Review of Robin Shue's filmography from Uran

24.07.2016uranium

The time has come for a review of the filmography of another Asian of our youth - today I will talk to you about such a hero of B-action films of the past as Robin Shu. At the time of writing, he is already 56 years old, which is quite a lot and leads to sad thoughts that we may well not see him in the role of even the aged Liu Kang. 

Shu is known to Western and Russian-speaking viewers as the main character of the first "Mortal Kombat", according to most, considered the best film adaptation of the game in the 90s (in the 2000s, relatively, according to fans, Silent Hill was successfully brought to the screens; in the tenths, after many years of stagnation in game adaptations, Warcraft entered the arena). However, , after the great success of the first МК and the not very grandiose, but still a failure of the second (the film made up the budget for the hump of the first part, but received negative reviews), Robin somehow got lost. The answer to where he went will be given as we review his films - after all, before Mortal and a little after, he still acted somewhere and it would be stupid not to mention some of these films.

I’ll say right away, despite my skills (karate and wushu), as well as my appearance, which won the hearts of fans and MK casting specialists, Robin is still among the main movie Asians in terms of combat (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Phillip Rea) was noticeably inferior, but nevertheless looked very good in a number of battles. Now - the filmography, and the first number today will be...

Death Cage (Zhan long, 1988)

The classic plot of Chinese cinema of the late 80s is a clash of schools, this time Chinese and American. At the very beginning, the boy Xi Han (Robin Shu), a representative of the Chinese, fights in the next competition against an American savage and loses due to the latter’s cheating, and his shabby teacher also gets caught. After this, the school is closed, and the heroes are forced to work in their own car repair shop, which is constantly raided by local gopniks sent by the Yankees. Then either a friend or a relative of the teacher comes to the teacher with his daughter, who turns out to be a cool kungfu player and teaches Xi Han new techniques, thanks to which he first returns glory to his school, and then more severe battles await him and the others.

What can I say? Despite the fact that against the backdrop of Chinese action films like “Once Upon a Time in China,” Cage of Death looks like a drab B-shka, this film can be watched, the main reason is the variety of brutal battles. Various styles are used in fights - wushu, kickboxing, karate and even judo with a rare guest in such action films - the ground game (even if Si Han escaped from the crease somehow absurdly and fabulously), swords, knives and other edges also flash, there will be a couple of shootouts . The fights are brutal and sometimes unpredictable: there is a lot of blood and fans of juicy impalement on something spicy will enjoy this film, especially in the second half.

At first, however, the film is boring and dull - after an energetic, but not the best shot showdown at the beginning, the film sags for 20-25 minutes - Robin will be forbidden to fight by his speech therapist teacher. However, after the arrival of an old friend, the action will slow down and there will be noticeably more fights, plot twists and colorful characters, as well as their quality and staging will increase - there is a feeling that the first half was directed by one person, and the second by another, more sane one. The fight of the main character against two American women in military uniform will be firmly included in the playlist of movie catfight fans, while the brutal final showdown in a bamboo cage with the main bastard played by the titled karateka Joe Lewis in the role of a classic bullish American also looks cheerful and intoxicating.

Сonclusion: not bad, although a bit poor. If you can endure the first half, you will be very pleased with the second. I’ll be honest - even if the film is not the best, it is five heads higher than 70% of the shit that is being made in our time and dares to call itself a hand-to-hand action movie.

Tiger Cage 2 (2)

Film Yuen Wu Ping (Ip Man), after which the audience began to recognize Robin Shu - here he plays the main villain. According to the plot, the main character is a former police officer Dragon (Donnie Yen) is trying to divorce his wife through lawyer Mandy (Rosamund Kwan), and at that moment a brutal shootout occurs in the building - three friends, co-founders of the law office, were robbed after a successful deal. The money from the deal disappears somewhere and suspicion of its misappropriation falls on Mandy and Dragon - and they, along with one of those three friends, David, spend the entire film running away from bandits and assassins, trying to find out who is behind this and where, in fact, money.

