09-17-2015, 11:13 AM
Ok, instead of calling this SPL, it should be WTH? Gone are Donnie and Sammo. Wu Jing and Simon Yam are still with the franchise, and they've picked up none other than Tony Jaa. For this reason, the film is half in Thai. My version = no subs. My Mandarin is weak; my Thai is non-existent. I only spent a few weeks in Thailand, kickboxing, lounging on the beach, and eating, and I never learned a lick of Thai. As for SPL, I could hardly track the story. Was this a prequel? A sequel? I have to watch the original again to see if it fits. The only story arc I could follow was about a little dying girl. Maybe it's better if you know what's going on. Maybe not.
The film is really dark and dingy. Everyone is greasy with tropical sweat. The main color schemes are faded greens and blues. There's a lot of talking and a lot of cell phones. The action is way too few and far in between. The first firefight at the terminal is good gunplay. The prison fight is spectacular, the centerpiece of the film, one long continues shot of ultravi mayhem, cleverly CGI-stitched together from several extended fight scenes. There's another raid that's really grisly and has some brutal knife work. Then there are a few more fights that are way too dark so all that is seen is silhouettes. There's a final fight that happens in a bright white room, which is painful because the rest of the film is so dark, my pupils got sore from going pin too quickly.
There are some really feint homages to Ichi the Killer (Yam's restraint) and the eyeglass billboard in the Great Gatsby (2013 version). Maybe there were more but it was too damn dark. Those were really distracting because I kept thinking 'I've seen that before' especially with the Gatsby reference, and it was bugging me all night. I only figured it out on my commute this morning.
I was very disappointed by this film but I would totally watch that prison fight scene again. Just skip to that.
The film is really dark and dingy. Everyone is greasy with tropical sweat. The main color schemes are faded greens and blues. There's a lot of talking and a lot of cell phones. The action is way too few and far in between. The first firefight at the terminal is good gunplay. The prison fight is spectacular, the centerpiece of the film, one long continues shot of ultravi mayhem, cleverly CGI-stitched together from several extended fight scenes. There's another raid that's really grisly and has some brutal knife work. Then there are a few more fights that are way too dark so all that is seen is silhouettes. There's a final fight that happens in a bright white room, which is painful because the rest of the film is so dark, my pupils got sore from going pin too quickly.
There are some really feint homages to Ichi the Killer (Yam's restraint) and the eyeglass billboard in the Great Gatsby (2013 version). Maybe there were more but it was too damn dark. Those were really distracting because I kept thinking 'I've seen that before' especially with the Gatsby reference, and it was bugging me all night. I only figured it out on my commute this morning.
I was very disappointed by this film but I would totally watch that prison fight scene again. Just skip to that.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse