We’d like to think if you ask most people what genre of Chinese movies
they like best, their answer would be Action.
Whether that’s wuxia, kung fu or your traditional guns and explosion,
Chinese can make some pretty decent action films.
So what we’ve done is hand picked 5 Chinese action movies from the
last half of the 2010’s that fit into one of these three action types.
You might know all 5 of these, or have never heard of any of them.
But one thing we can promise you:
you should be able to find at least one movie in this list that you’ll enjoy.
Hi, I’m The Arty Dans and welcome to this Asian Film Fans Selects video
on 5 Great Modern Chinese Action Movies.
If you’re new and you enjoy what you’re about to watch,
please consider subscribing to see more videos like this.
This modern wuxia movie comes courtesy of the director of the first film,
Lu Yang, and he has done a great job with this sequel.
With a keen eye for colour and some excellent set design,
Brotherhood of Blades 2 is a prequel to the first movie and tells the story
of an imperial guard Shen Lian,
played by Chang Chen reprising his role from the first title.
When Shen Lian is tasked with the job of punishing an artist with death,
her only crime being the fact she uses her paintings to speak out
against the monarchy, he recognises her as woman he met
just days before after unknowingly purchasing one of her creations.
Instead, he saves her life and by doing that uncovers a plot by his superior,
Lu Wenzhao, to overthrow the current leader of the Ming Dynasty.
Now considered a traitor, Captain Pei Lun, played by Lei Jiayin
and starring in director Lu Yang’s upcoming 2021 blockbuster Assassin In Red,
is sent in to investigate Shen Lian.
At times the story can get rather bogged down in complexity,
there is always a new character being introduced that has something to do
with the plot to over throw the monarchy or who wants the painter Bei Zhai dead,
and at almost 2 hours it can feel like a bit of a chore at times to keep up.
But the strength of Lu Yang is in the visual composition of the film.
It is the key element that will keep you glued to the screen.
The vivid colours of nature, the angles of the architecture
and the details in the costumes; it’s a visual feast for the eyes matched
by the equally spectacular sounds of swords clinking against each other in
one of the many impressive action sequences.
And don’t forget, that’s the main reason you are watching this: for the action.
This wuxia movie is heavy on the knife and sword play,
with only a sprinkle of any kung fu and wirework.
Interestingly, guns make an appearance as well towards the end of the film.
While this movie might be just a little bit too long,
its still a fun ride and being a prequel in story means you don’t need
to see the first movie to enjoy this one.
Explosion is a 2017 action thriller much in the same vein as Taken,
where our main character is an expert at a particular skill and is looking for revenge.
In this case, our main character is Zhao Xudong and he is an explosives expert.
Zhao works as a blast technician in a mine,
his job is to ensure the explosive and chargers are set with right compounds,
and then to blow the mine safely.
But something goes wrong with his latest explosion
and he ends up killing 4 of his workmates.
When he decides to investigate what happened,
he uncovers that his compound has been swapped out with something
far more powerful, and as he learns the truth,
the number of dead bodies piles up behind him.
This is a good old-fashioned revenge film.
A few different plot points converge together until the audience fully understands who
the main bad guy is,
and while it may seem a little convoluted at first due to the rather pacy first hour,
it comes together in a rather solid way.
That’s not to say to believable,
and when watching a film like this you should always suspend disbelief,
especially with things like how Zhao is able to rustle up enough components
to build his bombs.
It’s also never really explored how Zhao is so good at making
small explosive devices.
The movie makes a point to let us know he has been doing it for 20 years,
but some of the bombs he creates look like they required a pretty
complex scientific degree!
You may notice a very familiar face in the footage, and that is Nan Yu.
She is well known not only for her Chinese movies like Wolf Warrior and
No Man’s Land, but also for her Hollywood output in The Expendables 2.
Yihong Duan does a great job in the lead role of Zhao,
with Jingchun Wang from Shadow and The Climbers also putting in
a fantastic effort as the police officer and friend who hunts down Zhao to uncover the truth.
This one comes highly recommended.
Hands up who likes movies about Wing Chun?
Thanks to the rising popularity of the Ip Man movies,
Wing Chun has become the new staple in Chinese kung-fu movies.
Released around the time of Ip Man 3, this film from 2015, continues that trend.
You’ll need to pay attention while watching this film,
as its fast paced and really moves the story along,
not leaving too much time to dwell in-between action scenes.
But for the casual kung-fu enthusiast, there is still plenty on offer.
