Special Forces (2003)

 

Tagline:

They fight for your life.

Movie Review:

It's been a while since my last review, but I couldn't be happier to break the drought with something as explosive as Special Forces. The plot is incredibly simple; ambitious American female reporter gets captured by Maldovian forces trying to take photos of a genocidal event, US Special Forces team bust heads in an attempt to extract her. You already know how this will go, and it goes exactly how you think. America wins, woo! But it doesn't matter that you know how it goes, what matters is how high the body count is when you get there.

Special Forces hits the nail on the head for action fans. Directed by Isaac Florentine (Undisputed II and III, Ninja, Shepherd: Border Patrol, U.S. Seals II), one of the best in the business as far as I'm concerned with nary a single MTV-style quick-cut in use, and with many appearances by (but not fully starring) the awesome Scott Adkins. Well acted by all involved, we see the team of special forces comprised of interchangeable rough-and-tough men going by the names Jess, Bear, Wyatt and Reyes lead by Major Don Harding (Marshall R. Teague, U.S. Seals II, The Rock, Armageddon and a lot of TV work), who work their way through Maldova to rescue the girl and take out the ruthless General Hasib Rafendek (Eli Danker) - of which Major Harding has already been acquainted with, as revealed to us by a flashback sequence.

Action hero (and I'm happy to call him that now that he's played alongside The Action Greats in The Expendables 2) Scott Adkins shows up as the last remaining soldier of a British squad that never made it out of Maldova. He acts alone but saves the bacon of the Special Forces team on three occasions. It's also great to hear Adkins using his real British accent for once!

"Mission is King"

This is a non stop actionfest, folks. There are at least six full shootouts featuring every military-grade weapon you could think of. The minuscule $2.5m budget must have been used entirely on ammunition and exploding trucks, so I'll forgive the frankly terrible looking CG helicopter that whisks the team away at the end of the film. It's not a gory film either, with a high level of violence but not an overly grotesque. The scenery of Lithuania doubling as Maldova provides an authentic representation of a war-torn post-USSR republic.

This is easily the most overly-patriotic bordering on silly action film I've ever seen. There are so many scenes featuring American flags I lost count, but my favourite moments would be the artistic blood splatter across a US flag patch received by a captured Corporal, the Major drinking from a coffee cup emblazoned with the flag and the final scene rolling onto the credits that features the Major telling Talbot "this is why I keep doing it" as we pan across to a waving American flag. Coupled with the constant footage of Maldovian soldiers beating on their own women and children, it's clear who we are meant to be rooting for here.

Highlight:

The action basically does not stop for the full ninety minutes, but the highlight simply has to go to the duel fights in the finale - Marshall R. Teague vs. Eli Danker, and Scott Adkins vs. stuntman Vladislavas Jacukevicius. Surprisingly, Teague is reasonable with the ol' high kicks and lands a decent punch on Danker a few times. But the Hong Kong style fight between Adkins and Jacukevicius is simply outstanding - easily the best Adkins fight I've seen. He's as fast as Jackie Chan in his early days and just as creative, using whatever is laying around to help him win the fight. Jacukevicius is a great opponent for Adkins as he does this kind of stunt work for a living (this is is only acting role) but the upper hand, of course, goes to the triumphant Adkins. 

Sourced From:

Ex-rental R4 DVD brought to us by Roadshow Entertainment and Ninth Dimension. Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, the film looks and sounds good but suffers a little from too much video compression in some scenes.

Trailer:

The Expendables 2 (2012)

 

Tagline:

Back for War.

Movie Review:

To say that I've been looking forward to seeing The Expendables 2 is like saying "I quite enjoy breathing". I needed to see this movie, as my wife will attest to, and it simply did not disappoint. If you are a fan of big, dumb 80's style action films, a fan of the first movie, or somebody who thought the first movie needed to go further, then all you need to know is "go see this film immediately".

