Director: Leo Zhang
Writers:
Siwei Cui
Erica Xia-Hou
Leo Zhang
Cast:
Jackie Chan
Show Lo Show Lo
Na-Na OuYang
Erica Xia-Hou
Callan Mulvey
Tess Haubrich
Kim Gyngell
Damien Garvey
In case of moviemaking, Jackie Chan shifted into overdrive these days. It's like he is making his latest films on an assembly line. In 1985 his movies came out one after another in the same year too. So in 2017 he was almost as productive. Qualitywise these films were a hit or a miss.
Jackie Chan made Bleeding Steel (2017) almost at the same time as The Foreigner (2017). In the last few years every single one of his films were a bit different than the others. He wanted to try out something new every time, and looked for suitable roles. In The Foreigner he successfully built in some serious dramatic elements into his performance and repertoire.
In the newest Chinese production titled Bleeding Steel Jackie Chan took a visit into the world of sci-fi films. Too bad that the references were nowadays fashionable, cheap and stupid science-fiction trash elements. It could have been much better if the sources were some kind of better materials. Fortunately instead of sci-fi stuff the main emphasis was on the action parts. This is not such a big problem, because Jackie Chan feels himself at home in the action genre after all. Hereafter in this review I'm going to desribe the plot and story in detail. There might be spoilers.
In the first action scene of Bleeding Steel Lin (Jackie's character) wears similar clothes and equipment as in New Police Story (2004). This is probably a little hint that we are in the past. Lin and his team try to get a doctor (Doctor James) into safety. He spends his free time with inventing bioroids (this world was probably stolen from Appleseed) and artificial bionic hearts (just like the one in Robocop 1). In the meantime doctors fight for the life for Lin's daughter because she has got leukemia.
One of Doctor James' creation, a bioroid called Andre kills Lin's teammates in the police force. Lin hits the guy with his car and drives him through a shed filled with barrels. Finaly he blows up the bioroid main bad guy with a fuel tank. The car flips because of the exlposion but miraculously more or less it stays in one shape ecept for the front fender and a wheel. The driver (Lin) gets off lightly with a visit to the hospital. You have to buy a Wolkswagen after that. (Wolksvagen. Das Auto.) Only Lin, Susan (Lin's colleague) and Doctor James survive Andre's rampage.
It seems like that the style, editing, and camera work of the action scenes tend to copy the Transformers live-action movies. I have a message for the filmmakers: You have chosen the wrong formula, you dummies. In some parts the picture style is similar to discusting tale-orange contrasted car commercials, Hollywood movies, and Michael Bay's style. Luckily there isn't too much camera shaking. However if I had known that some day a Jackie Chan movie would use the Michael Bay style and formula, I would have burnt my whole Jackie Chan vhs, dvd, and bluray collection many years ago.
I don't have much problem with the cinematography. But it Bleeding Steel tries so bad to copy Hollywood, the comic book movies, and mindless spectacles. On the long rin the whole film doesn't seem to be original at all. This didn't bother me with the second viewing. Luckily Bleeindig Steel's action scenes didn't fell victim to the rapid fire editing like in Resident Evil: The Last Chapter so the events during the fights are easy to follow.
After the big action sequence at the beginning of the movie we jump 13 years into the future, and we are in Australia. Until I didn't recognise a pamphlet in the film I wasn't sure that it takes place in the future or not. The movie doesn't even tell the date or year to the audience. If you want to know the film takes place in the future, of course it is. We are in the year 2020 witch won't count in a few year's time anyway. However we don't know how did the badguys get thos wonderful hi-tech toys, body armour (stolen from Tron), and laserguns. Their headquarters reminds me of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier. Time's passing is pictured with Lin's (Jackie's character) grey hair, but his ex-colleauge, Susan stayed the same as 13 years ago in the bioroid brawl.
However in the future a guy dressed as a woman manages to get into a famous writer's apartment. Somehow he gets through the guards without getting busted. It is so obvious that in the first couple of shots a woman was the body double to fool the guards and us too. Sudenly the main badguy, Andre's henchmen appear with a woman dressed in black in charge (she is also called like this in the credits) Lin (Jackie Chan) wearing a mask also appears. Everybody wants to get some kind of information that the writer received somewhere. So his the idea of this bestseller was not is idea in the first place. What a cheater.
