Fist 2 Fist (2011)

Tagline:

His greatest enemy lies in the shadows of his past.

Movie Review:

It’s not very often I do back-to-back reviews of the same actor. I’m not even sure I have done so before - let alone another film in the same franchise. I was so impressed with Jino Kang in Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice that I decided to go backwards in the saga to the first film. The first thing worth mentioning is that, like the various Bloodfist sequels, Jino Kang plays an entirely different character than he does in Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice. So don’t go in expecting character continuation (or in this case, formation) and treat it as a stand alone film.

After an opening monologue delivered by Kang’s character Ken, we are straight into the action. Ken and his associate are about to break in to a car chop shop with the goal of rescuing said associate’s brother who has been forced to labour there. Almost instantly we are witness to the quality, actual martial arts delivered by Jino Kang. In character as Ken, he quickly dispatches the thugs then with a quick flinch disarms the leader of his pistol. Fast moves, and a nice intro into the world of Jino Kang that sets him up as a guy that will do what’s right and will use his skills to enforce it.

Ken runs a youth centre for street kids as well as kids training in the martial arts. We are introduced to Jim, a street kid who after a failed attempt to rob Ken, agrees to join his centre and train. We get a few fun scenes of a training montage, which differs from the usual as Ken is not doing most of the training. He sends Jim off to various schools to learn different schools of fighting from Karate to Hapkido and MMA - which, from the special features on the disc, appear to be actual trainers and fighters, not actors. 

At the same time, incarcerated underworld boss Tokyo Joe (Bill Duff, featured on the poster) is up for parole. He has served fifteen years behind bars and blames his former criminal colleague Ken for his predicament; through a flashback it’s revealed that in a carjacking gone wrong, Joe snapped and killed the driver leaving a baby orphaned, and Ken has spent the same time trying to atone for what he did that night. Strangely the first thing Joe does when he gets out of jail is go see a psychic. That was a little odd, but whatever floats your boat.

You’d think the next course of action is for Joe to kill Ken, but no. They meet like men and Joe offers him a deal - his fighters versus Ken’s fighters in a battle royale, the winner takes the substantial pot and all past deeds forgotten. Ken can use the money to keep his youth centre open. “This sounds too good to be true” says Ken. Right he is. Ken’s wife begs Joe not to go ahead with the tournament and in return she is taken hostage to ensure the fight goes ahead. Ken, a man atoning for his past life and trying to make better choices, now must close the book on a story started fifteen years earlier.

“There’s always a choice. You just always make the wrong one."

The plot of Fist 2 Fist is similar to most other “forced to fight” films, but that’s not to say the films offers nothing new. The angle taken here is less on the fights in the ring themselves - they are the side story of Jim and his friends trying to keep their youth centre operating. The main focus is on Ken fighting his way through Tokyo Joe’s thugs to rescue his wife and defeat Joe in hand to hand (or fist 2 fist) combat. Each attacker he faces offers something unique for us to see defeated. One guy called Speed has Wolverine-style claws on his hands that scratch Ken up but still don’t take him out. Ken upgrades from his fists to knives and the violence gets bloodier with throats cut, a taser employed and a guy crushed by a car hydraulic. Ouch. 

The best things about Jino Kang’s films are their honesty. They are gritty and realistic. Low key, without the flamboyant pretence of bigger Hollywood films nor the wire work of modern Chinese epics. No outrageous special effects. He’s used the cameras and equipment needed to get the job done. There’s nothing about the fights in his films that don’t look achievable to somebody with skills. Jino Kang is not an ‘action hero’, he’s somebody that knows the arts and is applying them to movies that he writes, directs and stars in. Like I said in the quasi-sequel, they are clearly passion projects for him.

I bought this DVD on a whim a long time ago in a bulk sale and filed it on the shelf. It wasn’t until I learned who Jino Kang was that I realised I actually had a film with him in it. The cover: I wouldn’t say put me off, but with that title it didn’t encourage me to watch this expecting martial arts fun. More a WWE studios beatdown. Kang isn’t even on it, and I’m not familiar with Bill Duff’s career in wrestling to recognise his name. I should have watched this film sooner. And Kang should clearly be taking the front and centre position on the poster. Out of the three Jino Kang films I’ve seen (and that so far is all of them) this is my favourite one. Recommended.

Highlight:

In a eight-to-one match that would see lesser combatants taken out swiftly, Ken approaches it with a one-liner that sounds straight out of a Van Damme movie: “Which one of you mother fuckers wants to die first?” Ken pulverises the goons in a marvellous arm-breaking beatdown!

Movie:

Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice (2014)

 

Tagline:

Whether you live or die depends on your weapon of choice.

Movie Review:

Jino Kang is a bit of an enigma. He’s a writer, director, producer and lead actor in all of his films - of which there are only three - and his skills as a martial artist have been making themselves quite apparent to appreciating audiences the past few years. His first film, Blade Warrior (2001), was a passion project and a highly independent work but it showed his already well-honed skills of the martial arts and his developing skills in front of and behind the camera. This was followed a full decade later by Fist 2 Fist (2011), a step-up in production quality and on-screen action. And lastly (for now) we have Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice (2014) - a film, in the best B-action cinema tradition, only related to it’s predecessor in name only - that demonstrates the best yet of what Jino Kang is all about.

Opening in a sleazy club, a scared man clutching a gift sits down at an adjacent table to the birthday boy and his goons. The birthday boy blows out his candles (which happened to be mounted on the brasserie of a stripper - first time I’ve seen this kind of cake) and a strange figure slinks in past the security. We have just met assassin Jack Lee (Jino Kang), who with great precision takes out every member of the birthday party - including the stripper - but not the late-coming guest. To him he says “Tell your boss what happened here. Make nothing up. Leave nothing out.” Jack Lee is one cool mother-- you shut your mouth! But I’m talking about Jack...

Five years later and Lee has retired. At home relaxing with his twenty-something daughter Jaime (Kelly Lou Dennis), he is attacked in his home by men in masks who take his daughter away from him (we learn she is to be sold to a trafficker). He cripples and kills most of the attackers, one turning out to be a former colleague who reveals in his dying breath the identity of the kidnapper - mob boss Michael Banducci (Douglas Olson). Kang begins his mission to get his daughter back.

Enter Police Detective Ash Jordan (Katherine Celio) and FBI agent Hap Koehler (Don Williams) investigating the dead bodies in Kang’s apartment, putting together their own pieces of the puzzle. To raise the stakes more, Banducci just hired in an ex-Navy Seal to take out Jack Lee. Eventually catching up with Lee, the law takes him into protection and questioning in a safe house. However, it turns out not to be that safe as a firefight with Banducci’s soldiers ensues and Lee is badly wounded. Ash rescues and flees with him to her brother’s ranch while he recuperates. Meanwhile, Lee’s daughter attempts her own escape from her captors and it’s obvious she’s been paying close attention to daddy’s skills. She manages to get her location out to her father and he comes to get her with determination and force.

Ash: “If I wasn’t a cop I’d be a ballroom dancer.”
Lee: “May I have this dance?" 

Weapon of Choice feels very much like one of the cheaper DTV-era Steven Seagal films. That’s no bad thing because I enjoy DTV-Seagal. The single-focus storyline, the mafia and Asian bad guys and the Eastern European accents of others, the mix of martial arts, gun and sword play and the minor love interest with awkward sex scene. Even the poster art shown at the top of this review - it’s all there. What is done BETTER than modern Seagal is the fights themselves. Let’s be frank here; Steven Seagal has not performed the action pieces of his films at the top of his game for some time now. Jino Kang, however, really nails it. His techniques are true and proficient, and the only stunt double is himself. Hell, Jino Kang choreographed all the fights as well. He really is a one-man-show artist. Kang doesn’t play Lee over the top and loud like an American action star either; he is quiet and contained at all times, which helps add mystique to his assassin lifestyle.

The acting for the most past passes mustard, but it’s not the key element here anyway. So with that in mind, let’s talk about the action in the film; it’s quite varied as I mentioned above. The martial arts are naturally the main focus and they are quite brutal. Bones are broken, necks are stabbed slowly (like, a ten second push of knife to the jugular), throats are cut. Beatings with a pole arm, wrestling moves that see opponents strangled by Kang’s legs entwined around their neck. Some guy hurls an axe and Lee dodges it. Lee pulls out an uzi and lays waste to hired goons. Arms are cut off, stomachs are shot with close-range rifles. This film is violent and close up. The action is only betrayed somewhat by the budgetary constraints. Squibs are CG and artificial for the majority. Most muzzle shots are CG, with no impact damage shown. It can be a little off-putting.

Some of the accessory characters were not so great. I really didn’t enjoy Banducci’s dopey sidekick at all; in fact he kind of annoyed me in his blaze teenager-like attitude to his boss. I don’t know why I found him so jarring but I did. Then he had that fight with the other mob boss’ hitman which ended up being over a girl. So random. Ash’s brother Oliver the stoner also grated on my nerves, but he acquitted himself with a hilarious attempt at “helping” in a fight - running outside in his full-length red pyjamas waving a hammer over his head and screaming, even though the fight was clearly over. That was a laugh out loud moment.

Where the film really excels is in its passion. Part Taken, part Commando, all heart - Jino Kang is doing this for the love of the craft. It’s obvious. Every shot and set piece is crafted by his design and you can tell a lot of thought has been put into small aspects of the film. In a way, you can look at Kang’s current films as his portfolio. Like all good artists, I hope somebody with a slightly larger budget can help Kang take his vision to the next level, as I would very much like to see how that would turn out.

Highlight:

(SPOILERS) Like all good action films that follow a tried and true formula, the final fifteen minutes is when all guns come out blazing - and all other manner of weapon and body combat as well. Lee works his way through the warehouse (there’s always a warehouse) taking out bad guys one at a time, then three at a time, in varying and definitely fatal ways. We see some excellent swordplay, so good in fact I wish there was more of it in the film. Limbs are lopped and it all ends with the slicing of Banducci in two - though you knew he was going to cop it from the second you met him!

Trailer: