Man of Tai Chi (2013)

2/5

Keanu Reeves's directorial debut is a shallow, plodding mess. It has an enormous number of problems, seemingly unending in quantity, although I will attempt to enumerate them all below. First, it is multilingual, with half of it filmed in Chinese and the other half in English. This wouldn't be an issue if the story and acting were compelling enough to make you want to read the subtitles and find out what's going on, but they're not. Second, the plot and performances are subpar, even for a basic action movie. The plot follows Tiger Chen as a character named Tiger Chen, a budding tai chi fighter who finds himself in an underground fighting club in order to make ends meet. (Does tai chi even have a combat component?) Third, there is an abundance of characters without any real purpose (e.g., the camera guy who films everything, the girl who tells the combatants to fight). Fourth, Reeves casts himself as the evil villain (i.e., the final boss that Chen must fight), and his hubris is the film's undoing. He concludes the film with a disappointing, sluggish, awkward fight scene that is painful to watch. The choreography is actually the best part of the movie, with some truly awesome fight scenes, and there are more fight scenes in this movie than a lot of other kung fu movies. But all in all, there's nothing about this movie that's compelling enough to recommend it to any but the most diehard of action buffs.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2016940/

Ip Man (2008)

3/5

Ip Man tells the sensationalized, quasi-true story of martial arts grandmaster Ip Man (Yen) during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China in WWII. The movie is a fairly rudimentary one in terms of its storytelling, filmmaking, and acting. The plot is simple and predictable, the acting is passable, and the cinematography is forgettable. The film uses simple archetypes instead of complex characters: the good guys are perfect and the bad guys are unreasonably evil. Where this movie really shines is the fighting. This showcases some of the most impressive martial arts I've seen in recent memory, with appropriate slow-motion and exciting camera angles. It puts the martial arts on display like poetry, and it is truly enthralling to watch. However, there are too many flaws overall to truly recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't like kung fu movies. If you do, though, this is one you don't want to miss.

Note: I saw the (laughably pathetic) dubbed version of this film, which is available for free on Amazon Prime Instant Video, instead of the subtitled version of this film, which is available on Netflix.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220719/

Exodus (2007)

2/5

Ho-Cheung Pang's Exodus is a bad movie, plain and simple. The whole of events could be retold in a 10-30 minute short. And we would lose nothing but frustration. What was initially an interesting concept quickly turned into boredom, as if the writers were searching for something to happen and found nothing but the banal. A cop interrogates a man caught videotaping women in a bathroom, who claims that there is a syndicate of women plotting the murder of all men. The confession goes missing, but when he re-interrogates the man, his (obviously?) ludicrous story changes after a female cop talked to him. Could it be true?

There seemed to be no point to the movie. It said nothing about male-female interactions, despite the rather rampant possibilities, and nothing new about the human and collective conscious. The dialogue was blunt and meaningless, as far as I could tell. The Engrish subtitles didn't help. There were some good parts, such as the (overlong) intro and the (overlong and unnecessary) finale, especially in terms of cinematography and music. But they felt out of place, bookends by a talented director added in to even out a crappy middle by a terrible director. I could have enjoyed 90 minutes of my life if I had not seen this movie, so be sure to thank me when you end up turning down this crap because of my review.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091616/