Fatal Move (2008) May 20, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Thriller, 2000s films , trackbackDirector: Dennis Law Cast: Simon Yam; Sammo Hung; Wu Jing; Danny Lee Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: China Star Entertainment Group
Fatal Move is the latest Hong Kong action/triad movie (though with more “triad” than “action”) focussing on the relationships between gangsters, and one particular cell’s dealings with the law and other rival gangs. Veteran action star Sammo Hung comes off an acting career highlight with SPL to play the Big Brother alongside Simon Yam’s deeply flawed Lin Ho Tung and young contender Lok Tin Hung (Wu Jing).
Yes, all three were involved in SPL, and this movie was originally conceived as a prequel to that film. When this became unfeasible, a whole new story was written, but hoping for similar success. Well, there’s one thing that will be making the US distributors rub their hands with glee – this movie already has its dumb two-word US title. No high-falutin’ philosophical gobbledegook about heavenly bodies interacting with each other requiring a tricky 30 second explanation that would make your average action film fan reach for the eject button and his Van Damme collection. That’s unless they decide to call it Kill Zone 2, that is.
The early word on this film was that it was mediocre. Well, let me say categorically that it isn’t – Fatal Move is, in fact, bloody awful. The central core, acting-wise, isn’t too bad. Simon Yam plays a gangster prone to sentimentality and has a pretty sizeable gambling problem, Sammo Hung is getting good at his new lease of life as a Triad boss, and Wu Jing still flips about like a young Yuen Biao with a Manga hairstyle.
The troubles quickly become apparent when Wu Jing starts hacking away at his foes with a sword. It promises to be another great Wu Jing action showcase, but for some reason these huge gouts of CGI blood start pumping out all over the screen. It’s true what they say: if you can tell it’s a CGI shot, then it’s not a good CGI shot - and frankly, these are terrible CGI shots. Worse, it continues this style all of the way through the movie. It’s strange, Hong Kong mastered the blood squib back in the late 60’s (see Chang Cheh’s Have Sword Will Travel for how cinematic sword wounds should look) but these pathetic efforts wouldn’t fool a seven-year-old child. Undaunted, I continued, only to find the plot convoluted, contrived and, worst of all, extremely dull. I’d lost all interest by the hour mark (barely halfway through the movie, I might add) and the film just gets increasingly irritating after that. It’s all about double-crossings, betrayal etc, but not done with an ounce of flair, and the plot lapses into incoherence on a number of occasions.
It’s a mark of desperation when, near the end, two characters duel seemingly just for the sake of it. Certainly there was no brooding antagonism or sign of unrest among the couple that I could see (although I was nodding off at this point) – one just says to the other that he didn’t see the other as the leader and they’re off. It’s like a tacked-on scene that movie executives add on when a production runs into trouble. It is, however, a great addition (CGI blood aside), and if more of these fight scenes were included it might have made the film half entertaining.
Don’t rush into Fatal Move expecting the new SPL. In fact, don’t rush into it at all. Don’t walk, either. Give it a wide birth and pretend it never happened. You’ll only be disappointed if you don’t.
Lam Suet-o-meter: Low. He plays an assistant to Inspector Liu (Danny Lee – who I had actually forgot was in the film, that’s how much of an impression he made). He’s about to be redeployed in the force. Think of him counting down the days to his retirement and you’ll understand where the character’s heading.
Comments»
I’ve been catching up on some of the Dragon Dynasty R1 releases and I saw Dennis Law’s previous film Fatal Contact (2006) this weekend. I was wondering if you saw this? And if so what did you think?
Your review of this doesn’t put it high on my HK must see list
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I remember watching Takashi Kitano’s Zatoichi and thinking the same about the CGI blood squirts. It looks so much more fake than the blood squibs (and the squibs aren’t expensive but seem to be more aesthetically pleasing).
Keep that Lam Suet-o-meter going
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Unfortunately I will probably watch Dog Bite Dog soon (quick aside Dragon Heat aka Dragon Squad was horrific; I hope this film is better).
As it happens, FATAL CONTACT should be winging its way to me as we speak, so I’ll let you know what I think about that when I see it. Also up soon should be RUNNING OUT OF TIME and TRIANGLE, so the Lam Suet-o-meter should be going through the roof soon! I’ve got a bit of a backlog now actually, but I plan to get through a couple next week.
DOG BITE DOG isn’t bad (any film that can get a decent acting performance out of Edison Chen has got to have something going for it) but like I’ve said, I just found it so grim I don’t think I could ever watch it again. I feel the same about TRAINSPOTTING, and I know a lot of people LOVE that film…
Yea, I don’t think I want to watch TRAINSPOTTING again.
Looking forward to the RUNNING OUT OF TIME review (haven’t seen TRIANGLE yet); I’m trying to get a better copy of RUNNING OUT OF TIME (probably the Tai Seng; well it might not be better than the version I have).
Quick comment on a different film not in your index (Magnificent Butcher): I was going to comment on your review (the one I read in HKMDB) but it is not here (I agreed with you on many points in my HKMDB review).
Sorry for the delay in your post appearing on the site, Shawn. For some reason, it got caught in the spam filter.
I noticed your review of MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER. I’m having a bit of a Sammo-fest at the moment but I think I’m going to give this one a miss this time around. I don’t know why so many people think it’s so great. Give me KNOCKABOUT, PRODIGAL SON or WARRIORS TWO any day.
Those movies haven’t arrived yet so I watched ENTER THE FAT DRAGON yet again and I think I may do another review for it here. I tend not to put my old reviews from the HKMDB on here too often and actually replace them sometimes as I go when I write new ones here. If I get time, I’m planning to revisit TOUCH AND GO and SHANGHAI SHANGHAI soon as these are two VERY overlooked Hung films. I’d love to get my hands on SLICKERS VS KILLERS at some point as it’s probably the only Sammo film I’ve not seen, but it’s IMPOSSIBLE to get!
I’m not sure what version of RUNNING OUT OF TIME I’ve ordered. Is there a problem with a certain edition of the film?
I do not think there is a problem with RUNNING OUT OF TIME; I just know the version I have (Mei Ah) does not have the extras the Tai Seng version has (I’ve been trying to get it through Amazon used; but no one has been answering my questions; I’ve had enough problems with getting the “wrong” discs thorugh Amazon used).
Looking forward to your next “Sammo” film reviews. I agree with you about KNOCKABOUT, PRODIGAL SON or WARRIORS TWO over MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER (I will probably review PRODIGAL SON next or close to next). With my MB review I tried to state why I thought it was in the middle and not his best (mainly because of the many, many “homages”
; rewatching it years later I just found so much that wasn’t fresh; but I digress from this FATAL MOVE thread 
).
So much to watch; so little time
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