Namely, your body starts to fail you. No longer are you as quick, nimble and flexible as in your prime. What’s an action hero to do? If you’re Jackie Chan and Jet Li — age 57 and 48, respectively — you start turning more and more to dramas. Coincidentally (or not), both martial-arts superstars have […]
Jackie Chan
Posted inArts & Culture
Triple Tap
This segues into another great sequence, this one of a literal highway robbery, during which a bank’s armored car is stopped beneath an underpass and fleeced. Seven fatalities are tallied, and it might have been more if Ken hadn’t motored by and saved the life of an officer. The only other survivor, a suspect in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Triple Tap
This segues into another great sequence, this one of a literal highway robbery, during which a bank’s armored car is stopped beneath an underpass and fleeced. Seven fatalities are tallied, and it might have been more if Ken hadn’t motored by and saved the life of an officer. The only other survivor, a suspect in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Set in Hark’s beloved Tang Dynasty, the film casts Andy Lau (“Infernal Affairs”) as the star sleuth, imprisoned for treason for daring criticize royalty. Now, the very person who ordered him behind bars, Empress Wu (Carina Lau, “2046”), requires his help. Days away from her coronation ceremony, a towering statue being erected in her honor […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Set in Hark’s beloved Tang Dynasty, the film casts Andy Lau (“Infernal Affairs”) as the star sleuth, imprisoned for treason for daring criticize royalty. Now, the very person who ordered him behind bars, Empress Wu (Carina Lau, “2046”), requires his help. Days away from her coronation ceremony, a towering statue being erected in her honor […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Cannonball Run
Now, decades later, the huge, huge box-office hit has hit Blu-ray — Blu-ray! — and although I hadn’t seen the action-comedy since junior high, it’s remarkable how much I remembered about it:• every line and note of Ray Stevens’ cornball theme song;• Burt Reynolds’ mugging at the fourth wall;• DeLuise’s Captain Chaos superhero garb; • […]
Posted inArts & Culture
BKO: Bangkok Knockout
Despite the team’s intimidating name, the members of Fight Club are the good guys of this Thai actioner. The bad guy is the cigar-chomping gringo Mr. Snead (Speedy Arnold), who runs a high-stakes gambling operation where the minimum wager is $5,000. On what do his richie-rich clients bet? Quasi-gladitorial games between pairs of fighters in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Last Godfather
If this were a bid at crossover stardom à la Jackie Chan, he’s failed miserably. Heck, if this were intended to be a comedy, he’s failed miserably. The flimsy plot has Harvey Keitel — why, Harvey, why? — as a Mafia leader planning on retirement. While his many underlings want the job, he’s going to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The King of Fighters
In “Fighters,” three ancient artifacts — a sword, a shield and a chain-metal necklace that looks like Red Sonja’s thong — combine to unleash energy that opens a gateway to another dimension where characters compete in underground fighting tournaments to become the King of Fighters. There, logic and physics are on hold, tunnels are awash […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Martial-arts film fans know the answer: He’s a fictional folk hero played by Bruce Lee in 1972’s “Fist of Fury,” then Jet Li in 1994’s “Fist of Legend,” and now Donnie Yen in this, although the movies have no real relationship to one another — well, other than being cool, of course. If anything, “Legend […]