Mojin - The Lost Legend (鬼吹灯之寻龙诀)

For F*** Magazine

MOJIN - THE LOST LEGEND (鬼吹灯之寻龙诀)

Director : Wuershan

Cast : Chen Kun, Angelababy, Shu Qi, Huang Bo, Xia Yu, Cherry Ngan, Liu Xiaoqing

Genre : Fantasy/Adventure

Run Time : 125 mins

Opens : 7 January 2016

Rating : PG13 (Some Violence)

            It’s into the dusty, booby-trapped depths we go with our intrepid trio of heroes in this fantasy adventure. It is 1988 and grave-robbing explorers Hu Bayi (Chen), Wang Kaixuan (Huang) and Shirley Yang (Shu Qi) have retired to New York City. The three are the last remaining members of the Mojin Xiaowei, an ancient secret order of treasure hunters. Despite washing their hands of their dangerous exploits, the trio are drawn back into the fray when an incident from Hu and Wang’s days as teenagers in the Red Guards involving the fate of their mutual crush Ding Sitian (Angelababy) comes back to haunt them. Their middleman “Big Gold Tooth” (Xia) secures a contract with wealthy CEO/cult-leader Ying Caihong (Liu), who is in search of the mythical Equinox Flower artefact, believing it can grant her immortality. Deep within long-buried tombs, the Mojin come face-to-face with the past in more ways than one.

            Mojin – The Lost Legend is based on Zhang Muye’s best-selling fantasy novel Ghost Blows Out the Light, functioning as sort of a sequel rather than a straight adaptation. The novel also spawned an unrelated film called Ghost Blows Out: The Nine-Story Demon Tower, released in September 2015. Don’t ask us how the rights worked out, maybe It’s a Thunderball/Never Say Never Again-type deal.

This reviewer loves a good old-fashioned adventure flick and counts the Indiana Jones films, especially Last Crusade, as some of his favourite movies ever. Mojin promises lavish spectacle and pulse-pounding action, but instead it is muddled and bloated. Quest movies are by nature straight-forward affairs, but Mojin is pointlessly convoluted to a dizzying extent. The attempts at comedy are grating, the emotional scenes fall flat and the action sequences are flashy but ultimately unremarkable. During an extended flashback in which Little Red Book-brandishing, Mao-quoting Red Guard youths fend off zombie WWII-era Japanese soldiers, the film becomes Nationalist Treasure. The production design by Hao Yi features several cavernous sets bursting with intricately-carved details, but there’s a disappointing monotony to the subterranean chambers that is sorely lacking visual flair.

            While there is an attempt to flesh out two of the three leads by way of afore-mentioned flashback, there’s still far too little to hook on to. Hu and Shirley have a contentious love-hate relationship which is supposed to be romantic in a screwball fashion but is tedious instead. Chen is boring, Huang mugs for the camera and Shu Qi is just doing the Lara Croft thing, right down to the braided ponytail. Angelababy makes for a suitably dreamy hypotenuse to a love triangle between wistful youths, but that subplot feels entirely out of place in this adventure flick. Xia Yu is downright insufferable as the whiny, lily-livered Big Gold Tooth and Liu adds nothing to the “wealthy benefactor with a shady past” archetype we always see in films of this type. On top of all that, we have Cherry Ngan playing a henchwoman clad in a Japanese schoolgirl uniform, clearly aping Kill Bill’s Gogo Yubari.

            The visual effects work here is markedly more competent than in many recent Chinese films, though there are several sequences that are still some ways off from being convincing. From the martial arts to the rickety rope bridges to the hordes of undead guarding the buried treasure, Mojin – The Lost Legend has all the makings of a rousing adventure romp, but it never quite gets into gear. There are only so many times people can outrun a collapsing tomb before it gets tiresome. At once frenzied and listless, Mojin – The Lost Legend doesn’t make good on its promise of pulpy thrills.

Summary: A convoluted plot and characters that are either one-dimensional or downright annoying stand in the way of genuine adventure movie fun.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Black and White: The Dawn of Justice

For F*** Magazine

BLACK AND WHITE: THE DAWN OF JUSTICE (痞子英雄: 黎明升起 )

Director : Tsai Yueh-Hsun
Cast : Mark Chao, Lin Geng-Xin, Huang Bo, Chang Chun-Ning, Zha Na, Terri Kwan, Christopher Lee
Genre : Action/Thriller
Opens : 9 October 2014
Rating : PG13 (Violence)
Run time: 126 mins