The film opens in Nepal as mercenaries are bludgeoning a captive prisoner. Enter: The Expendables - Toll Road (Randy Couture), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) to save the day with tanks, missiles, and endless rounds of ammunition unleashed upon enemy forces resulting in CG-gore head-shots (which look pretty good to my eyes, and not obviously cartoon-y - just over the top!), and newcomer Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) sniping from a distance with his 50 calibre rifle. Jet Li even pulls out the martial arts with saucepans like a late 70's Hong Kong film. It's hard to put in words how awesome this opening scene is.

Rescuing their target (and somebody else who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) the team fly home for some R&R. That's when Church (Bruce Willis) shows up demanding that a debt to him be paid by Barney Ross, so the team set out to retrieve a package from a safe in a downed plane. Sounds like an easy pay check but Ross has to agree to take specialist Maggie (Nan Yu) along with him. Of course it all goes terribly wrong when somebody else is after the package - Villain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a ruthless arms dealer - and one of the Expendables crew is killed in action by a knife to the throat held by Villain's right-hand-man, Hector (the awesome Scott Adkins). So what does a team of old mercenaries do? "Track 'em, find 'em, kill 'em!" … with a few old friends showing up along the way to give a helping hand.

This was a great, great action movie. If movies are based solely on the amount of fun you have watching them, then The Expendables 2 is up there with the best. Don't be stupid and look for deep meaning, just giggle like a schoolgirl when Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis empty an entire airport with automatic weapons! Laugh as Lundgren gets drunk and tries to crack on to Nan Yu's Maggie. Fist-pump the air as Terry Crews brings out the automatic shotgun from the first film and dismembers wave after wave of bad guy. Grin from ear to ear as Jason Statham dressed as a priest declares "I now pronounce you man and knife!". Cheer as Chuck Norris appears out of the smoke and forgets how to act entirely (Arnie is a bit rusty too, but who the hell cares?). Even Nan Yu (also in Dolph Lundgren's "Diamond Dogs") gets her fair share of carnage in.

"I'll be back!", "You've been back enough! It's time for me to be back!"

If you thought the first film had a lot of back-slapping referential humour, you ain't seen nothing yet! Any time Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone share a scene it's just a constant stream of "Rambo", "I'll be back" and "Yippie-ki-yay" lines. You'll cringe but you'll love it at the same time. They are clearly having a whale of a time doing it and you'll have a whale of a time watching it. And you may have read it elsewhere but Chuck Norris does crack a Chuck Norris Fact joke - and it's brilliantly awful.

Van Damme is excellent as the plutonium-obsessed leader Villain who forces slaves to dig mines looking for the lost Russian chemicals of destruction. His twisted portrayal of the character gives you someone to hate and also makes you wonder why JCVD doesn't do bad-guy roles more often - he previously only seemed to do them when he appears in the movie as two characters ala Replicant. Scott Adkins' Hector is just as great as his right-hand-man, and is ruthless in carrying out orders given to him by Villain. And yes, we get to see both dudes roundhouse kicking members of Ross' team - Van Damme's still got it!

Downsides? Well Yin Yang is only in the opening scene before making a discreet exit out of the plane with a parachute over China, to which a disappointed Gunner asks "Who am I going to make fun of now?" and Yin replies "Find another minority". Toll Road, Hale Caesar and Gunner are pushed more to the background than the first movie with no real shining moments given to any of them - though Gunner does try to save the day in one instance with his degree in Chemical Engineering; a degree that Dolph Lundgren actually has! The end fights involving Adkins and JCVD could have been longer but that is really splitting hairs - they were great as they were. Any other downsides revolve around similar issues people had with the first movie; that is some of the emotional plot lines were a bit forced and didn't quite work. That issue is still apparent here when Sly talks with Hemsworth or Nan Yu but not as bad as the attempts with Mickey Rourke were in the first film.

The Expendables 2 is the cure to all the Mission Impossible 17's and Bourne Whatever's of the world. No brains, all brawn, big guns and fun dialogue. Directed this time by Simon West who has helmed Con Air and Tomb Raider, he films a frenetic action film that only resorts to shaky-cam once by my count and looks a treat, outside a few overly-dark moments including the final Stallone/JCVD fight. Another classic in Nu Image's action repository. See this now!