This is an excellent tragicomic action film and a good gift for fans of Hong Kong action films:

• Remarkably choreographed fight scenes - there will be Jackie Chan style fights using objects and smashing of scenery, and serious bloody showdowns, and inter-style fights, especially with a swordsman played by the Highlander mowing down John Salvitti on swords and with a wrestler (Michael Woods) before the very end. The fight between David Wu and Robin Shu is also good. For variety, they added a female fighting character (Cynthia Khan) with a couple of fight scenes - in general, you won’t get bored.
• Good bloody shootouts, breaking up fights with a variety of weapons.
• Not a bad acting game. Most memorable is Rosamund Kwan, who played the typical office loser and made it so funny that I take my hat off, followed by Robin Shue, who played the arrogant and cunning villain.
• And finally, Richard Yuen, the composer of this film, whose music takes me back to that era, it will make even poorly staged fights look a hundred times better. I take my hat off to him too.

Of the minuses: Asian plot introduction, in which at first it is not clear what is happening; the not entirely clear necessity of Cynthia Khan’s character and the too short final fight with Robin Shue, because after the cool showdown with his assistants, I expected a cool final showdown with the goat he played.

Сonclusion - if you haven’t watched it yet, do it soon, it’s a great movie!

Eastern Heroes (1991)

Here Robin Shu gets to the Chinese Jalal Merhi named Phillip Ko. According to the plot, two police brothers Mac (Ben Ng) and Ray (Conan Lee) confront brutal bandits, only Mac does this in Hong Kong, and Ray and his partner do it in America. Mack manages to expose and defeat an entire gang, killing their leader, but the remnants of the gang ask for help from the recently released Hawk (Robin Shue), who got into the zone thanks to Ray and his partner. The hawk willingly agrees and his cruel revenge begins.

This film is very harsh and bloody, so I would not particularly recommend watching it for the faint of heart and for children:

• Lots of brutal murders, especially in the second half of the film.
• 2 pregnant women will be killed, one before this will be raped and mutilated by the Hawk and his henchmen, the scene, although not pornographic, is disgusting; It's very unusual to see the Liu Kang from your childhood behaving like this in another film.
• One of the villains will be killed with a long stake in the ass.
• Several positive characters will die rather ingloriously and unexpectedly.
• The final chukala is long and harsh - the heroes beat each other almost into meat. Robin has several good fights (for such a film), but the emphasis is not on choreography, but on rage and anger - and you readily believe that the actors tried their best.
• To dilute the composition, a typical cranberry American (Mark Houghton) with a classically violent character is added. Houghton wildly overplayed his hand, but he carried out the fight with the commander's henchman convincingly, nevertheless, taking up time from Conan Lee.

There is a noticeable disadvantage - often Asian thriller films have a long introductory part, unwinding the plot too long and slowly in the first half, drawing a bunch of characters in order to unravel this tangle in the second; so, for it to unravel correctly and capture the viewer, an experienced screenwriter and director is needed (for example, as in the Korean thriller “Target”), but in this case, Phillip Ko turned out to be too incomprehensible in the first half, and Shu and Conan Lee will appear normally only in second half, closer to the final.

Is it worth watching? If you like brutal Asian thrillers with bloody plot twists, this will suit you. Fans of just action films (both small arms and hand-to-hand) will also like it, there is enough action here, it is staged well and they fight here not only with their hands and feet, but also grab hold of improvised weapons, which in such a movie work much better than swords and pistols ( which is what I wrote about when reviewing “Ninja Territory” with Phillip Rea).

Interpol Agent (Interpol Connection, 1992)

The main character, muscled policeman Ko Chi Pen (Robin Shu), is tasked with delivering his worst enemy Lo, who once killed his partner, from Manila to Hong Kong. But Law escapes and Pen, teaming up with the moronic but lucky local cop King Kong, whose comrade was also killed, decides to overtake the villain.

Sound familiar? That's right - this is a Chinese clone of "Red Heat" with Schwarzenegger and Belushi, and up to a certain point the original is copied 70% (except, of course, for all the most outrageous things, like "Kiss My Ass" and cobbled shootouts), except perhaps Robin, before Schwartz, crawls to the homeland of this same Robin. The local Belushi was VERY annoying, I wanted to get into the screen and punch him in the face, the character was of little use both in terms of plot and humor.

The situation was saved by the finale - not a truck chase, but an infiltration into the citadel of Glavgad and a battle with motley bosses. Here the heroes are joined by agent Yushi Hito, played by the cool Oshima Yukari, and it is she who pulls this very passable film out of the swamp. The idea of ​​replacing the chase with a citadel is very good and, if the director had not been Phillip Ko, it could have been woven in very organically. There is not much action, the best is reserved for the finale, the fights there are, as they say, “pulling”, but they do not save the film. The clone is unsuccessful, just watch the ending - that's the whole story.

