For martial arts crime drama Clash (AKA Bay Rong), Vietnamese director Thanh Son Le aims for the look and feel of a John Woo heroic bloodshed movie, but where Woo's style always felt natural and seemingly effortless, Le's swagger is laboured, his film almost laughable in its desperate attempts to appear cool. Clash features slow-motion (natch), is colour graded to within an inch of its life, and whenever a 'poignant' scene interrupts the kicking and punching, the pounding techno music stops and operatic music plays on the soundtrack. Try-hard much?
An utterly confusing pre-credits scene immediately sets alarm bells ringing, but thankfully the main plot to this nonsense is actually very simple: in order to gain freedom for herself and her young daughter from crime boss Hac Long AKA Black Dragon (Hoang Phuc Nguyen), sexy mercenary Trinh (AKA Phoenix) must do one last job, assembling a crack team of tough-guys to steal a valuable lap-top. The clichés come thick and fast, with gang member Quan (Johnny Nguyen), who becomes Trinh's love interest, revealed to be an undercover cop, leading to mixed emotions and divided loyalties (and more operatic singing).
The film's simplistic and predictable plot, and even its self-important style, might be excusable if the action was exceptional, but it isn't: the fighting is hard-hitting and well executed, but there is very little variation in the choreography, and the shoot-outs lack the chaotic, bloody majesty of Woo's gun-fu classics. It's certainly not enough to save the film from mediocrity.
3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.
An utterly confusing pre-credits scene immediately sets alarm bells ringing, but thankfully the main plot to this nonsense is actually very simple: in order to gain freedom for herself and her young daughter from crime boss Hac Long AKA Black Dragon (Hoang Phuc Nguyen), sexy mercenary Trinh (AKA Phoenix) must do one last job, assembling a crack team of tough-guys to steal a valuable lap-top. The clichés come thick and fast, with gang member Quan (Johnny Nguyen), who becomes Trinh's love interest, revealed to be an undercover cop, leading to mixed emotions and divided loyalties (and more operatic singing).
The film's simplistic and predictable plot, and even its self-important style, might be excusable if the action was exceptional, but it isn't: the fighting is hard-hitting and well executed, but there is very little variation in the choreography, and the shoot-outs lack the chaotic, bloody majesty of Woo's gun-fu classics. It's certainly not enough to save the film from mediocrity.
3.5/10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.