Highlight:

There are many, many glorious moments in this film but I have to give it up for the few appearances we get of Chuck Norris. Every time he appears on screen he gets his own theme song. He cracks a Chuck Norris joke, badly, and it's brilliant. And he gets one of the funniest kills in the movie where the resultant headshot is viewed through the full body security scanner at the airport. Boom! 

Sourced From:

Watched at the cinema, and worth every dollar!

Trailer:

Ninja (2009)

Tagline:

A silent warrior. A lethal mission.

Back of Blu-ray:

It remains as true today as it did in the days of the ancient Samurai. The weapons of the Ninja hold legendary powers for both good men and evil. The deadly weapons of the last Koga Ninja have now been entrusted to an American Ninjitsu student studying in Japan. Commanded by his Sensei to return to New York and protect the weapons at all cost, he must defeat the skilled Yakuza assassins hunting him and prevent the power of the weapons from falling into evil hands.

Movie Review:

Ninja movies are the best and this year we were treated to two excellent ones - Ninja Assassin, with boy-band frontman Rain and Ninja movie staple Shô Kosugi, and the similarly themed Ninja starring Scott Adkins. Both have similar revenge and escape plots but one is more true to the late 70's / early 80's style ninja movie. If you can't tell by the logo above which one that is, you're reading the wrong blog. This one was also produced by action favourites Nu Image, responsible for most of Dolph Lundgren's recent output as well as the latest Rambo movie and The Expendables.

The movie starts with ninjas at a dojo practicing their art, including Scott Adkins as token white guy Casey. Adkins we learn ended up in Japan as a child when his parents were killed and he ended up being raised and trained at the dojo. He is the most trusted student of the sensei and as we can see by various stares between the two, the rival to Masazuka (Tsuyoshi Ihara). In the opening credits we are shown the Yoroi Bitsu, a chest that contains the weapons and armour of the last Koga Ninja, and some cool flashbacks of the weapons in use centuries ago.

Masazuka has a go at Casey about his parents. Casey tempers his anger when his sensei tells him to be calm, so Masazuka and Casey have a bout instead. Masazuka takes it too far though and mid-fight switches his training staff to a sword and lunges at Casey. Sensei has had quite enough by now and banishes Masazuka from the dojo. The guy blubbers like a little girl and is on his way.

The scene changes to Valdivostok where a merger is about to take place and signed in a theatre, for some reason. Before the deeds can by signed, a friggen ninja comes out of no-where and slaughters everyone. The techniques in Ninja are similar to Ninja Assassin, particularly the gore effects, but they are not as over-the-top - though we still get a knife to the head, a sliced throat and a decapitation. In a boardroom a guy with a cigar says "there will be no merger." It appears we have a Ninja-for-hire, but who could it be?

Back at the dojo, sensei is hosting a presentation to announce his successor. Masazuka swaggers in looking like a modern-day yakuza representation from a Seagal DTV movie. He demands what is 'rightfully his', the Yoroi Bitsu. Sensei obviously tells him to get stuffed. Worried about what Masazuka will do, sensei orders Casey and his own daughter Namiko to take the Yoroi Bitsu to New York to a safe hiding place. That evening Masazuka returns in his complete ninja getup and slaughters the dojo guards before confronting sensei. The lights go out but Masazuka has uber night-vision powers on his ninja helmet! Masazuka shoots sensei with a poison dart, then, when sensei refuses to divulge the location of the Yoroi Bitsu, cuts his head off.

Scott Adkins totally brings it in this movie. I am yet to watch the Undisputed movies (I am waiting to get the first one with Snipes before I sit down and watch the whole trilogy) so I am not sure how he goes in those, but in Ninja he is pretty awesome. Once in New York and after hiding the Yoroi Bitsu casket, Casey and Namiko are attacked by thugs from a local sect (headed by the boardroom cigar guy from earlier). They shoot the place up and Casey's host and friends are killed, but he and the girl manage to escape. Now on the run and presumed guilty of killing his friends, the two must both protect the casket and avoid the thugs from the sect. Not only that, but Masazuka is in town and also after them and the casket.