Liao Fan, from Let The Bullets Fly and the recent hit Wild Goose Lake,
stars as Grandmaster Chen.
He moves to Tianjin with the intent of opening up a Wing Chun school,
but after an encounter with Grandmaster Zheng,
he is told in order do to that he must train a local fighter
to defeat the champions of 8 schools.
This is part of a plan by Zheng to defeat the trainee and regain his status.
Chen accepts the offer, unbeknownst that Zheng is about to double cross him.
He marries a waitress at Western restaurant, Zhao, played by the very talented
Song Jia who won several Best Actress awards for her role in this film.
After defeating a few local thugs,
a rickshaw driver Geng turns up to Chen’s house to challenge him.
Chen takes him on as his trainee, or disciple, and skills him in the art of Wing Chun,
which Geng picks up very quickly.
He then uses his skills to begin defeating the champions of other academies.
This eventually leads to a battle of Grandmasters,
where some impressive kung fu and knife skills are on display in a series
of very poetic-like action scenes.
Some entertaining music adds an element of light-comedy to the film,
with solid performance from the whole cast that really forces the audience
to keep up or be left behind.
If you’re looking for this one, Well Go USA has pressed an English subtitled
version on bluray disc,
and is well worth the effort to hunt down and watch
if you like to see blades in your kung fu movies.
What happens when you give Dante Lam, acclaimed Hong Kong film director,
a big budget and a real-life story?
You get Operation Mekong!
Based on a real life “Mekong River massacre” event that occurred in 2011
about the murder of 13 Chinese citizens along the Burmese section of the river.
Their bodies were dumped into the river where they were discovered by a local village.
The ships recovered the day after by Thai police after a gunfight with the culprits,
containing 900,000 meth pills.
It was revealed a local drug gang, lead by Naw Kham,
was responsible for the massacre.
A joint task force was set up between Chinese and Thai police to capture
the gang and their leader and bring them to justice.
The dramatization of the event follows an elite Chinese special forces team
lead by Gao Gang, played by Mr Six and The Captain lead actor Zhang Hanyu
and local intelligence operative Fang Xinwu
played by Taiwanese-Canadian actor Eddie Peng.
Both men have since worked with Dante Lam in other films:
Zhang Hanyu starred in Operation Red Sea, also based on a true event,
while Eddie Peng in the upcoming The Rescue.
When watching action movies based on real events,
the most important thing for the audience to remember is this:
“this event is real, but it didn’t happen the way it’s being portrayed here”,
and that’s a good mind set when going into this film.
The action is fantastic.
Set pieces are well designed and the flow, with the exception of the final shootout
in the jungle at the end, feels right.
Although, as you’ll see during the scenes of the speed boats down the Mekong,
a lot of CGI has been used to create these scenes.
As with every good action movie, we are introduced to our hero early on.
There is some conflict within the higher rankers of the Chinese forces
about using him,
but he is a tough non-compromising character who gets things done.
His intel specialist, as we later find out, has a history with one of the
drug runners who threatens to derail the mission as it clouds his better judgement.
But as the audience we just want action,
and whether that takes place on the water, in a crowded market,
a shopping mall or the jungle, we are witnessed to some high energy
scenes that would rival, if not best,
the high points of American action cinema from the 80s.
Just be warned: this is a pure propaganda puff piece of a movie.
But that just makes it more fun to be more honest.
It’s an interesting paradigm shift in cinema and as long as you don’t take
that element too serious, or even seriously at all,
you’re going to have a great time.
It’s got a weird title that’s a bit of turn-off,
but star power galore with Aaron Kwok and Chow Yun Fat.
This is a Chinese-Hong Kong co-production that hit cinemas on 30 September 2018,
the same day as the highly acclaimed Shadow,
and was both a critical and commercial success.
Directed by Felix Chong,
the man who co-wrote the Internal Affairs and Overheard trilogies,
this movie fits more in the action thriller genre than just a pure action film,
but the action that is here, is pure over the top quality.
Aaron Kwok plays Lee Man, a struggling artist who has a very unique skill
in being able to create perfect forgeries.
The movie is mostly told from his point of view,
in a Hong Kong police station where his ex-girlfriend Yeun Man
is hoping to bailing him so he can lead her to The Painter,
played by Chow Yun Fat, a mysterious man responsible for the death of her husband
Lee Man works for The Painter, his job was to create the perfect replica
of an American $100 note.