Fatal Assignment (Zhi fa wei long, 1992)

The main characters, cops Dragon (Robin Shue) and Cynthia (Oshima Yukari), are tasked with delivering the captured villain Tyrese to long-suffering Manila, a killer of B-fighters. He escapes with the help of the local mafia, Cynthia is killed and the Dragon teams up with the local cop Franco.

According to the plot - again a remake of "Red Heat" - Phillip Ko (yes, he is the director here again) this movie went and he spent half his salary on it (he went 5 times himself, with his wife 10 times, with his sons 8 times each + posters with Schwartz in a police uniform in the toilet and above the bed and novelization), decided to try his luck again. No, it didn’t work out, the film is even worse than “Interpol Agent”:

• Again, an Asian LONG introduction with a bunch of unnecessary and merged characters, while the central characters do nothing but talk.
• Dumping Oshima Yukari, they didn’t even give him a proper fight.
• A stupid attempt at humor in Robin Shue's fight with the killer. The fights themselves are watchable, but far from standard and poorly edited.
• If there was at least some kind of plot in “The Agent” (for those who haven’t seen “Red Heat”), then everything is bad here.

Robin, however, tried his best in the action and his fights don’t look like vomit. You can look for fight sequences on YouTube, but feel free to skip the film itself.

Guns and Roses (Long kua si hai zhi zhi ming qing ren, 1993)

An emigrant melodrama (a genre popular among Asians at one time), developing into an action thriller at the very end - the next creation Phillipa Ko, who decided to change the genre a little. Did it work out?

Robin Shue plays illegal immigrant Joy, who flees the police across Europe in search of a better life. Through a goofy player friend, he meets Shiko and her friend. However, Shiko is suddenly overtaken by her past - her father and brother, criminal bosses from Japan, came to work with local Asians. The locals don’t want to dance to the tune of the Japs and decide to remove the guests, using the main character’s friend for this.

This is not an action movie, but a sad crime melodrama with all that it implies. For most of the film, the heroine will communicate and hang out with Joy, with his friend, parents, and so on, producing family melodrama, darkness and action only on Robin Shue and Simon Yam, and only at the very, very end will some attempts at a showdown begin. But Phillip Ko (also playing one of the main villains) failed to properly mix all the above-mentioned genres and it turned out too boring: it’s like watching some naive melodrama about a couple in love and then suddenly there’s BLOOD IN THE GUTS AND ALL THAT!

Action movie fans - pass by, the film is so-so. For Robin fans, you can take a look once, you might like it.

Mortal Kombat (1995)

We smoothly moved on to the most famous film of the hero of the article, one of the best A-action films of the second half of the 90s and, in my opinion, the most successful film adaptation of the game - “Mortal Kombat”! Therefore, let's turn on the famous song "Immortals" and get ready to review the nostalgic action movie with me.

The story of the film's creation is long and sad at the same time. Paul Anderson was faced with a difficult task, which later turned out to be impossible for subsequent film adaptations of the game industry - to make a decent movie based on a fighting game, which by that time had already developed a plot (stolen, in fact, from Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” with the characters from “Bloodsport” and “ Trouble in Little China" by the third part had already acquired plot connections and some kind of character registration). After this, the goal was to choose the right actors. Liu Kang, as you know, could have been Phillip Rhee, Jason Scott Lee and many other then-B-Asians, but, apparently due to some cuteness, the choice fell on the hero of the article.

Another issue was the casting of Johnny Cage. Of course, Van Damme suggested himself, but he made a choice in favor of “Street Fighter” (and, as we remember, in vain), after his refusal, Brandon Lee was supposed to play, but alas, he died and his place was taken by Lyndon Ashby, who became , thanks to the popularity of the film, Johnny's face for many years. Sonya Blade could have been played by Cameron Diaz, but she was injured and was replaced by the curvaceous Bridget Wilson. Also, for the role of opponents, it was decided to cast those who knew how to fight well: Trevor Goddard (boxer) as Kano, martial arts master Francois Petit, Chris Cassamasa and Keith Cook as the colorful ninjas, and Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa as the final boss Shang Tsung. Those who did not know how to fight like them (Ashby and Wilson) underwent mandatory training and were replaced by doubles in difficult scenes (J. J. Perry and Dana Hee). So what happened?

