SPL 2: A TIME FOR CONSEQUENCES (杀破狼II)
Director : Soi Cheang
Cast : Tony Jaa, Louis Koo, Wu Jing, Simon Yam, Zhang Jin, Philip Keung, Ken Lo
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 120 mins
Opens : 2 July 2015
Rating : NC-16 (Violence and Drug Use)
Tony Jaa has no more time for elephants, only a time
for consequences in this Hong Kong-Thai action thriller. Jaa plays Chai, a
prison guard whose young daughter Sa is battling leukaemia. An unlikely new
prisoner lands in the jail where Chai works: Hong Kong undercover cop Kit (Wu),
who has had his cover blown while on the trail of organ trafficking ring
kingpin Mr. Hung (Koo). Mr. Hung, himself terminally ill, is in Thailand for a
heart transplant to save his life, forcing his younger brother (Jun Kung) to be
the donor. Kit’s supervisor and uncle Wah (Yam) tracks his nephew down and
travels to Thailand to retrieve him. It turns out that Kit is the only bone
marrow match for Sa, so Kit and Chai must become unlikely partners to save
their own lives and the life of little Sa as fists and bullets fly.
SPL 2 is rather confusingly named – it
is almost completely unrelated to the 2005 film SPL, starring Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, even though both Simon Yam
and Wu Jing were in the earlier movie too. This is a “spiritual sequel”, i.e.
some other script with the “SPL” name slapped onto it. The film’s
grammatically-impaired English tagline is “Real action. Real fight.” There are
fights aplenty and action director Li Chung Chi choreographs some intense
battles, including a shootout at a ferry terminal and a stylish climactic
showdown in a pristine high-end medical facility. It is also a boon that Tony
Jaa, Wu Jing and Zhang Jin are all highly skilled martial artists in their own
right and are able to perform their own fights. Those looking purely for “real
fight”, however, will probably come away slightly disappointed at the usage of stylised
wirework for several of the sequences.
While
it contains enough fisticuffs to satiate action junkies, SPL 2 is burdened with an unexpectedly convoluted, labyrinth story.
A key plot device is that of a terminally ill little girl and the search for a
bone marrow donor – this seems more at home in a soap opera than in a martial
arts flick. The plot has to straddle both Hong Kong and Thailand and this is
often done quite clumsily. It seems as if screenwriter Jill Leung Lai-yin was
tasked with finding a way to work Jaa into the story and ended up spinning a
far knottier yarn that was needed. This is a film in which the two protagonists
do not speak the same language, and have to communicate via smart phone
translator app. If that doesn’t drive a wedge in the buddy chemistry, we have
no idea what will.
Tony
Jaa is very likeable as an action hero and is experiencing something of a career
resurgence after completing his stint as a Buddhist monk, making inroads into
Hollywood with Fast and Furious 7 and
the Dolph Lundgren-starrer Skin Trade.
He has the earnestness and intensity down pat but of course, it’s his
impressive Muay Thai-trained athleticism
that makes more of an impact than anything else. Wu Jing comes from a different
martial arts training background and they do complement each other, even though
their partnership never feels complete because of the invisible
cultural/language barrier that’s always there. Rocking a waistcoat, Zhang Jin
is slick and dangerous as the prison warden and main henchman to Mr. Hung. Louis
Koo puts aside his usual handsome, healthy appearance as the sickly master
criminal; his portrayal sinister but never wholly threatening.
Instead
of having a little fun and being truly inventive with the action sequences, SPL 2 takes itself far too seriously –
the faux-portentous subtitle “A Time for Consequences” should have been
indication enough. Instead of being gritty and hard-hitting, the film is often
frustratingly maudlin, melodramatic and hard to follow. The cliché use of very
recognisable pieces of classical music in an attempt to elicit pathos,
including Mozart’s Requiem and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Summer), further mires
the film in unintentional hilarity. The filmmakers clearly had access to the
resources and talent to make a truly entertaining, breath-taking martial arts
extravaganza, but have instead tangled themselves up in too much plot.
Summary: Even though it contains a fair amount of
neatly-choreographed action, SPL 2 is
slow, difficult to follow and fails to deliver a cohesive team-up between Thai
action star Tony Jaa and Hong Kong action star Wu Jing.
RATING:
2 out of 5 Stars
Jedd Jong
