...you'll barely find one. But if you're looking for some surprisingly awesome choreographed fight and action scenes, you've come to the right place.
This is pro-stunt-man-turned-newb-filmmaker Alex Chung's first full length feature film (with only a handful a previous shorts) as writer, producer, director, editor, choreographer and *whew* actor. It's an independent, surprisingly "zero funded", B grade Canadian film. According to the Trivia section, this story was supposed to be a trilogy of shorts, but instead was mended together into a full length film - which perhaps explains the choppy screenplay.
The cinematography was decent, the score surprisingly fitting and bearable (unlike most B-grade films where it's too loud, overbearing, unfitting and annoying), but the directing certainly needed improvement. The cast performances for the most part were unconvincing and amateurish, but I'm sure most of it was due to Chung's lack of experience in directing his cast effectively. The conceptual story was creative, but the screenplay was way too choppy and convoluted and could've also been edited better. I'm still confused to what I saw in the first 5 minutes with the convoluted back and forth scenes.
So as the story began, I was even more disappointed with pretty much every aspect - even the sound was way off, as if someone forgot to bring the boom mics. But the more I saw the outstandingly choreographed fight and action scenes including some unexpectedly crazy gore, I really started getting into the film and saw it right to the "Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse meets Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon" crazy ending. I have to say it has some of the best John Wick style fight scenes I've seen in awhile.
Clearly this is no Hollywood big budget production, but still a decent effort from a newb filmmaker. And as such, I'm giving this film a very generous 6/10 based on its own merits and low production costs. It is certainly undeserving of any 1's and 2's, considering new filmmaker's have to start somewhere, right? Having said that, I'm gonna go back again to see some of those amazing fight scenes, which imo, make up for at least a some of its flaws.
I'm looking forward to Chung improving his filmmaking skills and coming up with some feature films that are well produced and still have these amazing fight choreography, action and stunts. Props and respect for his first attempt.
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