Kill 'Em All (2012)

[Close Quarters]

I couldn't find this movie on the board, so not sure if it was posted. I checked the trailer, doesn't look bad. Same director as Bangkok Adrenaline, that's what caught my attention. It'll probably be corny, but maybe the fighting will be good. Blu-ray website has the trailer and says it'll get a holiday release through well go usa.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=9801

[Drunken Monk]

"Bangkok Adrenaline" was horrible and this, sadly, looks worse.

[Close Quarters]

I thought the fighting was decent and realistic looking most of the time on BA, but yeah the movie itself was super corny. You could tell the guys in that movie had talent, just too goofy though.

[ShaOW!linDude]

I can't remember if there is a thread specifically for this movie or not. I don't think so. Not the best production values in the world, plot's been done, and some of the action looks hit and miss but sort of cool. Still, I'll check it out simply for Tim Man and Joe Lewis.

[derwood]

"Bangkok Adrenaline" was horrible and this, sadly, looks worse.

I highly agree, & his other film 'freerunner' was also terrible

[daisho2004]

I don't know some of the action scenes looks really good, granted the acting sounds to paper like though.

[AlbertV]

I'll see this because it is one of the last films of Joe Lewis, plus Gordon Liu is in it and so is Tim Man, an awesome kicker from Sweden I believe.

[Drunken Monk]

If films like “The Raid” and groups like The Stunt People are ushering in a new, modern era of exciting choreography, “Kill ‘Em All” is setting the genre two steps with its lazy, derivative choreography and hammy performances.

Full disclosure: I hated “Bangkok Adrenaline.” The acting performances literally made me squirm and even the few solid fights the film provided couldn’t stop me from turning it off halfway through.

So, as you might imagine, I wasn’t exactly gung ho about putting “Kill ‘Em All” in my DVD player. But the film does star (star? HA!) Gordon Liu and the very capable Tim Man. So could it really be that bad? Answer: FUCK YES.

The film’s premise is simple: the world’s best assassins are kidnapped and placed in “The Killing Chamber,” a pseudo-prison in which its inhabitants are made to fight each other. It’s a cross between “Saw” and “The Tournament” and by “cross between” I mean complete theft of.

As you might imagine the film consists of very “individual” characters. Carpenter (played by martial arts legend Joe Lewis) is a brawler, Tim Man plays a flip kicky, Thai dude called The Kid, Johnny Messner an explosives expert and the rest of the cast are made up of a tattooed monk, an angry Frenchman and a mentally handicapped kid who’s pretty handy with his feet. Welcome to Cliché Town my friends.

Gordon Liu plays the lead bad guy, Snakehead, whose sole job it is to tell the gang who fights who over a microphone until the last five minutes when he actually fights, but I’ll come to that later.

The film is fight heavy. I’ll give it that. It’s just that the fights are so lackluster and repetitive that after the first two minutes I was done. Honestly, Tim Man seems to be hooked on the original “Ong Bak” as the moves on display here you will have seen a million times before. Flip kicks, terrible exchanges and tired weapons moves soon send this film spiraling down into “Instantly forgettable.”

The odd thing about the film is that they introduce a weapons room early on. Once you win your first fight, you get to pick a weapon of choice. The film’s lead protagonist, Som (played by Ammara Siripong), is introduced as a blade/knife expert and she is the first to pick a weapon. She enters the room and there is a veritable feast of swords, knives, blades and sharp edges decorating the walls. So what does she grab? Two lead pipes. Yep, it’s this kind of inconsistent mess we’re dealing with.

The film is lazy, the scenes between fights meandering and the script painful. In fact, the character of Gabriel (Johnny Messner) seems to have been handed a screenplay aiming to cram as many uses as the “F” word in it as possible. A sample of one of his lines is something akin to…

“Fuck this fucking shit. I need to get the fucking fuck out of here whether you fucks want to fucking join me or fucking not. Fuck!”

It’s hilarious for the first few lines and, by the end of the film, you’ll be bleeding from the ears and crying to the Heavens for it to stop.

But come on, “The Raid” isn’t exactly plot heavy and it certainly doesn’t have a smooth, well crafted script. Ok, so let’s really focus on the action of “Kill ‘Em All.”

To put it simply, it’s over-edited, “I’ll wait for you to kick me,” weakly stylized tedium. Exchanges go kick, miss, kick, miss, kick, miss, counter-kick, HIT! Every…single…time.

It’s very much a vanity piece of Tim Man who gets a majority of the big action sequences and yet he doesn’t show us anything worthy of watching. Forget “Undisputed 3,” this isn’t even on the level of “Undisputed 2.”

