Lots of lovely shots of urban wastelands and futuristic cityscapes generate initial promise. BUT one would expect a fighting movie to be realistic...if you're going to bother making a British MA movie the fights have to look good. As they are trying to emphasize "fancy" moments they ruin it because in slow motion tricks of how they did stuff (eg. Stand in's) is sadly revealed and fighting in slow motion does not look all that pretty if it's not up to standard (only Jet Li and Bruce Lee are masters of it). I would expect a better job on that to be a prerequisite of a MA (martial Arts) movie. In a nutshell it's a painfully simplistic remake of that old gang movie "The Warriors" but with MA added, the writing though is very poor and has very few good lines, mostly just a load of half-baked re-hashed ideas but chances are you aren't watching this movie for the plot! No, most of us came for the fighting and, in that regard the film is not worth seeing. Jobson, (the director) focuses on showing us the difficult moves by using slow-mo occasionally but what he forgets to do is inject any of the fights with any real excitement, tension or passion even the last fight seems rather by the numbers in terms of watching it; I observed it rather than got into it! His material is weak, I guess he enjoyed himself making this movie more than I or anybody else watching it will! The other supporting fighters are OK but wasted, few really make an impact or are just to paper thin for you to care about, it's just a shame that plotting, dialogue, structure, tone and acting are pretty much mediocre at best, I really, no desperately wanted this film to work!
Overall I guess the quasi-political pretensions of this film, more than anything else, killed it dead for me, you know the kids can look after themselves type (Summer Holiday mentality) stuff that died in the sixties, why resurrect it...naff, it seems to be the curse of all British filmmakers that they believe they must make worthy films? The fights lack passion and excitement but are quite fun to watch in a comical way if you compare them to the similarly themed recent film from Asia, Volcano High, which was thankfully much more tongue-in-cheek. I saw Jobson's first film at the festival last year, it showed real promise, if being heavy viewing, his laziness now though has caught him out with this one; not a really bad all told, but not much cop neither. To sum up - The plot: is empty, if not silly. The arch of the story was really not going anywhere. Character depth: nonexistent. The fight scenes: The one - and only - thing I really wanted to see work were cumbersome and unrealistic. Without it seemed any camera movement (could they not afford tracks?)loads of quick editing failed to hide the fact that the fights were just not very good, all of it, just embarrassing. But there is worse, I guess. There was some effort put into the costumes and the attempt to keep up the semblance of a story. But it was just too shallow and empty beneath to redeem this movie. Good, though, if you have other things to do and just want something to run in the background when it eventually makes it to free TV. You can just look at the movie from time to time and are certain not to miss anything of importance. So disappointed I could spit!
Overall I guess the quasi-political pretensions of this film, more than anything else, killed it dead for me, you know the kids can look after themselves type (Summer Holiday mentality) stuff that died in the sixties, why resurrect it...naff, it seems to be the curse of all British filmmakers that they believe they must make worthy films? The fights lack passion and excitement but are quite fun to watch in a comical way if you compare them to the similarly themed recent film from Asia, Volcano High, which was thankfully much more tongue-in-cheek. I saw Jobson's first film at the festival last year, it showed real promise, if being heavy viewing, his laziness now though has caught him out with this one; not a really bad all told, but not much cop neither. To sum up - The plot: is empty, if not silly. The arch of the story was really not going anywhere. Character depth: nonexistent. The fight scenes: The one - and only - thing I really wanted to see work were cumbersome and unrealistic. Without it seemed any camera movement (could they not afford tracks?)loads of quick editing failed to hide the fact that the fights were just not very good, all of it, just embarrassing. But there is worse, I guess. There was some effort put into the costumes and the attempt to keep up the semblance of a story. But it was just too shallow and empty beneath to redeem this movie. Good, though, if you have other things to do and just want something to run in the background when it eventually makes it to free TV. You can just look at the movie from time to time and are certain not to miss anything of importance. So disappointed I could spit!