Set only a short time after the The Raid, supercop Rama is ushered into an undercover role by a secret police task force. His job is to work his way through the criminal hierarchy until he can take out the big fish; justice isn’t really on the table here. We have a much bigger cast and some interesting characters, but The Raid 2 fails to make up for the shortcomings of the first film.

Once again, the main problem is that there’s no one to root for. Rama may be the good guy, but I simply didn’t feel for him. I understand that the point of the film is the non-stop action, but said action would be all the more exciting if I cared who won the fight. Time and again, I found myself agape at the technical marvels on show – the brilliant cinematography, editing, fight choreography – whilst at the same time frustrated that it all counted for nothing. Uwais is capable of playing sympathetic characters – look no further than Merantau as proof of that – but the script in The Raid 2 simply doesn’t provide. We’re told Rama’s doing this ‘for his family’, though there’s no evidence of that to be seen.

The violence is gruesome, though it didn’t appeal to me at all. Since contemporary Hollywood is only interested in teenagers, whenever an adult action film comes out such as this (or Olympus Has Fallen or The Expendables) they go out of their way to be hyperviolent, regardless of whether the story actually requires it. I don’t mean to sound like a wowser; you only need to look at something like Old Boy (Oldeuboi) to see how to do shocking and horrific violence well. Sometimes, less is more.

There are a number of startling action scenes to be found here, and one mighty fine car chase. It’s just such a pity that the film couldn’t elicit any emotion from me. If you liked the first one, then this will be right down your alley (though the 2.5 hour running time may be a bit much for some). For me, both Merantau and the ‘Safe Haven’ segment of V/H/S 2 were better examples of Evans’ work.

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After the ever so awkward voice over intro explaining how Japan is totes magical island sporting a good ol’ mystery shroud etcetera etcetera, we meet Kai (Keanu Reeves), a half-breed who is the lowest of the low in his local village of Ako. When a rival lord disgraces Ako’s benevolent ruler (Min Tanaka), his samurai become masterless ronin, banished from their home. What follows are their attempts to claw back their honour and seek revenge on the evil Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano).

The production values on display in 47 Ronin are fabulous. There are huge sets and fantastic real locations (no doubt aided by subtle visual effects.) The costumes are wonderfully colourful and exaggerated, and there is an overall sense that the producers didn’t skimp on anything. The visual effects are a mixed bag. The creatures look good in isolation, but their movement all too often relies on blurring and quick cuts, ensuring that we only get a good look at them when someone samurais them to death. Then, worst of all, we get a fox that looks like it’s stumbled onto frame after filming a certain Ylvis video.

Keanu gets the job done as per usual, and the rest of the cast are almost entirely Japanese, which at least makes up for Kai’s American accent. Even so, there isn’t much fun to be had here. Everyone’s so po-faced that the one or two moments of humour generated an disproportionately positive response from the audience. I think everyone came along hoping to see a fun-filled action adventure, but what they got was quite sombre and – let’s be honest – rather boring.

There’s simply not enough going on in this film. It may run for 118 minutes, but it features a threadbare narrative with very little in the way of subplots. The script provides almost nil distinguishing traits for the secondary characters, and the love story between Kai and Mika (Ko Shibasaki) is something we’re told about often enough but never really feel. Also, the family-friendly rating seems strange when you consider the difficulties of presenting a bunch of people using their swords to lop off limbs without a single spatter of blood.

47 Ronin fails by being neither a serious, gritty historical epic nor a fun, fantastical action/adventure. Instead, it’s a pale imitation of both kinds of movie, and has very little to offer aside from some great production values and pretty visuals.

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Okay, so the plot isn’t anything special. It’s a bog standard example of the type of storytelling that you see in thousands of martial arts films. But, it has something that The Raid lacked: characters that you actually like. As impressive as the action was in that blood drenched high-rise saga, we were never given a chance to feel for the players (or even tell them apart). In Merantau we have the pure of heart country kid, the pretty woman in peril, her young brother who’s presumably even more imperilled, and the bad guy who deserves to be beaten to a bloody pulp. They’re familiar archetypes, but the simplistic storytelling does everything it needs to, which for the most part is simply a method of linking together the fight scenes.

And the action is wonderful. Highlights include bamboo poles, shipping containers and bar stools, whilst one particularly remarkable fight sees two combatants sharing the same elevator. The cinematography and editing is wonderful, not only capturing the action with a minimal amount of trickery but also showing classic cinematic flair. The performances are perfunctory but get the job done. Uwais is great at displaying wide-eyed innocence that morphs into the more serious “I’m going to punch you really hard” expression, whilst Dane Mads Koudal handles the bad guy duties with aplomb, even if his accent is mightily confusing.