Through The Painter’s small team,
the audience is retold the story of the plate manufacturing, paper acquisition
and a violent heist to steal the particular ink used for the notes.
A solid story has been crafted by Felix Chong,
who was responsible for the writing as well as the directing.
Action junkies after their fix will no doubt love the massive shoot-out
in the Thai jungle, as well as the Ink Heist,
which shares one of many similarities with the film The Usual Suspects.
I’ll let you work out the other similarities it shares.
As expect, solid acting from Aaron Kwok showcasing why he is one of
Hong Kong’s leading acting talents,
and Felix Chong has really gotten the best out of Chow Yun Fat,
whose later performances have been rather lacklustre,
but this will remind you of more of his later-90’s work.
If only this movie had ditched the awful English title and went with the
literal translation of its Chinese name,
which translates to “unique”.
But whatever the title, make sure you check it out and stick around for the ending.
This is just the first of many Asian Film Fans Selects videos,
where we will hand-pick 5 great films based on
a particular genre, country or theme.
We’ve got some great videos coming soon including
5 Films to Watch after Parasite, movies about food and more Chinese action hits!
Or does she?
So initially, the man and the scar girl hatch a plan involving the
diamond ring to drive the woman crazy as revenge.
But who is this mysterious playboy?
Well that’s twist number two.
Mysterious playboy is actually…
drumroll please...
a psychiatrist who works in the local mental hospital.
You see, in the third twist,
this whole scenario is actually a figment of the woman’s imagination.
It’s part of her therapy to deal with the death of her friend.
At times this feels like the movie Shutter Island crossed with Inception
except without the budget or Leonardo DiCaprio.
Or any sense of logic.
In the end, this movie is explained as being just part of someone’s
imagination and their therapy in a mental hospital.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Now onto a movie that has taken
the interest of Asian Film Fan’s viewers by storm.
The trailer for this movie became our fastest viewed video in its first week,
and with its clickbait title and even clickbaitier movie poster,
it has drawn a lot of attention.
A lot of people were hoping for Jaws crossed with Piranha,
probably crossed with Sharkando.
In reality, this movie is none of those. I’m sorry to tell you.
Giant Fish tells the story of a Chinese fishing village whose fishermen
mysteriously go missing after a large fish is caught by a trawler.
A beautiful young woman, Xiao Yi,
gets involved in an accident with a local fisherman’s son,
and after she recovers she overstays her welcome by sticking to him like glue.
Eventually, the rich fisherman in town discovers her secret
she has escaped from a forbidden island
that is home to a school of people-fish.
Or just large fish.
Or strange people.
You know, this part is actually not explained that well,
but from what I can gather is an island whose inhabitants have the
ability to turn into large dolphin sized fish,
but only if a human sacrifice is made.
The rich fisherman has a deal with a man who lives on the island,
who has come to the village to bring Xiao Yi
back home.
Disappointingly there is no excessive gore or fish attacks,
it’s more of a romantic drama with a
Shakespeare style tragedy than a horror film.
And I can guarantee you no one will ever put
“Giant Fish” and “Shakespeare” in a sentence ever again!
So how did this suffer at the hands of restrictions?
Well quite simple.
You see anthropomorphic fish is not something
the Chinese government will want to endorse a story about.
So its explained by them being mysterious human experiments
because when all else fails,
just make it ‘mysterious’ and no one will ask question.
But that’s not enough.
You see our rich fisherman needs to be punished for his avarice,
so not only does he end up brutally killing his own son with a spear gun,
he also finds out his son was a fish person like Xiao Yi.
And because we aren’t allowed to have a happy ending,
no not that kind,
Xiao Yi
transforms from a beautiful woman into an ugly fish and swims away.
Yes that’s right, no happy endings are allowed here.
The moral of the story: don’t mess with nature.
It actually spells that out at the end of the film,
just without using the f-word.
Not to be confused with the video game of the same name,
this movie is very unique, and is also the only anomaly on this list.
How so? You ask.
Well this is China’s version of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
In fact, when I say China’s version, I really do mean that.
This is an almost 1:1 remake,
minus the excessive gore and sex and the cool phone tongue scene,
of the first film,
just with a massive low budget student film club Chinese twist.
We’ve got the knives for fingers killer
We’ve got the dream sequences where he appears
We’ve got a cast of teens, who according to the timeline
should be about 23 but seem to be 18 or so
We’ve got the parents hiding a secret
We’ve got deaths galore
We’ve got blood
We’ve got implied sex
We’ve got the fire sequence
We’ve got Heath Leader’s Joker
Whoa, back up!
