Tag: Jackie Chan

Geekscape Reviews: ‘Dragon Blade’

by Eric Francisco

The first thing you should know is that Dragon Blade isn’t a good movie.

The second thing you should know is that it’s worth watching.

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Right now cinema is growing into a globalized platform. Hollywood and foreign products will start to look indistinguishable, and that’s beyond the large interracial casting. As foreign ticket sales boom and domestics decline, movies will begin to reflect a foreign taste that, upon this generation, there will be a harsh clash of cinematic styles and tastes. It is through this that makes Dragon Blade worth a watch: although messy, incomprehensible, and poorly directed, it very may well be the future of movies.

The story of Dragon Blade makes its failure all the more disappointing, because it’s a great story. Written and directed by Daniel Lee (The Mask, 14 Blades), the film takes place centuries ago on the Silk Road. Fugitive Roman soldier Lucius (John Cusack) forms a bond with a Silk Road patrol leader Huo An (Jackie Chan), who is framed for smuggling on the legendary trading route. The two men gain each other’s respect as their men build a Babylonian paradise only for it to fall under siege by Tiberius (Adrian Brody).

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Jackie Chan (left) and Choi Siwon (right) as “Huo An” and “Yin Po” respectively.

There’s more to it but it’s needless to write in detail, because in the end you only care about Chan crossing swords with Brody’s cartoonish baddie. There’s a band of Huns who come to their aid despite being a pain in the ass in the beginning, and a little blind boy who is crucial to the plot but just sounds so lame and boring to even just write in full. There is more but it’s all filler.

I don’t think anyone ever wished for John Cusack and Adrian Brody, wildly known for blockbuster action films, to have a fight with Jackie Chan and yet they surprisingly hold their own against Chan who actually disappoints in his effort. Still, the film falls short a good two or three more choreographed fights. I’m sure it was cut down because neither man probably had the patience for Jackie Chan’s notorious obsession with perfection (He’ll do hundreds and hundreds of takes to get things right), but the film horrendously suffers when you know half the reason to see this flick is just the curiosity of Jackie Chan fighting Adrian Brody and John Cusack. Upon seeing how well both guys actually can swing a sword, you want more and Dragon Blade denies you that pleasure.

Although famous in the west for his comedy, Dragon Blade is humor-less and that’s fine. Chan has pulled off action-lie, heavy drama, before (Crime Story, The Shinjuku Incident). He doesn’t need to make funny faces in every movie. Still, joking around would have helped because he’s upstaged by John fucking Cusack, who I have a hard time believing can run a treadmill let alone smash metal and in Dragon Blade he looks freaking great. Ditto for Adrian Brody, who otherwise is kind of wasted as he does nothing except sit or walk back and fourth talking like a lame Bond villain.

Adrian Brody as "Tiberius" in "Dragon Blade."
Adrian Brody as “Tiberius” in “Dragon Blade.”

Perhaps failing Chan isn’t so much Chan but Lee’s directing. Or maybe it is Chan, who is getting a bit long in the tooth and probably can’t move like he used to. He still moves better than I ever could, I’m 23 and have never broken a bone, but to anyone really familiar with Chan as an artist you know he’s an expert on tricking the camera to create illusions that can make flailing your arms look like legit strikes. The directing of Dragon Blade utterly wastes Chan, as its plagued with slo-mo and poor editing and framing that take away Chan’s camera magic.

I’m personally amused that the film takes such a Kumbaya angle in its story of the Silk Road. While I want to believe in and find the good in fellow man, a movie that’s so Chinese (a paragon of human rights) be so sentimental and progressive just feels heavy-handed and try-hard. The Silk Road, BTW, was an international trading route that stretched from Europe to Asia through the Middle East when Amazon was still just an amazon. While I’m sure some people got along, money drove the business. It’s all really cool stuff to learn about, but in Dragon Blade it’s nothing more than just set decoration. Really expensive set decoration, I imagine.

If Dragon Blade fails as a movie, it fails because of its filmmaking. At 100 minutes, the movie is rushed yet it takes its time doing the most inane things. Dragon Blade is wrapped up in exposition after exposition, horrible slow-motion, and corny, sentimental editing and some very questionable set pieces. Just in case you didn’t get how the boy is blinded, let John Cusack spell it out for you in more detail. Just in case you didn’t get the friendly rivalry between Chan’s men and Cusack’s outfit, here’s an overly long sparring match that ends in hugs.

John Cusack as "Lucius" in "Dragon Blade."
John Cusack as “Lucius” in “Dragon Blade.”

This is what I’m talking about when I talk of Dragon Blade being some kind of future of cinema: Chinese cinema has very different sensibilities than western filmmaking. They prefer grandiose, sweeping emotion and blunt-force storytelling over subtlety and nuance. Yes, I know America has Michael Bay, but we also have David Fincher and even Steven Spielberg knows how to juggle spectacle with quiet, delicate pacing.

Dragon Blade is very Chinese in its storytelling, but with A-list Hollywood talent like Adrian Brody and John Cusack along with a literal army of Caucasian extras this could be what movies look like if foreign ticket sale trends continue as they do. And that’s not a bad thing, I just wish we had a better film to predict the future with.

We give Dragon Blade a 2 out of 5.

Jackie Chan Confirmed To Join The Cast Of ‘The Expendables 3’

by Shawn Madden

There’s been plenty of rumors regarding who would be joining the cast of the next film in The Expendables franchise. Many of these rumors have been shot down but we now have our first confirmed new cast member. At a press conference promoting his new movie CZ12, Jackie Chan has confirmed that he will be in the next film after being offered a role by Sylvester Stallone.