This reviewer is fighting with every fibre of his being not to make a Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice joke. This reviewer has failed. In this Taiwanese action flick, our super team is not that of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, but of Harbour City cops Wu Ying-xiong (Chao) and Chen Zhen (Gengzin). Following his rescue of a hijacked plane in the first film The Dawn of Assault, Wu Ying-xiong has become the poster child for the Harbour City police. His new partner Chen Zhen doesn’t think quite as highly of him as everyone else does, but they have to put their heads together to foil a massive threat to Harbour City. The Nightwalkers, a highly-trained and well-equipped terrorist organisation, have captured wanted criminals and in a sick form of vigilante justice, have unleashed them upon the city as suicide bombers. The Nightwalkers steal an EMP rocket and in addition to killing all power to the city, are bent on releasing the lethal Irukanji virus into the air. With the government’s black-ops team the Black Hawks crippled, the two cops must go it alone to save Harbour City from destruction.

            Black and White: The Dawn of Justice is the second film based on the 2009 TV series Black and White, also starring Mark Chao as Wu Ying-xiong. This is a franchise where the hero’s name literally translates to “hero”. The Dawn of Justice is a bombastic, over-the-top action spectacular that is deeply silly but is somehow all the more enjoyable for it. Right out the gate, we get an action sequence in which the baddies jump their motorcycles out of a truck, backflip off said motorcycles onto the roof of an official government vehicle carrying the defence department’s top brass, use a plasma cutter to break into the vehicle and receive air support in the form of a henchwoman in a black leather skirt, firing a mini-gun mounted on a stealth helicopter straight out of GI Joe. Now, this isn’t exactly “so bad it’s good”, but it’s on that spectrum. As of late, we’ve seen Asian films that try to emulate the post-Bourne grittiness of Hollywood actioners to limited success. In this movie, any semblance of realism is tossed out the window with wild abandon and that’s far from a bad thing.

            Tsai Yueh-Hsun, who worked on the Black and White series among other TV shows and made his feature film debut with The Dawn of Assault, deserves applause for this ambitious undertaking. The action is almost wall-to-wall, the film only sagging slightly during its third act before the climax. There’s a great mix of crazy, gigantic fireball-fuelled set pieces and intense hand-to-hand combat sequences. The visual effects work is far from wholly convincing, particularly the afore-mentioned computer generated helicopter. However, the effort taken to create a high-octane extravaganza akin to Hollywood productions but on a fraction of the budget is evident. Stunt coordinator and second unit director Jack Gill has worked on Fast Five and fight designer Ron Yuan’s credits include 24 and Prison Break; their expertise helping Tsai realise his vision. This reviewer was giddy with childlike excitement when the Chen Zhen character leapt onto an attack drone, wrestling with it in mid-air while forcibly turning its guns on the bad guys.

            Of course, it is impossible to take any of this even remotely seriously. Whatever pathos Tsai was aiming for is undercut by the goofiness of the stock villainous scheme. Lam Xi-en, the leader of the Nightwalkers, is shaggy-haired, wears aviator shades, is covered in tattoos and speaks in a low, gravelly growl.  He’s on a mission to “cleanse the city of its sins” and he actually delivers a speech beginning with “You think I’m a bad guy. I’m not. I’m God.” Of course, there’s a faux-shocking revelation regarding his true identity.

However, there is a good deal of intentional humour in the film as well and the buddy cop pairing of Mark Chao’s Ying-xiong and Ling Gengzin’s Chen Zhen carries the film. Yes, their “bickering old married couple” dynamic is not new to the genre, but it did remind this reviewer of Riggs and Murtagh from the Lethal Weapon movies – this is high praise. Reprising his role of Huang Shi-kai from the series, Shiou Jieh Kai is slightly more of a heartthrob than the two leads. Returning from The Dawn of Assault, Huang Bo is equal parts sympathetic and tragicomic as Xu Dafu, the misunderstood criminal who ended up helping Ying-xiong in the last film. Singaporeans should get a kick out of seeing local star Christopher Lee in a supporting role as Harbour City’s defence department chief. Unfortunately, the female members of the cast, including ostensible leading lady Ning Chang, get side-lined.

            In the midst of all that fun, this reviewer did cringe hard at the questionable imagery of downed airliners crashing into a populated city and skyscrapers collapsing. Action movies are meant to have large-scale destruction but this is particularly poor taste, guys.

That aside, Black and White: The Dawn of Justice is gleefully ludicrous in its presentation of action movie hijinks. Once you view it as a heightened, comic book-y, cheesy action romp, you’re probably gonna have a good time with it. This is the kind of earnest, overblown popcorn entertainment that doesn’t take itself too seriously but is not obnoxious self-parody either, something action junkies haven’t gotten often enough from major Hollywood studios as of late.