Yeah this is only real difference, story wise, is that the killer,
Hu, not Freddy,
is wearing Joker style makeup.
This is never explained,
so lets assume the film makers thought it looked cool.
And it kinda does in a low budget way.
Hu has a cool, gravelly voice,
the actor is clearly trying to sound like Freddy Kruger,
but is not quite there.
He even manages to replicate some of Freddie’s one liners including
“I’m your boyfriend now”
and “Your mouth says no, but your body says yes”
they’re just badly translated in the subtitles.
Heck, even the famous bath tub scene has been replicated.
OK, so its not an exact replica, but there is more than enough here
to remind you what the source material is.
The filmmakers have even used the music score,
attempting to get away with by adding this in the end credits.
So what we have here is a slasher film,
complete with blood and gory deaths,
about a serial killer who kills teenagers in the dreams.
How did the filmmakers get away with this?
Easy,
If you know the source material, the you know how the kids kill Freddy.
And that’s exactly how they kill Hu too,
you see, they take him out of dream world and kill him in real life.
There you go, they turned him into a human to kill him.
No longer a monster, no longer a problem!
If you want to watch this movie – you’re in luck.
Its currently playing on Tubi right now, and while it is a terribly bad movie,
it is sill well worth watching for what it is,
a Chinese replica of A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Oh and the best part,
it’s full name is Game Of Throne’s Dead Space.
I've said it before but you can’t make this stuff up…
But not all Chinese horror movies are low budget schlock fests
designed to fill the schedules of video streaming platforms around the world,
sometimes they cast big name actors.
Matrimony is such a film, made in 2007 and stars my favourite
Chinese actress and large scale tax evader Fan Bingbing,
tells the story of a woman whose moves into her husband’s mansion
but is forbidden from entering a locked attic.
But like any normal person who is forbidden to do something,
she finds a way in and discovers the ghost of her husband’s ex-girlfriend
who died in a car accident.
Initially not starting out as a haunting movie,
as the ghost offers to help the wife’s relationship with her husband,
the ghost eventually becomes jealous of as the relationship
between husband and wife as it improves.
Since it involves ghosts and possession,
I think you can probably guess how this one is explained,
but to be fair I am not going to spoil this one.
I think this is a good film and you should watch it,
just be prepared to be slightly let down with the ending.
And lastly we are going to take a look at a movie is quite
an anomaly in Chinese cinema:
and that is a horror movie that’s a box office success.
The House that Never Dies Reawakening,
the 2017 sequel, tells the story of a supernatural event in a
Shanghai mansion at 81 Chaoyangmennei Street.
Starring a swathe of well-known Hong Kong and Chinese actors,
this movie tells the story of a restorer working on the mansion whose
wife experiences a series of a creepy events when she moves
into the mansion to stay close him.
A parallel storyline involving the same actors playing dual roles punctuate
the horror in the movie, as we are taken back in time where
human experimenting and sacrifices are conducted to help a besieged
newly-wedded wife conceive a male heir for her warlord husband,
while his ex-wife and true love is cast as an evil witch by the townsfolk.
Some outstanding horror imagery and gothic settings are the
real highlight in this movie.
where its large budget has allowed for some truly creepy scenes and imagery.
But as you would expect,
the filmmakers weren’t allowed to go too far with this film.
Following a similar style ending to Matrimony,
this entertaining horror film doesn’t really end the way you want it to,
with all the creepiness and ghosts explained in a very non-satisfying way,
especially if you’re a true horror lover expecting something like
Amityville Horror crossed with Hereditary.
Again, because this is a good film, I don’t want to spoil it too much.
I’d recommend hunting this movie down and watching it,
just because as of right now,
this is the best you’re going to get when it comes to Chinese horror films.
With all these restrictions in place,
it hasn’t stopped Chinese filmmakers from at least attempting to make
interesting horror movies.
Indeed in 2020 we have a few movies to look forward to including:
The Perilous Internet Ring,
Beijing Guild Hall,
Number 82 Haunted House
and the rumoured sequel to another Fan Bingbing horror movie
Cell Phone 2.
It’s going to be a long time until we get the Chinese equivalents of
Halloween style slashers,
Saw type gore films or Annabelle style spooky chillers.
Until then, we’ve got the rest of Asia that can keep us satisfied,
while we watch Chinese filmmakers skirt around the draconian restrictions.
What are some mainland Chinese horror films you’ve seen?