When Gordon Liu screams, “Get them, ninjas!” (yup, that’s an actual line) and an army of shadowy fighters head The Kid’s way, you expect something big. What you get it a bite-sized chunk of every film to come out of Thailand over the last decade.

Finally, we come to Gordon Liu’s fight and, surprisingly, it’s the best fight of the film. Gordon Liu breaks out some Tiger Fist and goes to work with a shockingly limber display. It’s nice to finally see traditional kung fu in this film. It’s a clear breath of fresh air after inhaling a constant barrage of ghastly shit for the last hour and fifteen minutes.

Are there stunt doubles? Yeah. Is it ham-fisted in its editing? Sure. But it’s actually semi-enjoyable! And then it’s over.

In this You Tube age of showreels and exciting martial arts shorts, I’m surprised this even got made. It’s badly conceived, badly acted, badly edited and lazily choreographed.

Avoid it like the plague.

Grade: F

[ShaOW!linDude]

Wow! Killer review, DM. All I have to is.....Aw! I was kind of hoping this would be cool. Bogus.

But surely it's better than MWTIF, right?

[Drunken Monk]

Wow! Killer review, DM. All I have to is.....Aw! I was kind of hoping this would be cool. Bogus.

But surely it's better than MWTIF, right?

I gave "MWTIF" a 'D' and this an 'F' but only because the former has some Hollywood value to it. Rza tried to create characters. This is 90 minutes of nothingness.

[trueth]

Saw this last night. There's not enough booze in existence to help me forget this. A shame too because I feel as though Liu would make an excellent villain.

[daisho2004]

Its funny other People have said this movie is great!

[blue_skies]

thanks for the review, like SD I'm disappointed I had high hopes for this one.

[Drunken Monk]

Its funny other People have said this movie is great!

I encourage everyone to give it a watch if they're interest. I am fully aware that my opinion is certainly not the be all end all.

This review is just my way of saying "I told you so" to those who come back and say it's awful, haha.

[jmungus]

This is 90 minutes of nothingness.

its exactly that.

huge step back from bangkok adrenaline (which i liked quite a bit for the fights).

more amateurish than amateurish movie wise, lackluster and plain lazy slash boring with the fights.

[stuntpeople]

Tim Man just did an interview where he talks about how crappy the final edit was:

I was really depressed when I saw Kill em all to be honest. I had higher expectations. To be honest, and probably if the editor reads this he will try to end my carer. But the editing was so bad, so awful! Every fight scene has one punch cut, one kick cut, one move cut. He even cuts in some powermoves WHO THE HELL DOES THAT AND FUCKING WHY?!? Let the performer finish the move damn it! He even cut to some stupid angels that doesn't show the hit or to a close up during a kick. In the fight scene between Me and Joe Lewis for example the last kick I do on Joe is a jump split sidekick with a real impact sending Joe Lewis in to the wall. First of Joe did that for nothing he took a hard hit and fell in to the wall and he was almost 70 years old, why the hell would someone want to cut behind the shoulder hiding the move and hiding the impact and the crash in to the wall? All this cuts destroys the rhythm. Sure if it was an indian movie or an movie with actors that cant fight or fight bad, then maybe many cuts can save the action. But in a movie like this it destroys it. Originally the movie was suppose to be edited in Thailand with the director supervising, if that would have been the case the movie would have been 10times better. But I guess they decided to let the wrong editor in america get a hold of the scenes.

Tim Man's a load of talent, we all know that. What we don't see is how easy it is to sabotage that talent. The whole interview is here, Tim Man doesn't BS you, which is rare: http://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2013/01/tim-man-interview-happy-new-year.html

[ShaOW!linDude]

Thanks for the link.

I haven't seen this yet but that probably explains a lot. The trailer looked very intriguing. I was surprised that those who've seen it were so disappointed in it. I was kind of bummed 'cause I figured it would be a goo B-action MA movie. I may still check it out sometime.

[JHosk]

Great interview there. I just watched this last night and I'm not entirely sure why it's getting all the hate. Sure, it's not a timeless classic, but I thought it was a pretty fun ride. The fight scenes were good and Tim Man tears up every fight scene he's in. The story was at least a bit more cohesive than some of thai flicks to hit BD. I blind bought the Blu and no regrets.

[Drunken Monk]

Great interview there. I just watched this last night and I'm not entirely sure why it's getting all the hate. Sure, it's not a timeless classic, but I thought it was a pretty fun ride. The fight scenes were good and Tim Man tears up every fight scene he's in. The story was at least a bit more cohesive than some of thai flicks to hit BD. I blind bought the Blu and no regrets.

Tim Man is most certainly a talent but he's utterly wasted here. He doesn't tear up anything in my opinion and is left to perform moves you can see in a thousand You Tube showreels. It's painfully derivative in its choreography (or editing as the case might be).

