The Brink (2017) Max Zhang

[Drunken Monk]

 

[Frank Bolte]

who else thinks about "gold connection" ? anyway looks like a good movie...deffo gonna check it out

[reason108]

This does look interesting. Maybe a change of pace for the modern HK film. Will have to put that on my list to check out.

[mark187]

Hk release date in September 

[Drunken Monk]

New trailer for "The Brink" highlighting some of the film's action. Doesn't looks too shabby!

 

[Drunken Monk]

Let’s talk about “The Brink”. It is the single best kung fu movie of 2017. It’s what “Sha Po Lang 2 & 3” could have been. It is a FANTASTIC film.

Now, not everyone will love it. It does feature a lot of slow motion and SOME of the editing is a little “off” but it didn’t bother me one bit. The whole thing is glorious.

Max Zhang has a brooding charisma Donnie Yen only wish he had. He owns this film and, thankfully, he stars alongside an incredible villain (I’m too lazy to look up the actor’s name). Both have an electric on screen presence.

Honestly, I can’t sing the praises of this film enough. Its pacing is perfect and the fights come along often enough. Granted, it’s not exactly thick with fights but there are enough for action fans. And the finale is awesome, if not a little “Point Break”.

Yes, I illegally downloaded this film and, quite frankly, I can’t wait to buy it.

[Ronin]

Hong Kong blu-ray comes out on February 9th from Panorama.

[Drunken Monk]

6 hours ago, Ronin said:

Hong Kong blu-ray comes out on February 9th from Panorama.

I’ll definitely be picking this up. I’m even willing to double dip if it does finally get a US release.

[robbie]

On 12/01/2018 at 1:29 AM, Drunken Monk said:

Let’s talk about “The Brink”. It is the single best kung fu movie of 2017.

it's  a pretty good film .  The main charater i felt lacked a little  abit of charisma and was a bit difficult to warm too. I felt the villain was alot more memorable.  There is again a little bit of noticeable wirework which not too keen on . The story was good though. Donnie yen as more charaisma so not agree with you there. it ain't in running for action / martial arts film of 2017 for me . (these all have an elements of martial arts  in and are better. . )  john woo's manhunt, wolf warriors 2, boyka undisputed,confidential assignment  and john wick 2 out that year are all better.   I realize u put kung fu film but i just see the brink  as  an action film. Anyway boyka is a better martial arts films if just want  martial arts . 

Edited February 26, 2018 by robbie

[Drunken Monk]

3 hours ago, robbie said:

it's  a pretty good film .  The main charater i felt lacked a little  abit of charisma and was a bit difficult to warm too. I felt the villain was alot more memorable.  There is again a little bit of noticeable wirework which not too keen on . The story was good though. Donnie yen as more charaisma so not agree with you there. it ain't in running for action / martial arts film of 2017 for me . (these all have an elements of martial arts  in and are better. . )  john woo's manhunt, wolf warriors 2, boyka undisputed,confidential assignment  and john wick 2 out that year are all better.   I realize u put kung fu film but i just see the brink  as  an action film. Anyway boyka is a better martial arts films if just want  martial arts . 

See, I think we weren't meant to warm up to the main character. I think he had this brooding charisma to him. Like, he wasn't bubbly and heroic. That's what makes him a little complex, I think. But sure, he won't be everyone's cup of tea. I'd agree with you there.
I wouldn't argue with you on your action choices. If you like your films to be filled with fisticuffs then, sure, "Boyka: Undisputed" might be preferable to "The Brink". However, "The Brink" is a better all round film than most of the ones you mentioned. Maybe not "John Wick 2". "The Brink", to me, has better plotting, acting and definitely cinematography. It's beautiful. I love what action there is too. It's not balls to the wall like "Wolf Warrior 2" but when it finally rolls around, I think it hits hard. 

[kami]

I didn't warm up to the movie. The photography is nice and the action choreography quite good, unfortunately the nice camera work doesn't always work well together with the choreography. The protagonist is a self-righteous asshole who I couldn't care less for, and Max Zhang looks ridiculous with his blonde hair. Hard to get emotionally involved with a lead like that. The movie completely lost me in the showdown. Instead of a conventional end fight we get this overlong, melodramatic but never involving disaster scene with just fight bits and pieces, frustrating!

[Drunken Monk]

Oh lord. It looks like I might be the minority on this one.

[Frank Bolte]

4 hours ago, Drunken Monk said:

Oh lord. It looks like I might be the minority on this one.