The image quality is really good, even if the film’s colour grading likes to blow out the picture with some rather astounding reds and greens. The special features are thankfully in HD (the days of standard definition extras on Blu-rays seem to be a thing of the past, thankfully) and the content itself is pretty good, including some outtakes of people falling over (always entertaining. Always.)

If, like me, you found The Raid a gruesome and unsatisfying experience, then Merantau is more likely to please you. It features nothing original but boasts some extraordinary extended fight scenes.

Merantau is out now from Madman on Blu-ray and DVD.

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Evans has a definite visual flair for cinematic storytelling that’s often missing in your typical martial arts movie. Usually, we’re treated to some extraordinary stunt work but rather disappointing camerawork, sound and editing. The Raid, however, is masterfully constructed. The fights are captured flawlessly, yes, but there are moments of tension that are perfect examples of cinematic montage and prove that Evans is indeed a talent to be reckoned with.

The plot is fairly simple. A powerful crime boss lives at the top of a rundown high rise apartment block that’s entirely populated by his employees, drug addicts and other unfortunates. The police plan to finally put an end to the man’s illegal empire and raid the premises. Pretty much the entire film takes place within the building, and it will come as no surprise that the raid doesn’t go the least bit according to plan.

Let me be clear: the action on display is wonderful. If the fights involved any wire-related trickery, I certainly couldn’t spot it, and I have no idea how the participants didn’t break every bone in their bodies. The film doesn’t hold back on the gore front either, and this is another thing that sets it apart from others of its ilk. The average martial arts movie is usually all in good fun – in true Looney Tunes fashion we see very little blood. The Raid, however, is about as gory as a horror flick. A lot of it is CGI blood but the make-up team were busy also. Unfortunately, this put me off the film somewhat. It just seemed a bit too nasty. I’m not used to squirming in my seat when it comes to action movies.

The other big problem with the film is that it doesn’t bother with characterisation. I realise this is an out-and-out action movie so we don’t need any great depth, but it could have at least done with the varied caricatures/stereotypes we see in movies like Predator. Instead we have a group of cops all dressed identically, and the only distinctive features are that one is slightly better at martial arts and another is a bit of a dick.

The Indonesian martial art, Pencak Silat, is the real star here, as Iko Uwais et al throw themselves around a bunch of sets that look unsurprisingly similar. As an action movie, The Raid is perfectly constructed and boasts some jaw-dropping stunts. The characterisations and dialogue are completely underwhelming, however, and the movie doesn’t seem to want us to like any of the characters.

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What do these two films have in common, you ask? Well, you see, both films feature an ex-assassin trying to lead an ordinary life. In this case, we have Drizzle (Yeoh) who, as a member of the Dark Stone gang, helped steal a MacGuffin in the opening scene. Instead of handing it over to her master, she instead scoots off with it, hiding the precious item before finding enlightenment and giving up the murdering game. She opens a stall selling fabrics, and before long has attracted the attention of the dorky yet lovable messenger, Ah-feng. Romance blossoms, but the Dark Stone gang aren’t about the let Drizzle get away with it.

The first 15 minutes of Reign of Assassins is cluttered and near overwhelming. We have flashbacks within flashbacks stuck next to high velocity action scenes, and I really had to concentrate to take it all in. It soon slows down, however, as we settle in to watch Ah-feng and Drizzle’s relationship grow. The MacGuffin in question is the remains of an Indian monk that supposedly grant powers of… well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? All we need to know is that people are willing to fight for it. And fight they do.

John Woo co-directs with Chao-Bin Su (though IMDb doesn’t seem to realise this yet) and Woo’s influence is unmistakeable every time the action kicks in. Reign of Assassins is full of balletic (and ballistic) wirework and is wondrously edited. In this post-Bourne world, it’s nice to know that some action movies can cut together a comprehensible action scene. There are flaming swords, deadly darts and most importantly, Drizzle’s Floppy Sword. OK, so it’s not called the Floppy Sword, but that’s all you need to know. Deadly yet lightweight, it can warp to execute a killing blow around her opponent’s weapons. It’s gloriously silly but great fun to watch. The Blu-ray shows off the most exciting moments with aplomb, though the film stock can be a little grainy where shadows are concerned.

Yeoh is fantastic as always and you truly believe she is capable of such lethal manoeuvres (which isn’t bad for someone at age 48.) Woo-sung Jung puts in a perfect performance as the love struck Ah-feng, though the age gap between the two is a little distracting. The other assassins don’t really get nearly enough characterisation, though Turquoise (Kelly Lin) is a deliciously off-balance psychopath.

