The Invincible Dragon (2019)

Jiu long bu bai (original title)

Director: Fruit Chan
Starring: Jin Zhang, Anderson Silva, Kevin Cheng, Suet Lam .Hong Kong. 1h 25m

The UFC is an absolute goldmine not only does it make super fighters, but it and generally if you can nurture a dynamic Hong Kong action movie with at least one big name you’ll take in cash.. But blend the two poorly and you’ll end up with this disjointed mess, that feels as if the producers knew what they wanted to do, but wrote any bull in to make it happen.

What starts as a really engaging crime thriller following a determined gun happy cop, Officer Kowloon (Jin) who opens the film boiling in a cooking pot, in a seedy backstory restaurant, Lam Suet taunting him as the two compare Dragon tattoos, fortunate that our hero has a better back story featuring an adorable (brightly coloured cgi) Dragon that he met as a child…after the bonding he shoots Lams hand off in a function room and gets suspended, this becomes a trend with Kowloon even while investigating a spate of murders targeting female police officers he manages to fudge the operation, not only letting the only suspect go, but losing his fiancee\fellow officer.

Reign of Fire (2002)

Director: Rob Bowman
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, Alexander Siddig, Ned Dennehy, Izabella Scorupco .UK. 1h 41m

I fell out of love with fantasy movies for the surreal back in my teens, I still enjoy the genre but I live for the way out psychotropic pop surreal that goes that one step beyond. The fantasy genre is riddled with stories of dragons, maidens, cruel giant monsters, laws and riddles but going back to the standard western fantasy realm only gets a film canned as a tiresome Lord of the Rings rip off, so many attempts to bring Fantasy into the modern realm have challenged many a cast and crew, this silly bu entertaining project from X Files director Rob Bowman is interesting but slightly cringe.

After years of working the TV circuit Bowman branched out into a lengthy feature which resurrects a modern tale of dragons and legendary heroes, blending castles and helicopters, a tale of ultimate bravery and sacrifice unfolds.

Bright (2017)

D: David Ayer
S: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton. Noomi Rapace  USA. 1h 57m

Described as the worst movie of 2017, I had to check this out, maybe it was a PR stunt but it worked, it got me looking and I was pleasantly surprised, while constantly looking for the loopholes, terrible acting and a story that I couldn’t understand I found the opposite and was a bit more confused about why this is was coined as being so bad when I was tempted to watch it again….

Not quite realising how long the film was going to be, as a lot of current films are getting shorter for the attention span of the masses, this is a bit of an marathon, being just shy of 2 hours, but it does use all that time quite wisely while being a sort of fantasy rip off of Alien Nation (1988). Instead of aliens descending upon us, this is an alternative reality where Orc’s, Elves and other mythical beings exist. Daryl Ward (Smith) is a know it all police officer who’s been teamed up with a pariah Nick Jakoby (Edgerton) who’s an “unblooded” Orc, we learn that this makes him a bit of a hipster, who’s from a long line of other hipsters who basically don’t kill, this gives him a bum status with all the other Orcs but the humans refuse to accept him as Orcs are famed for having accepting the “darker” more evil path as part of their nature so they can’t be trusted, in the locker rooms men boast about being Orc slayers.

La Weekend July 2017 – 3

Oh dear it was a bit of a crappy movie weekend, I had a lot of new stuff to see but I panned most it all for crappy stuff as I spent most of the weekend painting and being a general douchbag. So after watching hours of rubbish on YouTube I eventually got around to some TV movies.. yeah I know I say I don’t watch it and I don’t, unless there is a movie on..

Passenger 57 (1992) – I used adore this movie when I was a teen, mostly due to the hot 90’s hair action going on, but it was one of the more talked about action films (on the playground)..  John Cutter (Westley Snipes) is a former police officer and now has the pleasure of escorting a terrorist Charles Rane (Bruce Payne) on his flight to the FBI, somehow, he takes over the plane and the two men have to physically and mentally psych each other out. It’s a bit laughable now but I think it will always hold a special place in my heart, but it’s nowhere near as awesome as New Jack City.. It was possibly one of the last films Rane did while he was still semi hot. and Tom Sizemore was on his verge of slipping into a drug coma. All said and done I think I found Con Air more re watchable and that’s saying a lot… 5/10