No, loved the movie!

[ShaOW!linDude]

14 hours ago, kami said:

Instead of a conventional end fight we get this overlong, melodramatic but never involving disaster scene with just fight bits and pieces, frustrating!

Oh boy. I hate when that happens.

[Drunken Monk]

1 hour ago, ShaOW!linDude said:

Oh boy. I hate when that happens.

I thought the end fight was super original and fraught with peril. I actually found it to be a breath of fresh air what with it being so different from your standard fight scene. It's interesting how this film (and its action) seems to be dividing its audience.

[laagi]

I'm with you on this @Drunken Monk Max Zhang remains a force to be reckoned with! However... If there was one thing I didn't like as much, was the sometimes for my taste overuse of slow-motion. Other than that, I thought it was great!

[ShaOW!linDude]

1 hour ago, Drunken Monk said:

It's interesting how this film (and its action) seems to be dividing its audience.

I am interested in seeing this, but from its first mention it just never really registered that high on my radar. Hopefully I'll be surprised when I do watch it.

[One Armed Boxer]

I'm in the same camp as @Drunken Monk, @FrankBolte, & @laagi with this one....a very enjoyable Hong Kong action movie (& really Hong Kong....not Mainland China!).  Max Zhang definitely stepped up to the plate of being a leading man, and I was a big fan of the finale, it was executed really well (it even out-typhooned 'Typhoon'!).  I gave it a full review over at COF - 

http://cityonfire.com/the-brink-2017-review-max-zhang-jin/

[mark187]

This one was really good. Zhang Jin looked super badass as always and it was great to see him in the lead role! Not perfect, but overall quite excellent and I’d pick it to win best action design (although I thought Paradox had a better finale)

[Sheng]

I did have high hopes for this, but after watching the HK blu ray two times in a row I just can't understand the props THE BRINK seems to get here. Is it just for the mere fact that balls-to-the-wall action spectacles made in HK seem to be a dying breed these days and we're all hoping something, anything, comes along to buck this trend ? Honestly though, the ridiculousness of the story, its plotholes, the unexplained and occasionally befuddling relations between the key protagonists (especially those towards the film's two female characters), the way-too-obvious set-ups plus clichéd characters saddled with cringeworthy dialogue, all this starts to grate after the film's first half hour or so. Zhang Jin's opening scene already makes it impossible to tell on what side of the law he's really on. Actually you'll be perplexed to learn that he's not the villain of this piece! If THE BRINK would have been conceived as a hei shebang picture, i.e. set inside the mob, things would have made at least some sense. But doing so would have forfeited the film's chances of being screened in China, so they went for a jingfei pian (cops 'n robbers film) and sacrificed any semblance of believability. Matter of fact, for some reason the gaps of logic and understanding seem to grow bigger & bigger the longer THE BRINK runs - especially in reference to Janice Man's bomb-throwing character and her inexplicably slavish attachment to Shawn Yue. It all left me with the feeling that portions of expository footage were possibly left on the cutting room floor!

Good points? I definitely enjoyed the film's cinematography, the seedy locations were well picked. Lee Chung Chi's multiple action set-pieces were fairly decent too - with the fish market chase a real showstopper - , but they appeared sometimes a bit sloppily executed and irritatingly over-edited. With quality screenfighters like Zhang Jin and Wu Yue on board you wonder why the editing of the fight scenes had to be so jerky.

And the characters? Shawn Yue, while certainly a fanboy's epitome of "badass" here, was a bit too one-note for my liking (and what kind of effect they put on his voice?). Wu Yue, who recently proved to be the best thing about PARADOX, was criminally under-utilized and given a thankless role as the conflicted turncoat cop. Kurata's part was regrettably even smaller than in MANHUNT (I couldn't help to think that his role as the evil Jap gambling boat operator only existed to pacify SARPPFT watchdogs). Lam Ka Tung made the best out of his totally unbelievable part that was possible, and Zhang Jin... well, he deserves a better written role. And as much as I like the brother, I'm afraid that as a leading man he still has some way to go. The grand underwater finale, that everybody appeared so excited about in the BD's "Making Of" extras ("first of its kind in HK cinema", rah, rah...), was certainly fun to watch... if you don't forget to switch off your brain! Characters jumping into the ocean, diving for gold, climbing back on board time and again in the middle of a full-on TYPHOON with waves meters high and the sea heaving like crazy ... Well, in the real world, out there in the real ocean - in other words: outside the confines of the studio whirlpool where they filmed this - you'd be flung miles away from your ship and drowned pitifully!