Reign of Assassins is good fun, though could have had a good twenty minutes chopped off the running time. The film slows down too much in the build-up to the final act and at two hours, it does test one’s patience. If it had been an efficient 100 minutes or so, it would have been much better.

Reign of Assassins is available now from Madman on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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I have to be completely honest here. I understood nothing in this film. Nothing at all. I was completely adrift in an ocean of “what the hell’s going on?” with no narrative buoy on which to cling, and I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the opening title card, which at least explained the setting, but immediately afterwards we were thrown into an action scene that simply confused me. Once the film’s title came up, I thought it would perhaps jump backwards in time to set the scene, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. The film continues from this point, with very little exposition.

In fact the entire film felt like the second half of a story. I’m not sure whether this is because Luo Guanzhong’s historical novel, ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ is well known in China or what, but the film seemed to assume a certain amount of knowledge. If you’re curious to know of the plot, the IMDb page explains that “A tyrant forces the greatest warrior in the land to battle his greatest friend by holding the woman they both love hostage,” though I didn’t really see this in the film. All I knew is that Guan Yu (Yen), a kick-arse warrior with a huge halberd thingy, keeps complaining about the futility of war and how he doesn’t want to kill anymore… and then he goes off to kill some more people. There’s a love story in there somewhere too, but it’s so damn forbidden that our two lovers never get to, you know, express their love. Or even mention it in passing.

The action is great. Really, really good. This could be because during these sequences, at least I knew what was going on – someone wanted to kill Guan Yu and he had to fight back, even though he didn’t want to. This is about as clear as The Lost Bladesman got for me.

My partner did understand more of this film than I, though the film’s conclusion was completely lost on her. I’m not sure why I struggled so much with this one, and I can’t actually remember ever being as confounded as this in the cinema. For crying out loud, I managed to keep up with the likes of Primer, so why can’t I manage something like this?

So, in conclusion, I’m going to give potential viewers the benefit of the doubt: you’ll quite possibly understand more of this than I. The Lost Bladesman features some beautiful cinematography and impressive action. From my point of view, however, I simply cannot class this film as a great one, since it failed to get the narrative (and indeed, the point of the narrative) across to the viewer.

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Why’s it called Raging Phoenix? I haven’t a clue. The plot concerns an evil gang who kidnap young women to be sold as sex slaves (and worse). When young Deu almost becomes their next victim, she’s saved by a trio of – OH MY GOD CHINESE DRUNKEN FIST VERSUS DRUNKEN MUAY THAI!!!!!

As I said, the plot means little when you’ve got fighting as tremendous as this. The majority of the action seems to be a version of Muay Thai/Capoeira/breakdancing and is wonderfully ridiculous. Fighters leap and spin through the air, feet and fists collide with faces, and then they… dance. Seriously. The action is perfectly shot, too, using a filter to exaggerate all the colours so that every frame is wonderfully iridescent. The editing is great, and the cinematographers really know how to properly capture the fights. The only let down is a scene towards the end which, for some reason, suddenly switches to low-grade video (one wonders if they experienced last minute budgeting problems). It’s quite a shock, and really distracts from the awesome arse-kicking going down.

The real star of the film is Yanin Vismistananda as Deu (who was previously in the non-Johnny Depp Chocolate). She may be short and slight, but it’s clear that she could knock your brain out through your nose if she put her mind to it. The actress holds a 3rd Dan black belt in Taekwondo and as I said, Muay Thai is the style that features most prominently in the film. She’s surrounded by a cast all chosen for their physical prowess, including a break dancing crew, a French TRICKZ martial arts champion and an Asian Pacific Women’s Bodybuilding Champion. They all get a chance to strut their stuff, and whilst the performers ever so occasionally use wires, there are definitely no stunt doubles.

I’m not the biggest martial arts movie fan, not usually having the patience to sit through the banal plotting to get to the action, but Raging Phoenix simply features SO MUCH action that it won me over. I mean, when the climactic fight runs for close to 30 minutes, how can one complain about inadequate storytelling?

It’s by no means a well-rounded film, but thanks to the incomparable Vismistananda and truly breathtaking action, Raging Phoenix is a must for those who want some mindless fisticuffs.

Raging Phoenix is released on DVD on 15 December through Madman.

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Goemon Ishikawa is a Robin Hood-type character, introduced to us as he robs from the rich and gives to the poor. He is a welcome folk hero in times of never-ending war. During one of his robberies, he stumbles upon ‘Pandora’s Box’, something that will have massive ramifications not only for him but the future of the world (or so we’re told).

It takes a good twenty minutes or so to acclimatise to the fact that very little of this film was made outside a computer. Sure, the actors are real (and do much better than anyone in the Star Wars prequels at pretending they can actually see what hasn’t yet been composited) but this can’t be said for any of their surroundings.