There's a few good action scenes before the inevitable final fight between Casey and Masazuka. The two get chased onto a train by the thugs from the sect and Adkins goes absolutely bananas with his fast martial arts. He beats up half the guys and breaks some arms, and even throws one through a (closed) window, perfectly timed so the guy is impaled on an incoming train on the opposite line. Namiko also holds her own (the daughter of a sensei, so of course she has skills) and takes the rest of the guys out with the crutches of another passenger! At the start of the third act in the flick, Masazuka catches up with the two and defeats Casey on a rooftop, escaping with an unconscious Namiko by - get this - revealing his WINGS just like friggen BATMAN and sailing to the ground! Amazing. Adkins also gets a Van Damme style six-on-one fight with guys from the sect, ending with taking out the cigar smoking guy (he's in the crazy getup in the photo below). The final fight with Masazuka is great, and Adkins gets his hands on the contents of the Yoroi Bitsu to help him.

I really enjoyed Ninja. It felt far more old-school than Ninja Assassin. The gore is more restrained but is still there, and the kills are just as sweet. In fact I think the more subdued gore makes for a tighter movie with more reliance on Adkins fighting skills eventual swordplay. They are both great movies, but I think Ninja just has the edge. Another win for Nu Image.

The Video:

An excellent quality Blu-ray from Australian newcomers All Interactive. Sharp and clear widescreen video that represents the filmed aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and a thumping DTS-HD surround soundtrack. The movie is in English but there are a few scenes in Japanese and the subtitles were fine.

Please note that the screenshots in this review are from a dodgy download version (I can't screen capture Blu-ray video) that is for some reason in full screen 4:3 aspect.

Sourced From:

eBay for $14; a very cheap new-release Blu-ray.

Trailer:

More Screens:

The Tournament (2009)



Tagline:

Every Seven Years The World's Greatest Assassins Gather... Only One Will Survive

Back of DVD:

Every seven years, thirty of the world's most deadly assassins face off against one another for an outrageous cash prize. There's only one rule: kill or die. As dozens of wealthy gamblers watch via closed-circuit TV, a city is overrun by brutal assassins - all aiming to be the last one standing. Starring Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible films), Kelly Hu (X2: X-Men United) and Robert Carlyle (Stargate: Universe), The Tournament is an explosive, action-loaded thriller where the winner takes all.

Movie Review:

This was another of those movies that I had not heard of until I saw it staring back at me on the shelf at my local DVD emporium. It had that look of direct-to-DVD action that I love to much, and recognisable names such as Robert Carlyle who I had been watching in Stargate: Universe and Ving Rhames who turns up everywhere, most notably in Pulp Fiction and the first Undisputed.

The premise for The Tournament is quite simple, and certainly not original, but who cares about that. Every seven years the worlds best assassins compete for a million dollar cash prize by trying to kill each other in an open tournament arena of a major city. We start at the end of the last Tournament in Brazil with Ving Rhames the last of three assassins squaring off in a meat locker. One is injured and on the ground, the other is a crazy guy shooting at them both with a machine gun. Rhames sick of being shot at gives the guy the slip, sneaks around the back and slides along a blood puddle right under the crazy guys nose and blows his head off with a shotgun in a gory display that, if this were a game of Quake, I would describe as a total gib fest (a recurring theme for this movie). He is much more civilised to the other bloke, giving him a last cigarette before shooting him in the head. Rhames is declared the winner.

Seven years later and The Tournament is on again. A girl gets off a train (tournament entrant Lai Lai Zhen, played by Kelly Hu) and, guided by an address on a business card, goes to a motel. When she arrives at her room she finds a bottle of red liquid marked only with "9pm" on it. Right on time she downs the red liquid then falls unconscious. If you entered a motel room and found a jar that said "drink me" would you actually do it? Or would you think "hmm, someone is trying to drug me" and pour it down the sink? Perhaps send it to the front desk and ask for police assistance? Strange, really. Lai Lai has visions during her sleep of doctors performing crude surgery on her and implanting a device. When she awakens there is a scar on her hip where something has been implanted. She pretty much deserved that in my opinion.