Summary: If you’re in the mood for unabashedly silly, not particularly polished but lavish, entertaining action, hop in the cop car with Wu Ying-xiong and Chen Zhen.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Police Story 2013 (警察故事2013)

For F*** Magazine

POLICE STORY 2013 (警察故事2013)

Director: Ding Sheng
Cast:         Jackie Chan, Liu Ye, Jing Tian, Huang Bo, Yu Rongguang, Zhang Lanxin, Wang Zhifei
Genre: Action, Crime
Run Time: 106 mins
Opens: 24 December 2013
Rating: PG13

Upon the release of last year’s CZ12, Jackie Chan was pretty sure that it would be his last big, action-centric role, but the actor was also adamant that he was far from retirement. He revisits the Police Story franchise in this film which, like New Police Story before it, is unrelated to the earlier entries in the series and promises to be tough and serious. But are “grim and gritty” and “Jackie Chan” really the best bedfellows?

Ditching the Chan Ka-Kui persona from the first four Police Story films and Chan Kwok-Wing from New Police Story, here, Jackie Chan plays Mainland Chinese police Captain Zhong Wen. He goes to meet his somewhat-estranged daughter Miao Miao (Jing Tian) at the Wu Bar, an industrial-chic establishment converted from a factory. Zhong discovers Miao Miao is dating the Wu Bar’s proprietor Wu Jiang (Liu Ye), something he disapproves of. It turns out that his suspicions of Wu Jiang are not unfounded as Zhong and the rest of the patrons get taken hostage inside the nightclub. Wu Jiang pursues a vendetta that began one night five years ago with an incident in a pharmacy, and it turns out that Zhong was there. Zhong has to fight for the safety of his daughter and everyone else held hostage as the police plans an infiltration of the Wu Bar to put an end to a night of madness.



Audiences will know they’re in for something different than the usual Jackie Chan action romp from the opening scene onwards – that scene featuring Jackie holding a gun to his head. In his review of Police Story 3: Super Cop, film critic James Berardinelli said of Jackie Chan’s style, “this is action with a smile, not a grimace.” Well, Police Story 2013 is very heavy on the grimacing indeed. This film is essentially Die Hard in a Nightclub, with Capt. Zhong and the other characters stuck on the premises for most of the film. It’s even set during Christmas, like Die Hard. However, Bruce Willis cracked a good number of jokes but here, Jackie Chan does nothing of the sort, gritting his teeth through the whole affair.


The vast majority of Jackie Chan’s films are exuberant and silly, the actor favouring a madcap style of physical humour and incorporating comedy into action sequences in an inventive manner. While CZ12 was almost gratingly juvenile, here, we have a Jackie who’s grizzled and hard-boiled. The problem with this is that everything that makes Jackie Chan who he is gets stripped away. There really aren’t enough action sequences in this action thriller and the main fight is a pretty brutal cage match, hits and impacts enhanced with Zack-Snyder style slow-motion and ramping. It’s not an enjoyable melee to watch; that mix of playfulness and peril that Jackie does so well replaced with more typical movie violence.



Ding Sheng, who directed Jackie in Little Big Soldier, pulls triple duty as director, screenwriter and editor. In all fairness, Police Story 2013 isn’t a poorly-constructed film and possesses some effectively dramatic moments. However, Liu Ye makes for a relatively disappointing villain. The character’s motivations are very personal, veering into soap opera territory. As an adversary, he pales in comparison to Daniel Wu’s captivating, wickedly charismatic turn as Joe Kwan in New Police Story. The idea of an aging cop mending bridges with his daughter is far from a new one but Jackie and Jing Tian work well enough as father and daughter.



The frustrating thing about Police Story 2013 is that Jackie Chan is not a bad actor and he can be convincingly serious (see Crime Story, The Shinjuku Incident or even Karate Kid) – but then, he ends up just like every other action hero. As he gets on in years, he has been open about his desire to take on more dramatic and less action-centric parts. Perhaps we should be glad that he's no longer running through spice markets butt-naked but we’re pretty sure that most of Jackie’s fans will find themselves missing the humour and vim and verve that are his trademarks. As with most of his films, a gag reel rolls as the end credits do, in which we see Jackie flub lines, get nicked by too-realistic prop knives, take some hits and goof off. It only goes to show that “action with a smile” really is his wheelhouse.

SUMMARY: While not a bad film, Police Story 2013 doesn’t play to Jackie Chan’s strengths, turning him into every other tough action hero ever. It’s surprisingly short on the stunts and thrills too.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong