What Do We Think of the Direction HK Action Cinema is Headed?

[One Armed Boxer]

I recently watched the trailer for Dante Lam's new movie 'That Demon Within', and it struck me that nothing in it got me even the slightest bit excited. After giving it some thought, I realised that the reason why is that the HK action movie genre of recent years seems to be becoming a rather repetitive beast, almost always relying on epic street level shoot outs to sell themselves as being worth a watch.

Just off the top of my head, I could think of the below 7 movies whose trailers used the street level shoot out scene as the selling point to see the movie, all of which were made in just the last 4 years -

Fire of Conscience (2010)

Drug War (2012)

Cold War (2012)

The Viral Factor (2012)

The White Storm (2013)

Firestorm (2013)

That Demon Within (2014)

It got me thinking if it's only me who's become weary over this action trope, or is anyone else feeling it as well? While I'm all for some 'Heat' style action (the movie which remains as the standard of quality for all other street shoot out scenes to match), I can't help but feel that HK action cinema should be about more than just gun fire and how good you can make a CGI explosion look.

It seems in the post-2010 era the modern day actioner which contains a healthy dose of martial arts ass kicking has all but dried up. 2000 - 2010 was hardly the HK golden era, but at least we still got the likes of 'Sha Po Lang', 'Flash Point', 'New Police Story', 'Invisible Target', 'Fatal Contact', 'Bad Blood' and the like, but there hasn't been a single MA infused modern day actioner that's worth a watch in the last 4 years.

With movies like the upcoming 'Z Storm', 'Helios', and a proposed sequel to 'Cold War', it doesn't look like things are going to change any time soon, so I was curious as to what you guys thoughts are on this?

[DiP]

Individual film teams equal similar films, which explains the current redundancy of action crimers coming out in recent years.

Johnnie To's stuff - Life Without Principle, Punished, Motorway, Drug War - between 2010 and now was pretty refreshing, and Donnie just came out with Iceman and has the sequel as well as Kung Fu Jungle, Dragon City and an untitled project tentatively titled The Master coming up this year and in 2015.

[One Armed Boxer]

Donnie just came out with Iceman and has the sequel as well as Kung Fu Jungle, Dragon City and an untitled project tentatively titled The Master coming up this year and in 2015.

Yeah these are on my radar, but the whole 'Donnie Yen is single handedly keeping HK action cinema alive' line of thinking is almost becoming a cliche in itself. I class 'Ice Man' as a fantasy comedy, not a modern day actioner, and sadly none of the trailers for that movie do anything for me either.

We'll see what 'Kung Fu Jungle' and 'Dragon City' turn out like, although I was under the impression 'Dragon City' was going to be a 70's period piece? I may be getting my Yen movies mixed up.

[One Armed Boxer]

Kozo from lovehkfilm recently wrote an article that also touches on the subject of the direction HK action cinema is headed.  Well worth a read, check it out here - 

 

http://www.baccarat-magazine.com/film-wheres-the-action/

[Cognoscente]

HK action cinema needs a new Rothrock to bridge the gap between the East and the West in a more mainstream capacity. This would allow for not only more investment in HK cinema, but it would give people more reason to preserve and remaster the older films (especially the rare ones) for a new generation. I hope that the golden age choreographers get to choreograph Amy Johnston before they die.

Each time that a HK choreographer works on a film that elevates their fame, it creates a new parenthesis selling point to slap onto a home release. I remember during the HKL days, the PSP would always change for every new Western film that Yuen Woo-Ping had worked on e.g.

"Yuen Woo-Ping (The Matrix)"
"Yuen Woo-Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)"
"Yuen Woo Ping (Kill Bill)"

...and to a lesser extent, you had Corey Yuen being able to go from selling himself on the basis of Lethal Weapon 4 to X-Men and then finally the Jason Statham movies.

On an artistic level, it would be nice to see a HK action movie that combines gunplay with martial arts in the same sort of seamless way that Hard Target and Equilibrium did. It's an interesting concept that doesn't get explored enough.

It would be nice to see HK filmmakers use the same sort of film cameras that you would associate with the top-tier Hollywood productions. I can't remember the last time that I saw a new HK movie which had a rich-looking film stock to accentuate the on-screen textures. Everything looks almost too TV now.