Robert Carlyle plays a drunk priest. He has pretty much one expression in the whole movie; "What the Christ (pun intended) is going on?" Seriously, it never changes. He's a down on his luck priest who gets kicked out of a bar and goes in search for food and coffee. At a cafe he gets a greasy breakfast down him and looks for coffee. An athletic Frenchman exits the bathroom having just performed crude surgery (there it is again) on himself to remove an implant. He flicks the device into the air and it lands in the coffee pot. You can see where this is going - Priest Carlyle gets his cup of coffee and ingests the device. Oh dear.

Elsewhere in a darkened room filled with gamblers and a large pile of cash on the table, Powers (Liam Cunningham), the host of The Tournament is taking his patrons through the contestant list. There are 30 contestants, and they have 24 hours.. "to kill.. OR DIE". Only one man or woman will survive and be declared the victor. The cliched gamblers (fat oil tycoon Texan, wealthy German businessman, etc.) proceed to place their bets, and the even more cliched geeky IT guys take control of the city's CCT system using a glorious Hollywood OS. Their screens blip with excitement as the first confirmed confrontation is underway. In her hotel, Lai Lai Zhen gets attacked by a guy pretending to be the porter. The fights in The Tournament are consistently brutal and that's the best part about it. They aren't quite Ninja Assassin over-the-top, but the gore factor is pretty high. Lai Lai kicks the guys arse and cuts his fingers off with piano wire, then shoots him in the forehead. Awesome.

The Frenchman, Anton, is now able to move freely without being tracked (those implants were trackers). Anton (Sebastien Foucan) moves like another Frenchman I know, Leito (David Belle) from Luc Besson actioner Banlieue 13. Check that clip out if you haven't seen that movie, it's fantastic. He follows the same 'free running' technique as he bolts along the roof tops of the London scenery. All the entrants have their own tracker displays so they can see where the other combatants are, and one combatant, a female sniper, as she is about to take shot at what seems to be the now trackable Priest Robert Carlyle gets her neck snapped by Anton. The shot goes off and hits another combatant anyway, so that's good. The Priest takes shelter in a nearby church and, with that expression on his face that I talked about earlier, prays for a miracle.

At this very point Lai Lai smashes in to take out her next hit when she discovers that it's the priest and he is not defending himself. He begs to live and at that moment I'm very happy to say Scott Adkins makes a short appearance as another assassin. He even has his Undisputed II & III beard! He has some amazing fast kicks and at one point tries to drown Lai Lai in the holy water, but after a distraction from the Priest, Lai Lai breaks free, drops a grenade down Adkins pants and blows him to smithereens. I really love the gore in this, haha!

Basically we have a combination of Battle Royale and Ninja Assassin - contestants killing each other off whilst Lai Lai protects the unwilling participant, Priest Robert Carlyle (Father MacAvoy if you're interested), from getting killed - with a dash of The Running Man's "evil corporation" vibe. Most of the players in The Tournament are here for the money, but there is one who is here because he just likes killing - the American entrant Miles Slade (Ian Somerhalder) who is a serial nut job that kills his dog for fun and cuts his victims fingers off with a cigar cutter. Ving Rhames is in this years contest again and he finds out from another contestant that Miles was responsible for killing his wife; so we get a good revenge subplot there too.

There is a lot to love about The Tournament. It's fast and fun, with great violence and black humour, mostly coming from the deaths of the combatants. I don't want to give any of them away but I will reveal that one of the other roles the tracking implants plays is that of a detonator. If there is no winner by the end of the 24 hours - or if the host of the show simply deems it - the devices explode like intestinators. Look out for the scene in the petrol station, it's hilarious.

Some modern action movies don't deliver, but when they are forced to go DTV, they just seem to. That's the case here again. Denied a US cinema release (though it did get a small run in the UK where it was filmed), The Tournament is a great action movie with car chases, tanker truck explosions, nightclub strippers, guns akimbo and much more, despite its recycled plot and comedy relief Priest. Well and truly worth your time.

The Video:

As you would expect, the presentation here is excellent. The modern look of the movie comes across well on my R4 16:9 enhanced DVD, and the 5.1 soundtrack does justice to the millions of gunshots and explosions (well, almost millions).

Sourced From:

eBay for $10.

Trailer: