Member Yihetuan Posted January 21 Member Share Posted January 21 Might be another sleeper from the Chinese streaming market. The Chinese title is literally "Thug in a Suit" but the English re-title is Desperado. No idea if it's influenced by the Robert Rodriguez film but the action seems pretty tight and I like the killer clown Joker costume and the Man on Fire revenge vibe. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member laagi Posted January 21 Member Share Posted January 21 4 hours ago, Yihetuan said: Might be another sleeper from the Chinese streaming market. The Chinese title is literally "Thug in a Suit" but the English re-title is Desperado. No idea if it's influenced by the Robert Rodriguez film but the action seems pretty tight and I like the killer clown Joker costume and the Man on Fire revenge vibe. You literally beat me to it lol. Worth mentioning this is starring Danny Chan Kwok Kwan. He played Bruce Lee in 'Ip Man 4' as well as in 'The Legend of Bruce Lee'. Seems to be a weird mix of Joker meets John Wick meets Man from Nowhere. But I agree could turn out to be one of those rare instances of a chinese streaming gem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member laagi Posted January 22 Member Share Posted January 22 (edited) I've had some fun with this one actually. Mainly because Danny Chan totally commits to his role, especially as "Uncle Clown". Story-wise there's not much worth mentioning. Plot twists that pile up towards the end of the movie are pretty on the nose. I doubt anyone who's paying a bit of attention will be all that surprised. As for the action it does an overall serviceable job. While in character (Uncle Clown) it almost felt like a throwback to JC's style of action. On the other hand the movie got super violent at times. Not holding back on bodies piling up, torture scenes or brutal kills. This part however had this video-game like style to it which I didn't really appreciate all that much. I think special mention also needs to go to the child actress who portrayed "Ling Ling". A likeable child character for once! Also worth mentioning is Miya Muqi. @One Armed Boxer I'm sure some will remember her from JC classics like 'Vanguard' or 'Kung Fu Yoga' lol. She's clearly there for her uhm... skills I guess. But honestly every time she's fighting Danny Chan it looks like these two need to get a room more than anything else! Something a certain @PandaPawPaw wouldn't mind either I bet. Google her Last but not least. I have no idea what they were thinking but the story apparently takes place in Taicheng which is in Guangdong province. Now all the storefronts, posters, billboard signs etc. were a wild mix of Chinese, English and Thai!? As if this wasn't confusing enough these are also the three languages spoken throughout the movie. Which made for some truly hilarious scenes. My bet would be that this was shot in Thailand? Although that wouldn't make much sense again either. The movie also ends on a somewhat odd note with several text panels proclaiming: "We can all learn something from this case." "We should make joint efforts to make Taicheng a safe place so that we can live a happy life." "Sponsored by your local PD and the CCP. We are watching you." I made that last part up obviously as for the aforementioned I was like WTF!? Anyway, since this is streaming on IQIYI for "free" this is easily recommended to kill (pun intended) 100 minutes of your time. Edited January 23 by laagi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member PandaPawPaw Posted January 22 Member Share Posted January 22 I got it covered @laagi. She was the only good thing about Vanguard! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member laagi Posted January 22 Member Share Posted January 22 1 minute ago, PandaPawPaw said: I got it covered @laagi. She was the only good thing about Vanguard! It may just be me but in 'Desperado' it looked like she had some (unnecessary) plastic surgery done to her face 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Yihetuan Posted January 23 Author Member Share Posted January 23 I see the official English subs from iyiqi are now available but the comments seem to indicate they are no better than machine translation. @laagi did you notice the English subs were pretty bad or was it decent enough to follow along? I might give this one a go next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member laagi Posted January 23 Member Share Posted January 23 10 hours ago, Yihetuan said: I see the official English subs from iyiqi are now available but the comments seem to indicate they are no better than machine translation. @laagi did you notice the English subs were pretty bad or was it decent enough to follow along? I might give this one a go next. Definitely not perfect but mind you this is not Shakespeare so it was super easy to follow. I don't see any problem with the english subs whatsoever. Curious to hear more thoughts on this one. I gotta say Danny Chan makes for a likeable leading man, not to mention at 48 years old can still kick some serious butt! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member laagi Posted January 23 Member Share Posted January 23 @PandaPawPaw Couldn't confirm if she had surgery or not but this video below as a general trend is disturbing!? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member PandaPawPaw Posted January 23 Member Share Posted January 23 51 minutes ago, laagi said: @PandaPawPaw Couldn't confirm if she had surgery or not but this video below as a general trend is disturbing!? That's so sad! I did a quick google and came across this! https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/05/chinese-actress-gao-lius-nose-dies-after-plastic-surgery-14030245/ Don't know who she is but that's fucking gross! Too many people suffer from body dysmorphia I think. I see people getting work done when there's nothing wrong with them. Sad that so many people do this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Yihetuan Posted January 24 Author Member Share Posted January 24 Here's a French review of the movie. @ShawAngela what does this say? Well, I can see 8 out of 10 stars is pretty positive. https://www.darksidereviews.com/film-desperado-de-cheng-si-yi-2024/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Yihetuan Posted January 29 Author Member Share Posted January 29 Finally got around to watching this and so far I've been 2 for 2 with these Chinese streaming action movies (the other being Blind War) and I've got Ban Drugs on my queue next. But getting back to this film, overall it hit the right notes for me and was pretty entertaining and although the action was a bit hyper stylized at times and I did wish it was a bit more grittier but that's true of most all action films now. Complaining about CGI & shaky cam nowadays is just pissing in the wind. I did like the fact that the violence got progressively more graphic as the movie went along and while, the clown (Danny Chan) did handle most of his business hand to hand, he definitely wasn't shy to display his brutality with edged weapons or guns when the situation called for it. Speaking of Danny Chan, his character is the laconic strong silent type and it suits him rather well. He does a good job emoting even though he's a stone faced killing machine for the majority of the film. The flaws were relatively minor in the scheme of things but it bothered me that Danny Chan didn't really find an adversary that truly tested him. Xing Yu aka Shi Yanneng was severely underutilized here. The major twists which tied the backstory together at the end was a bit forced as well and the finale was ludicrous with the requisite flashback to the classroom scene. The melodramatic tearjerker ending when the 'reveal' is finally shown just appeared more maudlin than genuinely sentimental. Yes, it did seem a bit jarring when you hear certain characters speaking Thai while everyone else is conversing in Mandarin but you quickly over it and there were also two really annoying characters that I felt like fast forwarding their scenes, one was the bumbling cop & the other was close cropped blond haired henchman of the main crime boss with a penchant for classical music and who looked like a young Karl Maka on crack. But overall, they are minor nitpicks there are worst ways to spend an hour and half than in indulge in this movie. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Drunken Monk Posted February 2 Member Share Posted February 2 I enjoyed this one, just not quite as much as everyone else. I feel it struggles with its 100 minute run time and could have benefited from being closer to the 70 minute length many Chinese streaming movies have. The plot isn’t going to win many over. It’s all pretty mundane stuff and the twists and turns don’t add a lot. However, the action really does hold this movie down. I throughly enjoyed each and every action beat and while some moves are repeated over and over (this film should have been called Slamming Heads), it never gets boring. It’s hyper stylized and at times very dance-like but it really works. Danny Chan really gets a chance to shine as the cool-as-a-cucumber lead. Sadly, the plot drags things down quite significantly. I felt I was left with a slightly above average actioner that will please most fight fans. Though if you decide to watch the action sequences on YouTube, you won’t be missing much. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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