• The first victory was a high-quality plot - here they decided to make it a classic children's fairy tale about the struggle between good and evil, supplemented with a simple and understandable moral on the topics “who is to blame, what to do and how to stop being afraid of yourself and your enemy.” The plot itself is unobtrusively and simply presented by the second victory of this film - Christopher Lambert in the role of Raiden, who almost didn’t have to fight, but he flavored the lack of action with excellent acting.
• The next plus is fights. There is enough action here (at least 40% of the film) and a lot of fights. Robin Shue takes on the main burden, having fought with Hakim Elston (an unnamed trial fighter), Sub-Zero (Francois Petit), Kitana (Talisa Soto played with her face, but Dana Hee fought), Reptile (Keith Cook) and Shang Tsung (who There were also assistants, among whom I noticed Gerald Okamura). Linden Ashby did a good job of performing memorized movements in some scenes and played Johnny Cage with dignity and humor, but most of the scenes with him were performed by J. J. Perry, cheerfully having a fight with Scorpio (Cassamas) on a well-made scenery of the local Hell with a lot of acrobatics, gags and destruction, defeating Scorpio with cunning, then he got Goro - but behind the excellent humorous scene with glasses and splits (and Lambert’s excellent joke after), the viewer did not notice that the fight with Goro itself was very short and went to one gate, although we were expecting a more powerful one mahacha. Sonya Blade had only two fights - shoulder to shoulder with the heroes against the ninjas - here it is clear that the actress was preparing, but after hundreds of action films watched, the viewer will notice that the movements were too clumsy, artistic, with the support of slow-mo; and against Kano. My attitude to the battle is ambiguous - on the one hand, the heroes didn’t show anything supernatural - well, a couple of roundhouse kicks, a few sweeping kicks on the scoreboard and a leg grab - it looks like a wife returned to her drunkard husband from women’s self-defense lessons and decided to use it on him this knowledge. However, in fact, the purpose of this fight is fan service, judge for yourself: a mixed fighting game, belly kicking (a kick to a woman in the stomach to demonstrate her erotic reaction to a blow) and a rather strange finisher, very beautifully (and from the right angles) shot, but in real life it is useless. In terms of fan service and at least some variety after the kung fu fights, they succeeded, but overall the fight was so-so. In the script, Sonya had a fight with Jade, since the fight with Kano had to be earned first, who, being in a kimono (judging by the novelization and the leaked script), fought with a naginata, but Sonya quickly defeated her. Why didn't they do this? Don't know.

  In general, the fights were filmed very well for an A-fairy tale and THAT time, with proper acrobatics, beautiful wushu strikes and the inevitable destruction of scenery in most of them, they even found a way to bring weapons into the battle and - most importantly - to correctly present techniques from the game. The best fight in terms of staging is considered to be the fight between Robin and Keith Cook - very technical, energetic, furious, so much so that it even stands out a little from the overall picture; I would say that the best fight in terms of plot and technical aspects is the final one, which is quite long, with meaning and a lot of special effects.

• The next positive feature of the movie is the ENTOURAGE and little features added by the scriptwriters. The scenery was made VERY beautifully, flavored with high-quality music, and the special effects, even if they don’t look so beautiful now, were very, very good in those years. Thanks to them, the fights with Sub Zero and Scorpion remained in my memory for the rest of my life. In general, bringing something of yourself into the film adaptation of a game is a risky business (Anderson screws up with this in “Resident Evil”, stuffing Milla Jovovich as an absurd and unnecessary thing in the universe character), here they also took a risk and were right - the fans liked it; a rejuvenated Shang Tsung showed vigorous action; thanks to the film, people still believe that Scorpio’s hand is not a kunai on a rope, but a live snake. In general, the decor and visuals made at least a third of this film.
• Music completes the list of advantages of the film. Here the creators did not disappoint: a variety of melodies from different groups - from metal and techno in battles with Scorpio and Reptile to a calm melody in a conversation with the ghost of a brother. The music is clearly chosen everywhere here - from the gloomy transitions in Tsung's palace to each specific battle. Well, the famous “Immortals” from Techno Syndrome still lives in the mobile phones of many athletes as a training tool, which is heaped into videos of street fights by YouTubers.

All these components are so competently woven into a single whole that it is very difficult to notice the film’s disadvantages behind them.

