw several jumping multi-kicks, but because the general rhythm of the fights are captured well, it doesn't look too far fetched. The choreographers throw in some pretty believable elements in the competition fights. You may see the fighters just hop around a it to psych each other out, and you'll notice, the more brutal the fights get, the less visible these sportsman like elements become. It's pretty interesting. There's no wirework and very little, if any, video speed up that is flamboyant in some HK movies.

Wu Jing really struts his stuff in this movie. I would say in general, he's very similar to jet li. He has this strange brutalness that jet li embodies in his roles with a modern setting. He looks wild, but clean at the same time. Wu Jing is younger, more vibrant, and he even has more flare than Jet Li. An actor like Donnie Yen has a different kind of appeal, but because Jet Li is getting old, and probably no longer doing action movies anymore, Wu Jing would make a superb replacement.

The story has almost no introduction, no time to familiarize a little with the characters, and the actual revelations about the characters are sporratic and placed in seemingly random places. It has a terrible and nonsensical love story, which luckily, isn't the focus. The whole setup is pretty nonsensical as well. Some guys walk into an opera performance, and somehow recognize skill in a performer. They ask him to fight underground for them, and they offer a lot of money. Of course, a lowly wushu performer is poor, and he eventually decides he neeeds the money. The setup is all a little fantastical to me, especially with the realistic setting. I feel it would be more at home in an aime than a live action movie with a modern day setting. It helped a lot to almost imagine Fatal Contact taking place in some alternate universe where the underground fighting scene is big money, and the scouters are like pimps. A world where performers are poor, but incredibly talented fighters. It's almost romantic if you think of it that way. So the setting is bearable and kinda interesting if you give it some of your imagination, but the story is still hampered by tons of cheesy dialogue and that oh so corny romance.

It's all about the action though, and that totally does not fail to disappoint. My favorite action movie in recent times is Sha Po Lang. The stories in both are at least a little cliché, but SPL had the cleaner, less sporratic story telling. It also had cinematography of a higher quality than Fatal Contact. Still though, Wu Jing and his action co-stars drive a really tough bargain. His moves are cleaner, flashier, and he's more vibrant than Donnie Yen. I almost can't decide of Fatal Contact trumps SPL or not.

Born to Defend isn't a good movie by any means. The villains are crazily exaggerated, and the Chinese were just too victimized. I know the American military has done a crapload of bad stuff, but there's only so much a viewer can take. I'd be alright if the movie portrayed them as evil people rather than Satan spawn. candy's supposed to be sweet, that's why we like it, but it can be sickening if it's too sweet. Most movies have a villain, and it generally helps the movie, but if that character is taken overboard, it just gets redundant and disgusting.

A Chinese person watching this movie must be some sort of masochist. I wouldn't want to see how terribly any foreigners victimized me. An American watching this movie must be a bit horrified, and a bit annoyed at how evil the navy is. Overall, it's not entertaining.

What i'm conflicted about is this: Why is it that such interesting action sequences are put in such a bad movie? I will say that while it is not edited well, and it's not of the highest quality in terms of lighting and camera work, The action scenes in "Born to Defend" are some of the best in any Jet Li movie. It's fast paced, contact is hard, and Jet Li moves like never before. The characters actually have very dramatic reactions to blows. The display of pain is well done. The characters also get winded when hit hard; that's something you don't see much in a movie. I'm not saying the fight scenes are realistic, no, far from it, but it's more dramatic with the sense of mortality it gives the characters.

A lot of people say Fist of Legend has Jet's best work. I believe this movie to be superior in terms of action. Jet Li is far too stiff in fist of legend, and he doesn't really seem to get hurt, even after being hit 30 times by a guy who can break bricks. Born to Defend features a very fluid Jet Li who's clearly very fragile, as any human is anyway. The fight scenes are also not over the top. You won't 2 people simultaneously jumping 10 feet into the air and then kicking each other both in the face.

While i can't bear the movie, many of the action scenes completely avoids my peeves with the genre.

The thing that struck me most about this movie is its radiance. The music alone will tell you that this movie is about having fun.

The comedy is perhaps a little bit questionable, depending on you're tastes. Sometime's it's just simple verbal jokes, and at other times, it's just completely random. I found the randomness to be a little too weird to be funny at times, but most of the humor is fine.

My favorite scenes are the ones depicting pure enjoyment. One scene in particular that strikes me is the spoof of Chinese opera. Faye is singing, beautifully, as usual, and making lots of similies and such, and Tony just says a bunch of stupid stuff (probably because his character is uneducated). My favorite lines being: Faye: See those geese in the middle of the pond, enjoying each other's company like we are. Tony: Today they swim, Tomarrow they roast. Roast goose is truly delicious.

Often times in a movie about love, the ones that are remembered are the ones where the characters are creative in showing their love. I mean, it's not easy to give that kind of emotion to the audience with characters they have only known for two hours.

It's even harder to give the audience the enjoyment of being in the company of someone really fun. This song and dance, as well as other scenes in the movie accomplish this very well. While they're doing the ridiculous dances, Faye can be seen close to, if not bursting into laughter. The director and the actors really looked like they had great fun with this film, and that translates onto the audience.

The formulaic aspect of the movie, or the part i'm not so crazy about is the last 15 minutes or so. While i don't mind the plot's development, i feel the character reactions were a bit exaggerated. Both Faye and Tony end up going crazy, literally. There needn't be such an exaggeration to depict the sadness of the characters. In fact, that shouldn't even be a focus of a movie of pure fun like this.

It does ultimately end on a happy note, which is quite nice. In the end, i do find something special about this movie. Nothing really matches the pure enjoyment i feel from this movie. Every time i think of the drunken song, i can't help but smile. There are some parts of the movie which aren't quite as wonderful, but it's definitely worth you're time.