Apparently this is not the first Raimund Huber martial arts flick that I have ever seen. I don't remember all that much about seeing his previous movie "Kill 'em All" but I do remember some of the problems I had with it, which are all the same as the ones I had with this movie as well. So no, I can't say that Raimund Huber is improving very much as a director yet.
As a matter of fact, I even believe that this movie is a step down from "Kill 'em All". It's an even messier and less interesting to watch movie, which is both due to its story and storytelling.
This just never really becomes a very pleasant movie to watch due to the way its story gets handled. At times, I don't even really know what its main story is supposed to be all about and who's who exactly. For the longest time I didn't even really know who was supposed to be the main character in this and who I was supposed to root for. The main character is such a terribly uncharismatic one, played by such a bad actor (Kazu Patrick Tang, I'm talking about you!), that it's hard to root for him anyway.
It's also taking a very uninteresting approach to things. Instead of being a bigger than life martial arts flick, about fighting a big crime boss or corruption, it's one about two brothers, fighting each other over some girl. I admit, she's pretty but really nothing worth dying for or killing over, especially considering that they hardly know the girl.
The movie is also throwing some absolutely stupid twists and surprises at you at times, that literally come out of nowhere. It's lazy writing really and especially becomes distracting and annoying towards the end of the movie.
I have to admit though that the movie is still a watchable and pretty good one during all of its fighting scenes. But really, everything surrounding those moments is something absolutely terrible, uninteresting and at times even dull to watch (why is this movie 2 hours long?). It shows that Raimund Huber has potential as an action director and maybe he's the type of director that's simply better off as a second unit director or stunt coordinator, on some other action and martial arts flicks. UNLESS of course all of the action scenes in this movie were done by some completely different guy. In that case, there is no hope and Raimund Huber has no future in show business.
Just not a good movie to watch at all. Bad story, poor storytelling, terrible actors. Absolutely nothing appealing about this movie, not even for the most hardened martial arts movie lovers out there, despite the decent action moments.
3/10
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