This review is part of Project Adkins, covering the movies of Scott Adkins. Like so much else here, you feel it would have benefited from more thought beyond “Let’s have Adkins and On fighting.” The set pieces from both men are solid, as you’d imagine, though quite why a distraught British father has these mad skills is never addressed. You do get to see him sporting possibly the loudest jacket ever made. As is, it’s never mentioned: he doesn’t notice, which seems odd, even allowing for the difference between England and Vietnam. However, the film’s focus being split between Quinn and Connor is problematic, and I can’t help thinking it would have been better to stick with one or the other – having Quinn adapt to the changes between 19, could have been a source of entertainment, for example. The action isn’t bad, and Adkins does a good job with his role, stuttering his way to our sympathies. If ever I become an evil alien overlord, my minions will not be able to be beaten, simply by removing a loosely attached control device from an easily accessible location on the back of their neck… Their lair also resembles the low-rent district in a Victorian slum if that’s what the fifth through eighth dimensions look like, you can keep them. However, the aliens are both simultaneously superpowered and remarkably easy to defeat. The concept of an alien race having given humanity feng shui, is an interesting one, which could have merited further exploration. We figure out what’s going on alongside Quinn, who has largely lost his memory by the time he shows up in Ho Chi Minh City. Now they must evade him and fight for their lives. This starts strongly, with the viewer being largely thrown in at the deep end. Mystery Three women discover a house hidden deep in the forest, which is home to a serial killer.Which, it appears, also makes them crazy good at martial arts. Impeding their quest, are the aliens’ minions: humans who have been implanted with a spider-like control device. With the help of psychiatrist, Anna Pham (Anh), Quinn and Connor find out they have the same enemy, teaming up to take them on, and try to rescue their loved ones. Meanwhile, Conner (On), is in similar territory, his wife having been abducted, the result of a shady deal between his employers and the aliens. It begins well enough, with Quinn (Adkins) trying to rescue his daughter, abducted by a group of aliens from another dimension the fight ends with him being spat out into a Vietnamese water fountain, to find over thirty years have passed. As a result, the story stagnates, particularly in the second half, with a conclusion which is particularly flat. This has an interesting idea, and the initial execution isn’t too bad, it seems that the makers haven’t got any good ideas about how to develop it. Way back in 1986, Cynthia Rothrock and Richard Norton made The Magic Crystal, of which I have very fond memories. Not the first kung-fu pic I’ve seen involving aliens, and certainly not the best either. He also directed the Canadian horror thriller They Wait.Star: Andy On, Scott Adkins, Truong Ngoc Anh, Daniel Whyte Barbarash also wrote and directed Cube Zero and Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming. Film director, film producer, screenwriterĮrnie Barbarash is a film director, screenwriter and producer, perhaps best known as co-producer of the films American Psycho 2, Cube 2: Hypercube, Prisoner of Love, The First 9½ Weeks and The Cat's Meow.
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