• The shortcomings of the script, the most glaring one - why exactly did Shang Tsung gather GOOD fighters for the Mortal Kombat? Also, many good scenes were cut from the script - Art Lin's funeral and several fights.
• Sonya Blade and Kitana have catastrophically little action; this will be corrected in the second part, but this is where I would like to see more of them.
• Little blood. In the original source there were brutal finishing moves, but here it’s just the killing of some warrior in a preliminary fight with Sub-Zero. However, the brutal killing of Reptile and Scorpio should be noted - but still, much more blood was expected.
• Disadvantages of acting in dialogue scenes.
• Many people consider Lyndon Ashby to be a miscast, in some places I would agree - the actor really doesn’t look like a fighter - he didn’t even take off his shirt, but in terms of humor and acting he looked very decent and it was clear that he was seriously preparing, like the editors - the double is not very noticeable . Also, the fans had complaints about Talisa Soto, but I don’t have them - here, instead of the “combat Kitana”, she played the “experienced Kitana” - and it was an accurate hit.

Сonclusion: one of the best films of the twilight era of action films and definitely the best film adaptation of a game with a good approach to the source material (well, at the time of writing the review, I had not yet seen Warcraft) this pleasant and well-made film is still, even after 20 years, pleasing to the eye and inspires you either to train, or to join a friend in the next part of MK... Well, or to the good old ones on Sega.

Mortal Kombat-2: Annihilation, 2

Critics like to trash the first part - of course, the universally praised, thoughtful arthouse tediousness of Tarkovsky, Fellini and Nolan is not at all suitable here, but the audience received it very warmly. Naturally, a continuation was needed, and preferably in hot pursuit, while the actors, so to speak, were alive and well. The film begins where the first part ended - Shao Kahn appears and says that he has come “for your souls.” Johnny Cage is killed right there and the heroes run underground to gather help and give him a decisive rebuff.

Why Paul Anderson didn’t personally handle the sequel, leaving it to his cinematographer Lawrence Kasanoff, I don’t know. The writers made a big mess with the plot, making the film directly based on the third part instead of the second. Of the actors from the first part, only Robin Shue, Keith Cook and Talisa Soto remained - the rest did not like the script. However, is everything as bad as critics say about the film? Let's look at it in order, starting with the cons:

• Plot and presentation of characters. Why was Shinnok needed as Shao Kahn's father? This spoiled the image of the already poorly turned out final boss (Brian Thompson is not bad, but it would be better not to take off his mask). There were a lot of stupid plot twists: who are Kabal and Stryker (for this plot) and why were they killed? Why wasn't the backstory of Milena and the robots revealed (it was in the original script)? Why were many fighters stupidly leaked, appearing only for fan service (Nightwolf, Shiva).
• The fights are worse and noticeably shorter - there is not the same intensity as in the first part. A lot of “lots-of-high-kicking” appeared to the detriment of wushu-melee and technique. There are very few fights with weapons, a lot of dark rooms and crooked editing. But still, I will highlight a number of fights: Sub-Zero (Keith Cook) versus Scorpio (NOT Chris Cassamas), where Keith Cook showed a variety of beautiful blows and there were good ideas in the form of an ice clone, a bridge and a double snake; Sonya and Jax against Cyrex and company - even though the ninjas looked like funny stupid bots, Cyrex gave a shit and used his super attacks from the game with all his might; and of course, the main decoration of this film is Sonya versus Milena in the mud. The last fight, even if it didn’t shine with technique (they stupidly exchanged kicks in the stomach, Milena was weaker and she died), in terms of fan service it looked good, it’s just a pity that the Olympic champion in taekwondo Dana Hee did not show herself fully, and the rating was PG- 13 did not allow us to make a more spectacular finale (in the leaked script there was a stall with Milena finishing off with her own weapon in the throat).
• Things are tough with the actors too. Let's say that the stars of the game cutscenes, Musetta Vander, purely outwardly suited the role of Sindel, but all the poorly choreographed battles with her participation are on Dana He, and her acting is rather weak, as well as most of the others. More or less, Timothy Lynn "Red" Williams, who closely resembled the rapper, distinguished himself as Jax, but in combat he looked unspectacular. In addition, many beloved actors were replaced. Sandra Hess coped with the role of Sonya - there were many scenes with her and she played better than the cardboard Wilson, but outwardly she is inferior to her. It would be better to invite Carrie Hoskins, Sonya's model from the third part of the game. Chris Conrad only showed Cage's death, and James Remar did a poor job as Raiden, especially when he changed the appearance of Thunderbolt to a stupid one. Raiden had an elaborate acrobatic fight with the Reptiles and a clumsy one with Shao Kahn (dubbed by Remar Ray Park).
• How is the film adaptation of the game? It's weak here too. If the additions in the first part were smoothed out by the script, surroundings and fights, then here the above-mentioned things did not come to the rescue. Shinnok is Shao Kahn's father? Is Kan the brother of Raiden? Magic tattoos? animality? Sindel is the key to the invasion (yes, yes, I remember, in MK3 and MK9 it was like that, but here they played it in a bad way)? Let's say they showed techniques from the game - that's a plus. But they played the plot poorly - where is the general chaos and panic? Where are the military? Where is everything? No. In principle, a number of costumes were not bad and the good fighters did not look like cheap cosplayers - this came from the first part.

