Plotwise, your fairly typical story about a guy working for the Triads who decides not to kill a kid and then must fight for his life and hers against wave after wave of goons and assassins. It's one of those movies where the main character gets progressively messed up, because he's just fighting constantly and you can see it wearing him down. The last big fistfight he has started to remind me of a wrestling match after awhile. Somebody hits a move, but it hurts them too, so both guys lay there for a few moments groaning and rolling on the ground. Then they pick themselves up and go at it again.
A lot of the people who made The Raid are in this, or involved in making it. I don't think it's as good as The Raid, and it tries to make up for that with a lot more blood. People getting disemboweled, losing fingers, a lot of throats being slit. One lady gets stabbed near the elbow, and then the knife is pushed up her arm to at least her wrist, which, ouch. I don't really need a lot of blood in my movie fight scenes, so I could take or leave that, but there are some creative moves in there, clever uses of what's available. And there's usually two fights going on simultaneously in different locations. Ito's fighting in the back of a police van, trying to get away, while the remains of his old crew try to protect the girl in a fight that goes from one guy's apartment, to the hallway, down the stairs, and into the parking garage.
I didn't follow some of the finer details of the story - I thought the Motorcycle Girl (called "The Operator" in the credits) was going to get to kill Ito at the end as a feather in the cap for her boss - but the larger story is reasonably clear.
I do wonder, watching these organized crime movies, when the mob or whatever decides to kill an entire family, or village because of one person, do they really expect that to work as a deterrent? Would it work on them, if someone killed their families?
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
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