While there are some promising elements here that would make me agree that Jonathan Li might be a new director to watch, THE BRINK hardly qualifies as a return to golden-age HK action cinema.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Sheng

[One Armed Boxer]

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

While there are some promising elements here that would make me agree that Jonathan Li might be a new director to watch, THE BRINK hardly qualifies as a return to golden-age HK action cinema.

A lot of great points @Sheng which I completely get.  For me though, I don't think there ever will be a return to the golden-age of HK action cinema.  That era was a storm-in-a-teacup, when several factors too numerous to mention just happened to converge in the right place at the right time, I think it's a miracle it lasted as long as it did.  For a 2018 HK movie though, I certainly thought it was pretty good.

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

Zhang Jin's opening scene already makes it impossible to tell on what side of the law he's really on. Actually you'll be perplexed to learn that he's not the villain of this piece! If THE BRINK would have been conceived as a hei shebang picture, i.e. set inside the mob, things would have made at least some sense. But doing so would have forfeited the film's chances of being screened in China, so they went for a jingfei pian (cops 'n robbers film) and sacrificed any semblance of believability.

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

Kurata's part was regrettably even smaller than in MANHUNT (I couldn't help to think that his role as the evil Jap gambling boat operator only existed to pacify SARPPFT watchdogs).

Agree, I think if this was a pre-Mainland friendly movie then it would have been a tale of gangsters against gangsters, or at least morally ambiguous characters, but unless you're happy only appealing to HK audiences, that's never going to happen these days.  Sacrificing believability has always been a trait of HK action cinema, so I didn't have any issues with the outlandish nature of the plot (although Zhang's completely meaningless relationship with the daughter of the criminal he may or may not have killed grated on my nerves), and Kurata's inclusion was definitely for SARPPFT purposes (the brains behind all of these evil shenanigans is Japanese - pass!).  Sometimes half the fun of watching HK movies these days is theorizing about how they go it past the censors (like the way 'Drug War' made all of the drug dealers to basically be a who's who of Milkyway's HK actors - no Mainlanders involved!).

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

Janice Man's bomb-throwing character

Yeah - Janice Man is a hot HK actress, so everything was forgivable, I mean, how many other HK actresses are there out there these days?  I think I can count them on one hand, although I'd love to be corrected.

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

Zhang Jin... well, he deserves a better written role. And as much as I like the brother, I'm afraid that as a leading man he still has some way to go.n-age HK action cinema.

For me Zhang reminded me of an angry cop era Donnie Yen, he played the role well, and had a decent amount of screen presence.  Admittedly it's not like the role involved any heavy emoting or anything, but he did what he had to do within the confines of the role.

On 3/22/2018 at 2:30 AM, Sheng said:

The grand underwater finale, that everybody appeared so excited about in the BD's "Making Of" extras ("first of its kind in HK cinema", rah, rah...), was certainly fun to watch... if you don't forget to switch off your brain!

Switching off my brain is my specialty (it doesn't take much), so I really enjoyed the underwater scene.  Great end action sequence on the boat as well, it kind of reminded me of a kung-fu version of 'Sea Fog'.

[Sheng]

2 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Switching off my brain is my specialty (it doesn't take much), so I really enjoyed the underwater scene.  Great end action sequence on the boat as well, it kind of reminded me of a kung-fu version of 'Sea Fog'.

Haha, I just ordered SEA FOG from 88 Films five minutes ago, blood! (before reading your post!). But seriously, the melodrama and the choppiness of the action design made it hard for me to really enjoy the final fight(s). Couldn't switch off my brain either...   Maybe because I watched my new HK BD of ASURA - CITY OF MADNESS (a film I seem to rate higher than you - say 9 and a half stars outta 10) before THE BRINK, I was constantly thinking how an AD who specializes in realistic brutality like Heo Myeong-hoeng would have choreographed those fights.

2 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Yeah - Janice Man is a hot HK actress, so everything was forgivable, I mean, how many other HK actresses are there out there these days?  I think I can count them on one hand, although I'd love to be corrected.

