The Avenging Fist (2001) July 23, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, Sci-Fi, 2000s films , trackbackDirector: Andrew Lau; Corey Yuen Kwai Main Cast: Wang Lee-Hom; Stephen Fung Tak-Lun; Kristy Yeung; Sammo Hung; Yuen Biao Territory: Hong Kong Production Company: Sil Metropole Organisation
The initial hype on Avenging Fist was extremely positive: if you were interested in Hong Kong action movies, this was going to be the biggie. Then, the Tekken license was lost and a few rumours started to break through: this isn’t going to be too good after all.
It turns out that Avenging Fist went from being the Holy Grail of Hong Kong movies to being a complete also-ran. Having now, after owning it on DVD for close to a decade, finally watched it, I can see why it fell flat on its face: despite the great special effects, the film itself is incredibly vacuous. The first impression reaction I had when the movie opened was: “uh-oh, someone’s been watching The Fifth Element”. While some leeway has got to be given to the makers for at least attempting science fiction (a subject quite alien to the territory), the result is still a hodgepodge of dire warnings on the future, a hackneyed “love is stronger than hate” message and wild speculations on how technology is going to be so much different from how we know it now. Sadly, the film’s entire premise is based on the enduring urban myth that we only use 10% of our brain. The remaining 90% of our brain’s capacity, the film tells us, can be unlocked with the help of a Power Glove and can give us fantastic super powers.
Kong (Wang Lee-Hom) is a troubled young man who wants to buy a black market Power Glove and be just like his apparently dead father (Yuen Biao). He has serious physical potential, and his mother (Cecilia Yip) trains him when he’s not out causing trouble with his friends. There is also a pseudo-fascist dictator to be overthrown in the form of Combat 21 (Roy Cheung), who has turned Kong’s father into one of his henchmen. Policeman Dark (Sammo Hung) somehow gets mixed up in all this, despite having a premonition of his own impending death.
When Kong’s mother gives him the dire warning not to use his “power moves” in public, the game is finally up: Avenging Fist is simply an updated kung fu picture using many of the same plot devices as so many 70s actioners. The shiny new coat of CGI simply isn’t enough to disguise the more corny moments and tired storytelling. The action scenes are particularly poor, with lots of motion-blur and special effects added in. With no human element to the fight sequences, it’s damn near impossible to engage with them.
I quite liked Andrew Lau’s other CGI-driven movies, but this one leaves me cold. While it is to be congratulated on trying something new, the results are paradoxically over familiar and this is one movie that must simply be labelled as a failed experiment and forgotten about.
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?