Lots of downsides, yes. But there are small advantages:

• The film doesn't sag and is still interesting to watch until the end.
• The aforementioned fights between Sab, Scorp, Milena and Sonya and the amount of action in general.
• Music. Still a plus, getting ready for the battles, Immortals is in place, Scooter pulls one of the battles out of the crap with the song “Fire”.
• We tried to show as many special effects + techniques from the game as possible.

That's all. In summary: the film is weak, but not crap - the children of that time really liked the number of battles and characters, but in comparison with the first part the contrast is very noticeable. It's a stretch to watch this once, but nothing more.

Beverly Hills Ninja (1997)

During the break between MK1 and MK2, Robin starred in this almost children's comedy. Kinzo tells the story of a clan of ninjas who, following an ancient prophecy about the White Ninja from the West, pick up a young boy and begin to raise him. But the boy, instead of a cool hero, grows into fat-bass Haru (Chris Farley), a clumsy, helpless incompetent. One day, to prove himself, he takes on a task - to save a woman (Nicolette Sheridan) from her villainous husband. The mentor allows him to do this, but sends Gobei, the best warrior of the clan (Robin Shu), after him, so that he can clean up his messes and save him at the right moment.

In fact, it’s a children’s film, a light version of “Family of Morons,” but there’s not much about ninjas or outhouse humor. The film is watchable as a light comedy, the only thing that was annoying was the not-quite-children's scene in a strip club, which is not appropriate for such a movie; I laughed with pleasure at the antics of Farley, the stupid head waiter (Chris Rock) and the unlucky Robin Shue.

But there are complaints about the ninja part - even though Robin Shu showed excellent stealth and fought well in places (well, with Montage Dacascos), the final battles look somehow not very good, which is also unforgivable because one of the villains is played by Keith Cook - here he is drained in battle. Chris Farley did his job well, showing a beta version of Kung Fu Panda (the famous song is also included).

Сonclusion: A light, funny comedy with ninja action elements, I liked it, but I won’t watch it again. But the film didn’t appeal to many others, I often heard: “Why does Robin waste time on supporting roles in comedies with some fat idiots instead of serious roles in MK-3, 4, 5, 83...?”, “Ah, this stupid movie where Robin Shue gets pushed aside by some fat idiot? It is precisely because of the contrast and comparison with MK1 that this film is underrated. I understand those who evaluate the film in this way, and I myself once judged it the same way, but with age my opinion has changed.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

After the failure of the first attempt to film the famous Japanese fighting game, we decided to do it a second time, focusing specifically on the story of Chun Li and, believing that if we call an actor from a successful embodiment of a fighting game on the screen and star in the leading role, the star of a then popular youth series (I'm talking about " Smallville"), the film will be better for this and will definitely work this time.

It didn't work. The movie is complete sad shit.

And it all started well - Chun Li's voiceover tells about her childhood in a rich and good family and learning the arts - both martial tai chi and music; Familiar names appear in the credits, including Robin Shue, Michael Clarke Duncan, Moon Bloodgood, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough and so on - the director is Andrzej Bartkowiak. But the idyll is interrupted by an invasion of the house by Bison (McDonough) with his henchmen and Barlog (Duncan), who kidnaps her father to hold him captive for 17 years (Oldboy, hello). Chun Li grows up to be Kristin Kreuk and goes for revenge.