“Sly had invited me to be in The Expendables 2 but I was too busy filming CZ12 and couldn’t make a commitment to the film. But he did extend his invitation to the third movie, which I agreed on the condition that I will be appearing as more than just a minor role with a few scenes.”

Chan also revealed that he has told Stallone that he hoped the next film would “run along the lines of a ‘buddy-buddy’ movie if he’s in it, to which Sly obliged. The script for The Expendables 3 is currently in the works and we could possibly begin to hear even more casting announcements soon.

Source: Yahoo

Geekscape Roundtable: Geekscape’s Favourite Action Movies!

by GeekscapeStaff

The Expendables 2 is out this Friday and we are already getting details about a third installment in the franchise. So, right now we here at Geekscape are on an adrenaline high and what better time than now to tell you guys what our favorite action flicks are. So lets get into it!

Andy Breeding – I cannot resist Rush Hour 2. The comedic chemistry between Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan is amazing on how well it works. Every joke is well delivered and makes me laugh every time. With Jackie Chan, you know you are getting awesome fight choreography right from the start. For someone in his condition, he still took the risks that most people would make a stunt person do while they would sit off in their trailer eating a ham sandwich.

 

Thrill Murray – I considered abstaining from this activity because the parameters are obscenely vague. IMDB lists 23,103 films as residing within the action genre. Fortunately, 23,102 of those movies are irrelevant because DIE HARD.

 

Allisonnnnn – Chronicles Of Riddick. We have an underground jail on a planet whose sunrise is akin to a nuclear explosion inside an EZ-Bake Oven, a cult of ass-kicking fanatics in H.R. Giger inspired armor, and Vin Diesel constantly flexing those manly arms of his as he lays waste to his enemies. Oh, and Karl Urban: Sex God Extraordinaire, being hotter than any mortal man has a right to be. Seriously, in the Director’s Cut, the things he gets up to with Thandie Newton… I’ll be fanning myself for weeks.

 

UncannyShawnMadden – This is a hard one to decide on. I narrowed it down to a list of five movies (three of which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme) but when it came down to it I had to join Jack Burton on the Pork Chop Express. Big Trouble In Little China had everything you could possibly want out of an action flick. Okay. You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president.

 

Shane O’Hare – My favorite action movie has to be Shoot ‘Em Up. Not only is the entire plot given to you in the title it can easily describe half the movies out there in the Action genre! From the very beginning it is in your face crazy fun. The term “creative kills” is perfect for this film, when one of the first deaths is caused by a carrot!

 

Scott Alminiana – My favorite action movie has got to be Lethal Weapon 2. It took everything great about the first one and cranked it to 11. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover have perfect chemistry as Riggs and Murtaugh. The addition of Joe Pesci’s Leo Getz is fantastic. He’s got some of the best lines in the entire movie “They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru, okay? They FUCK YOU at the drive-thru!” and he steals every scene he’s in. Anytime Lethal Weapon 2 is on I will sit and watch it waiting for bad guy Arjen Rudd (Joss Ackland) to say “diplomatic immunity” so that I can crack my neck along with Murtaugh and say “it’s just been revoked!”

Molly Mahan – Kill Bill, to me, is the greatest love story of my generation, and a truly amazing action film that happens to be led by a woman (hell yeah!). Tarantino—love him or hate him—knows how to make a film. It’s a classic revenge story, which I am a sucker for, with amazing fight sequences—the 30-minute ballet between the Bride and the Crazy 88s at the climax of volume 1 and the battle between the two blonde assassins in volume 2 shine particularly bright in my mind—and the characters have depth, not just of purpose but emotional awareness that isn’t always apparent in the genre. When we come to the end of The Bride’s journey and see her interact with Bill, there is always a part of me that wishes they can get back together and work it out (no matter how foolish or big of a let down it would be after four hours of watching her roaring rampage of revenge). But despite the basic premise, their relationship isn’t the only one that we see on display. The love she has for her daughter, the disdain and respect each of her opponents and former colleagues have for her are all evident. The layers that every character has is pretty remarkable. You could see each of them headlining their own film if they had to, or a comic book run. In the end, Kill Bill doesn’t force me to change my knickers as often as the trailer for Expendables 2 does, but it makes my heart sing. And that is something remarkable.

 

Jonathan – I think anyone who reads this site is expecting me to put a Van Damme movie here but I’m going to take the opportunity to share my love for another action film, probably one of the most revered in the genre: John Woo’s 1989 film The Killer, starring Chow Yun Fat, Danny Lee and Sally Yeh. This was the only movie poster that I had in my room all 4 years of college and not a week went by that I didn’t watch at least a few scenes from it. I could still watch it every week today. The plot is simple and has been done before. A conscientious hitman (Chow Yun Fat), pained by a hit gone wrong and blinding an innocent woman (Sally Yeh), swears to retire. But he takes one last job in order to pay to make things right. And in a classic modern-noir fashion, that was one job too many. Not only are his ex-employers on his tail to wipe him out but so is a driven cop (Danny Lee), intent on bringing him to justice. Some prefer Woo’s Hollywood calling cards of Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow 2 or the more gray area’d A Better Tomorrow but The Killer is where Woo really put his stamp on the genre, complete with slow motion doves, antagonists finding a common respect in a ballet of bloodshed and a dangerous men with moral codes. This movie influenced a wave of 90s action filmmakers, from Rodriguez to Tarantino, and forever reinvigorated a genre that had been exhausted by the end of the 80s. Throw any action film you want at it, The Killer still stands towards the top. And if it’s any consolation, John Woo did end up making a Van Damme film, 1993’s Hard Target.