I'm sure some people will love it as a B-movie but, for me, it was an absolute chore to sit through.

[MLee]

It wasn't too bad for me. Cheesy but I thought it was a fun movie to watch.

Great interview with Tim Man which was very interesting. Thanks stuntpeople for the link.

[stuntpeople]

This is a good lesson for anyone who is put at the mercy of a production that will destroy your fight choreography and make you look like a dope on screen: careful who you work with, or as JJ Perry phrased it once, "Careful who you get in bed with." It's why The Stunt People keep things in house. Yes we have lower budgets, but our creative oversight means we have a near-100% likelihood that we can please the martial art film fans. On anything else, I give it that a 25% likelihood on average, for me anyway.

[stuntpeople]

There's an interview with leading lady Zom up at http://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2013/02/zom-ammara-interview-dans-movie-report.html. Check out what she says:

Ouch! note to self back away! I asked Tim about the final edit of Kill Em All he was honest and said he was not happy with it, do you feel things could have been changed?

Honestly, I did not have the time to see the completed film yet.

That tells ya something.

[thedirtytiger]

I had the pleasure of working on this film and I have to second what Tim Man said - it was not shot one move cut, one move cut - we had solid fight choreography with many rehearsals and long takes with good movements and Tim Man was absolutely wicked ( as was Brahim ) who between them did a great job choreographing the fights, both one on one and against multiple attackers. The American editing was below par. To compare this to Man With Iron Fists is rather unfair considering the differences in budget...As for whether there was anything 'new' and it was 'cliched' - it is very difficult to do anything that is completely 'new' and free of 'cliches' these days with the sheer number of movies that are out there, almost everything has been done before....Brahim and Tim Man have just wrapped on Ninja 2 - you will soon see what they are really capable of....

[Super Ninja]

22 hours ago, ShaOW!linDude said:

The one with Tim Man? I really dug that movie. I think you will, too.

Personally, I found Kill 'em All to be a slight progress for Huber's first feature when it comes to characters and plot which is more serious and more intriguing. However, the most important thing, the action, was a step back. I don't blame Tim Man, from what I could tell, he did a good job. It's editing that sucks. I don't think I've ever watched ma movie with choreography that's been edited so horribly, a cut after almost every move! Tim Man has a right to be mad, but if it's true that the editor was American guy, that explains a lot. I was disappointed, not so much because I didn't like the movie, I'll watch anything as long as there's some ma on display, but because it's a shame all that potential was wasted. Huber got the chance to work with legends like Gordon Liu and Joe Lewis, that's like a dream come true for any aspiring ma filmmaker, he had Tim Man to do the fight choreography, he had guys like Erik Markus Schütz or Brahim Achabbakhe who was good in The Sanctuary, and the talented Zom Ammara, hell, even Toby Russell was involved as first assistant director, that could have meant something. But instead of delivering something in the line of Bangkok Adrenaline, only better, he just made a mess. Well, the editor did to say the truth. I do hope Dragonwolf is better.

 

[ShaOW!linDude]

18 hours ago, Super Ninja said:

Personally, I found Kill 'em All to be a slight progress for Huber's first feature when it comes to characters and plot which is more serious and more intriguing. However, the most important thing, the action, was a step back. I don't blame Tim Man, from what I could tell, he did a good job. It's editing that sucks. I don't think I've ever watched ma movie with choreography that's been edited so horribly, a cut after almost every move! Tim Man has a right to be mad, but if it's true that the editor was American guy, that explains a lot. I was disappointed, not so much because I didn't like the movie, I'll watch anything as long as there's some ma on display, but because it's a shame all that potential was wasted. Huber got the chance to work with legends like Gordon Liu and Joe Lewis, that's like a dream come true for any aspiring ma filmmaker, he had Tim Man to do the fight choreography, he had guys like Erik Markus Schütz or Brahim Achabbakhe who was good in The Sanctuary, and the talented Zom Ammara, hell, even Toby Russell was involved as first assistant director, that could have meant something. But instead of delivering something in the line of Bangkok Adrenaline, only better, he just made a mess. Well, the editor did to say the truth. I do hope Dragonwolf is better.

 

I only saw the movie once on Netflix a couple of years ago. I need to run down the dvd because I'm really wanting to see it again. I avoided it for a long time because many comments I'd seen weren't very favorable of it. It did have its issues, but I enjoyed it for the most part. I don't recall the editing being egregiously atrocious, though there was indeed a lot done to Lewis' and Liu's fights. I thought the rest played fairly well. But as I said, I need to watch it again.

If you were disappointed in Kill'em All, I'd warn you away from Dragonwolf. It is a snoozefest and I'm a fan of Patrick Kazu Tang. The fights are just lame.