It seems like nothing, but from the moment Charlie Nash (Klein) appeared, who in the original is a soldier, but here is some obscure Interpol agent with an assistant (Moon Bloodgood), I began to tense up, then when I saw Bison, who never I changed into his famous costume, saw his delusional plot about the “murder of conscience through his own daughter” Rosa, and so on - I realized that in front of me was another persecuted fanfic with disrespect for the original source.

oh well, I thought, the primary sources were not respected in many places, let’s see what happens next. And then: poorly choreographed battles, the idiotic Gen (not at all similar to the original elderly and very evil assassin from the game) performed by Robin Shu, who has become an idiot, cranberry (and short) training in throwing hadoukens (chi-kokens, sorry), a tedious guy who has completely lost his mind the fight with Vega (for comparison, look for the fight between Chun Li and Vega in the anime) is an unnecessary distraction for Nash - and the average shitty ending with Bison, who was at least killed spectacularly, and thank you for that.

There are few advantages - these are several battles at the beginning and the final killing of Bison, even a women's fight in the toilet did not save him. All.

Is Kristin Kreuk right for the role of Chun Li? If for the role of young Chun Li - yes, although her transformation from 100% Chinese to 40% mixed-Asian was surprising, but for the role of an adult heroine an actress with more impressive data is needed - the same Bloodgood, for example, and it seems to me that she and was supposed to get this role, but the producers at the last moment changed the leading actress to a more famous one (at that time). The result is that Kreuk, McDonough and Shue buried their careers. However, years later, a good Street Fighter series was made about the youth of Ryu and Ken - “Assassin's Fist” - I recommend watching it - but you don’t need to watch this bullshit at all, even for informational purposes.

Pirate Brothers (2011)

I end the review with this C-action movie from Indonesia. According to the plot, two boys become friends in an orphanage: Sunny, whose older brother was killed by gopniks, and Verdi, whose parents died in a skirmish with pirates. The elder Sunny takes Verdi under his protection, their friendship grows stronger, but one day a rich businessman arrives and wants to take Sunny away. He cedes this right to his younger comrade - and they will meet only many, many years later, when Verdi (Verdi Bhavanta), who inherited his father’s financial empire, encounters pirates on vacation, among whom is Sunny (Robin Shue).

This attempt is very good and in general, everything in this film is digestible, except for three points: a rather weak elaboration of individual moments of the script, a STRONGLY flickering camera and Robin Shue, who did not live up to many expectations. Now more details.

Verdi Bhavanta looked very cool in battles, using kung fu-mutated capoeira with small admixtures of pencak silat and, in general, most of the fights on it, especially several battles with henchmen and the final showdown with the main pirate, but Robin Shu was a little disappointed - I expected a lot more from the 50-year-old actor. No, in some places his fights looked good, especially the fights with his brother, but the further into the forest, the rougher (in terms of quality) his style. I also expected more from the main villain - both externally (well, he doesn’t look like the standard Lo Sen Pao from “Project A”), and in the combat aspect, his “right hand” pleased me even more.

The plot is very simple for a C-action movie, and ideal for a good story (several plot twists, not overloaded with tediousness, emotional moments) and if we had given the film more budget, a better director and a normal cameraman (and not the epileptic who filmed it) - it would have turned out great story, and just a good S-shka with decent fights, spoiled by a crappy operator. Suitable for viewing.

Summarizing all of the above, we should answer the question, where did Robin go - after the failure of the second MK, he, along with the era of action films itself, went into the shadows, starring in TV series and short stories, but still, unlike Don Wilson and others like him, he is trying act in more or less sane movies (Death Race 1-3, Pirate Brothers) or simply famous titles (Street Fighter, DOA). In terms of “take-off”, he is somewhere in the middle between the legends who are still somehow staying afloat (Van Damme) and the heroes of our childhood who sailed to the Nevsky (Wilson, Gruner, Hughes, Rothrock, and so on). I hope that he will still have time to act in a decent movie and will better choose roles for himself, intensifying his efforts - I wish him success in this, and the viewer - good films in film projects. Peace to all and bye!

Author: uranium
Especially for Fight-Films.Info

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Tags: Beverly Hills Ninja, Eastern Heroes, Interpol Connection, Mortal Kombat, Pirate Brothers, The Legend of Chun-Li, Tiger Cage 2, Interpol agent, Donnie Yen, Guns and Roses, Robin Shu, Fatal task, Phillip Ko, Yuen Wu-Ping

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