Janice Man looked totally out of place in the context of this movie. But yeah, there's not many hot new HK actresses, granted. Cherry Ngan (Cheuk Ling) promised a lot in THE WAY WE DANCE, but she's not been casted in any relevant flicks since then. Went to see her latest, CONCERTO OF THE BULLY, a few weeks ago, one of those middling HK independents that is unlikely to do much for her career. Stephy Tang (Lai Yan), so far mainly associated with inconsequential fluff, proved to a revelation in THE EMPTY HANDS and based on this , I'd almost say, career-defining performance I look forward to see her in more serious films. But there's certainly no new Maggie or Anita (or Wu Chien Lien or Carina Lau, for that matter) on the rise, far from it. Nowadays the most interesting actresses come from the Mainland, period. And as far as I'm concerned, no HK actress can hold a candle to Zhou Xun!

[One Armed Boxer]

11 hours ago, Sheng said:

Maybe because I watched my new HK BD of ASURA - CITY OF MADNESS (a film I seem to rate higher than you - say 9 and a half stars outta 10) before THE BRINK, I was constantly thinking how an AD who specializes in realistic brutality like Heo Myeong-hoeng would have choreographed those fights.

Oh man, I think any action movie would probably come across like a wet leaf after watching 'Asura: City of Madness', that beast is like being repeatedly hit across the head with a monkey wrench.

I don't think the first 10 minutes of 'Asura' would have gotten past the SARPPFT, let alone the rest of it!

11 hours ago, Sheng said:

Janice Man looked totally out of place in the context of this movie.

Yeah her relationship with Shawn Yue was poorly explored (as in, not at all), but it was still nice to have her onscreen.  She first came on my radar in 'Helios', when she put up a surprisingly good fight against Nick Cheung.  I have the HK Blu-ray of the Herman Yau horror 'Nessun Dorma' sat on the shelf at home, so should really give it a spin soon.

11 hours ago, Sheng said:

And as far as I'm concerned, no HK actress can hold a candle to Zhou Xun!

You mean current HK actress right?  You have to mean current...

[Sheng]

11 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Oh man, I think any action movie would probably come across like a wet leaf after watching 'Asura: City of Madness', that beast is like being repeatedly hit across the head with a monkey wrench.

I don't think the first 10 minutes of 'Asura' would have gotten past the SARPPFT, let alone the rest of it! 

No doubt! ASURA would be classified as a heibang pian in Chinese. And this format, a staple in HK cinema, is a total no-no north of the border. Even Johnnie To struggled to conceive DRUG WAR as a jingfei pian. It's now considered to be a classic of this genre in China. And rightfully so. But people who're excited about DRUG WAR oftentimes don't realize how much To twisted his patented formula to meet the requirements of the the China/HK co-production deal of 2003 ("Closer Economic Partnership Agreement", really). Nothing of the type of the Milkyway classics could hope to be screened in China.

And another rule of the game that is conveniently forgotten (or simply unknown) in many discussions on the subject of HK/China co-productions: unlike in the good ol' days when the Taiwanese market could be milked and you could sell 'em a different cut of a any film (more Leslie, less Andy, mó man tai), producers nowadays can't just create different versions of a film for HK and China (not even for home video consumption). Guess the people who drafted the conditions for the CEPA won't allow themselves to, er... 'loose face'...

11 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Yeah her relationship with Shawn Yue was poorly explored (as in, not at all), but it was still nice to have her onscreen. 

This is why I said that it feels like portions of expository footage were dumped. Continuity problems and gaps of logic of this  magnitude do bring down my rating of any film.

Spoiler

I mean, she takes care of his hookers, volunteers (seemingly against his will) to kill and sacrifice herself for him, finally he kills her...WTF !!

11 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

You mean current HK actress right?  You have to mean current...

Yes, I meant current. Still, when you do get the increasingly rare chance to see veteran HK actresses strutting their stuff, you'd realize how good some of them still are. Take Carina Lau's wonderful performance in BEIJING LOVE STORIES as an example (I know, not the kind of film that folks would care to discuss here). I mean, she just lit up the screen in tandem with another seasoned veteran, Tony Leung (Ka Fai), and made what would otherwise be a fairly routine romcom excercise eminently watchable. 

And hey, in my view Zhou Xun has been pretty outstanding for years, even in HK-centered movies like Fruit Chan's HOLLYWOOD HONG KONG  or Ann Hui's recent OUR TIME WILL COME. Even her dubbing into Cantonese worked perfectly for me.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Sheng

[Drunken Monk]

Those wanting a taste of some of the action can give one of the fight scenes a watch below...