Hong Kong cinema is where you want to look for nonstop, guns blazing, action films.  With the growth in popularity of Asian films in the American market and the massive volume of films exported each year to our DVD shelves, not all of them can be stellar.  That’s a huge problem I’ve run into a lot lately with Tartan releases, among other companies, it seems to be all about quantity over quality.  The new film produced by John Woo and directed by newcomer Alexi Tan falls into that category headfirst.  Before I get into my analysis of why this film is sub-par, I’ll tell you what it’s about. Don’t be surprised if you’ve heard this all before, the plot is very well worn territory.

The film is set in 1930’s Shanghai, where three childhood friends move to in hopes of making a better life for themselves.  Kang and Hu are brothers and Fung might as well be related because they’ve all known each other since birth.  Kang from the beginning really wants to make a name for himself and there are plenty of instances foreshadowing his hunger for power.  Fung is the love struck starry eyed one of the bunch and Hu is the helpless, slightly dimwitted little brother.  These three start working at a club called Paradise that is run by Boss Hong, a ruthless and sadistic mob boss who has an iron fist clenched on the city and is not afraid to shed a little or a lot of blood.  His brother Mark is his most trusted hitman, who also happens to be in love with Hong’s girlfriend Lulu.  Kang and his brothers start working their way up the ranks of the mob doing dirty work, but it’s clear that Kang wants more as his sadistic side begins to show with the more power he gets. (SPOILER ALERT!!!!)  Then everything goes down hill when brothers turn on each other, Kang kills Boss Hong and his own brother Hu taking over the syndicate.  Mark and Fung come back for revenge and a decent shoot-out goes down at Club Paradise.  And so it ends where all their betrayal began.

The film has a decent premise and fairly well drawn characters, but offers almost nothing new to the table.  We’ve all seen this type of story before in film, in fact most of the themes are reminiscent of Shakespearean tragedies where everyone betrays everyone and then they all die (that’s of course an oversimplification, but you get my point).  So if you’re a young, new filmmaker and really want to make a name for yourself don’t do what everyone else has already done.  Alexi Tan falls into the over-sentimentality trap several times.  The cheesy music kicks in as the brothers chum around their old town talking of big dreams in Shanghai.  The entire set up of all the characters where we are supposed to grow to care for these friends, plays more sappy and boring than anything.  John Woo had moments of sentimentality in films like “A Better Tomorrow,” but he always made up for it with incredible, almost ballet-like, gun battles.  Which is where this film falls severely short.

This is supposed to be an action film, or at least it’s billed that way, but it’s almost completely devoid of action.  The scenes where gunfights do break out seem very amateur in execution and lack any particular visual flare or style.  The gunfights play out like a generic version of a John Woo film from the 80’s, which is incredibly unfortunate because Alexi Tan should be ushering in a new era of shoot-outs not poorly recreating old scenarios.  The gun fights literally consist of one character ducking behind a wall and shooting at another who’s ducked behind a car, there’s no real build or momentum, the action scenes just linger for a second then it’s back to more melodrama.  SPOILER ALERT!!! Although the end action scene where Fung and Mark come back to Club Paradise has one awesome moment, when Fung gets on stage with a shotgun and says “Paradise is closed.” Then starts shooting bad guys left and right.  Once again the scene sounds cooler than it is, because all that happens is our heroes run from room to room shooting everyone really easily, not much choreography involved.  Gunfights and action scenes are like ballets for guys so imagine a ballet where the dancers just walked and hopped up in the air occasionally but never did anything too complicated and that’s how I feel about these action scenes.

Now that I’ve tore into this film a little, is there anything of merit?  Yes, the sets and costumes are beautiful and lend to a very classy feel.  The environment is well established and looks great.  The acting is pretty damn good as well, especially Liu Ye who plays Brother Kang.  Liu’s last role that I’d seen was in “Curse of the Golden Flower” a pretty amazing movie, but this role was more of a push over and kind of a pansy to put it bluntly.  It was really great to see him go from the watchful older brother to a sadistic ambition driven mob boss.  He wants to be the best; he wants to be at the top, no matter who he has to hurt in the process.  The depth he brings to the role is fully grounded and really great to watch.  The other actors play their parts well and should get recognition, but Kang’s character is the most dynamic.  All around I give the cast credit, just wished they had more to work with.

SPECIAL FEATURES

None, just English subtitles or dubbing options and a few trailers for other First Look releases.

FINAL THOUGHTS

“Blood Brothers” is not a terrible film; it does a sufficient job of telling the story it sets out to tell.  The problem is that the film offers nothing new to the table.  If you are new to Hong Kong cinema just watch any of John Woo’s classics instead, especially “Hard Boiled” or even “Bullet in the Head.”  If you’re an avid Hong Kong cinema junkie, I would still wait for something better to come along or watch “Exiled,” it deals with a lot of the same themes but rocks!!  I hope Alexi Tan steps his game up on the next feature he makes if he wants to follow in John Woo’s footsteps.