In time, Goemon will be required to rise above mere ‘master thief’ status and become something more, something of a legend to the people of ancient Japan. Thankfully, he’s a superhuman ninja or some such. His martial arts prowess works both in the film’s favour and to its detriment. Sure, it’s cool that you can jump 100 feet into the air, but if you can do that, the humble viewer may wonder why you only do it at select moments. Facing off against 10,000 men? Sure. But then how can I expect that one particular adversary could ever give you that much trouble? Maybe you started to tire after the first 8000…

Of course, things such as these aren’t really important in a film that simply wants cool slow-motion sequences and silhouettes of leaping ninjas in front of a full moon, and on such a violent and purely escapist front, Goemon does pretty well.

The middle section gets bogged down in what feels like an eternity of flashbacks – and there are a lot of characters to remember. Only one of them is female, of course, and as an object of affection she doesn’t really cut the mustard. I appreciate that Goemon’s all about the heroic slaughter and not really about the romance, but it would have been nice to be given some indication as to why the young Chacha Asai is so worthy of our titular hero’s attention, aside from the fact that she’s perfectly symmetrical and says very little.

Honour, pride, justice, vengeance etcetera, etcetera – it’s all here, and there are one or too moments that are, against all odds, quite emotive. The main reason to enjoy a film such as Goemon, however, is to see just how horrendously ridiculous things can get. Think of the ‘burly brawl’ from The Matrix Reloaded, then think about an entire film of that one scene – that’s pretty much what Goemon is like, except with the contrast turned all the way up.

Extravagantly ridiculous, the film does have its own charm – just don’t expect to be wowed by the visuals

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DOA doesn’t even try to be too much of a movie. It’s not so much that the film resembles a computer game cutscene, rather that the film goes out of its way to resemble the game itself, even with the ‘Kasumi Vs. Bayman’ type graphics and the fight voiceovers. I can’t even remember if those two combatants actually threw down the gauntlet in the film, cos none of the fights are particularly memorable, excepting maybe the ‘Matrix bra’ scene that’s been in all the trailers. However they all produced a chuckle from me for their wire-inspired stupidity.

Veteran director Corey Yuen (The Transporter) has crafted a mildly entertaining piece of computer game fluff that manages to find excuses for gratuitous bum and cleavage shots every three minutes or so. Holly Vallance could have perhaps chosen a more significant film for her feature debut, and she performs about as well as expected considering the subject matter. It will be interesting to see if she ever manages to break into some hardcore dramatic films, especially considering her next appearance is alongside Paris Hilton in a National Lampoon comedy. Jaime Pressly’s Tina Armstrong is a pretty unlikeable character, and Devon Aoki manages to give the most extraordinarily wooden performance I think I’ve ever seen as Kasumi. Eric Roberts appears as the smarmy rich guy we’ve seen many times before, and Sarah Carter is the only actor that manages to bring some vibrancy onto the screen as Helena.

It’s crap but at least it doesn’t think too highly of itself. And for some reason it seems to feature the pirates from the ‘Asterix’ comics…

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Whilst director Ronny Yu explained before the film the difference between traditional Chinese reality-bound action films like Fearless and the fantastical ones like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang long) or House of Flying Daggers (Shi mian mai fu), Fearless has its fair share of extreme wirework. Based on the true story of Huo Yuanjia, the founder of the Jin Wu Sports Federation, the heart of the tale concerns the Chinese people and their attempts to stand strong in the face of Western imperialism. Huo Yuanjia’s tale of redemption and sacrifice has all the makings of a classic epic, though the film has a tendency to get rather heavy handed. It’s about as subtle as one of Li’s kicks to the chest.

If Fearless had been an out and out action movie then it would have been fantastic, but unfortunately it falls into clichéd and predictable moments that fail to provoke any sympathy, except in maybe the final act. It’s a pity that Li had to work with such a script (which surely isn’t simply a result of poor translation), cos he really got to show off his previously unexplored acting abilities in Unleashed (Danny the Dog).

The extensive showdown scenes are kept lively by the fact that (in true cinematic style) everyone uses different weapons and has different techniques. From the Spanish fighter to the gargantuan Hercules O’Brien (Nathan Jones) and honourable Anno Tanaka (Shido Nakamura) – the tiered levels of competition end up resembling something like Bloodsport or even The Game of Death. The action scenes are certainly the strong point of the film and in fact manage to convey more passion, emotion and intelligence than any of the dialogue.

Admittedly I don’t have a great track record with the recent Chinese action films that have made it overseas – Crouching Tiger only vaguely interested me, and House of Flying Daggers was admittedly very pretty but really rather dull. If those two were your kind of thing then maybe Fearless is for you.

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