The transvestite gets the information. Among the stolen data he finds photos about a girl. After this another storyline starts that stops the plot of the film. We get to know Nancy, an Asian girl who always gets into trouble everywhere in Sydney. There is nothing special in this part because we saw this better developed in Spider-Man or X-Men movies. Bleeding Steel gets pretty boring and sloppy at this part. Nancy constantly struggles with nightmares every night. She visits a witch on a regular basis and hopes she can cure her. She always tells her about her bad dreams.
The performance of the English dialogue is pretty bad. Some of the extras drove me mad because of their line delivery. It wasn't believable or funny. Maybe in Mr Nice Guy (1997) and Rumble in the Bronx (1995) had this kind of oveacting but this time the overacting is amped up to 11.
Bleeding Steel would have been perfectly fine without Leeson's (Show Lo) buffoonery. This kind of humour is overly forced to me. He appears for a short time but he is able to perfectly ruin the mood of the film. He wanted to be so funny but it is so awkward to watch what he does and I couldn't believe my eyes. However we get a decent scene wich makes fun of Sammo Hung's, Jackie Chan's, és Bruce Lee's kung fu movies.
Leeson and Nancy have to run away from a local gang. The thugs jump criss-cross over the handrail next to the stairs. There were no obsticles in the way so they could just run in a straight line like Leeson and Nancy. The film is filled with things that look good but don't serve any kind of logical function whatsoever. Back in the day Jackie Chan planned the action scenes carefully. They had to look good and they had to be logically built up as well.
Unfortunately, at the 40 minute mark the film sinks so low and becomes so dull that it takes for a while to get back on track. This was the moment when one single question came to my mind: WHere the hell did Jackie Chan dissappear? When he is on the screen everything gets a bit better even the poorly written parts. Well sometimes.
Nancy goes to an illusionist who has absolutely nothing to do with the story whatsoever. He has a rehersal in the Sidney Opera House in order to tick that location off the checklist as well. Leeson gets Nancy in there. The illusionist reveals Nancy's memories. It turns out that she is the daughter of Lin (Jackie Chan's character). Her original name is Xixi. This is the third film in a row which is about Jackie's daughter (Police Story 2013, The Foreigner (2017), Bleeding Steel (2017)). Suddenly Andre's squad arrives with the woman in black is in charge. They kill the illusionist.
Lin appears to rescue the girl. All hell breaks loose and they fight again. The battle in the theatre looks very good and it is also well choreographed. The woman in black appears to be too powerful for Lin. During his retreat he finds himself at the top of the Sydney Opera House. There seems to be no escape from there. The lady in black appears before Lin followed by a THX sound effect. They fight at the top of the building. Looks like almost the whole sequence was shot on location with a few exceptions. This action scene revokes the stunts of Who Am I?, Rush Hour 2, and New Police Story. This is the best part of Bleeding Steel except for the helicopter shots. The sound effects were missing from those. The fight in the theatre and at the top of the building belongs to the best parts of the whole movie. However this doesn't save the film.
It turns out that Doctor James (the person who was protected by Lin and his squad at the beginning of the movie from Andre the bioroid badguy) saved Nancy (Xixi). However it is a big contradiction that Xixi's heart stopped long before Doctor James gave her a biomechanical heart. I am not an expert, but after your heart stops you have only 4 minutes and you are dead. I doubt it is enough time to get Doctor James into the hospital and operate the girl. It just doesn't make any sense.
However at the beginning of the movie we know from a doctor that Xixi's body heals very fast. So after the girl's heart failure she has given an artificial heart which has got a regenerating function. You can imagine it as something like Wolverine's healing factor. In the flashback scenes Doctor James expriments with lizards the same way as Curt Connors does in Spider-Man. The doc creates the bionic blood. Is it able to cure everything even if the girl's heart has stopped beating? This is a good question. However Bleeding Steel is a great fary tail that's why the doctor gives Xixi the biomechanic heart and bionic blood which saves her life. The girl's DNA somehow changes after the operation. She loses her memories about her father (Lin). After Xixi was proclaimed dead, the girl and her father received a new identity. Lin told Susan to get (Xixi) into an Australian orphanage in order to be safe from the badguys looking for her. Lin protected the girl in incognito as a stranger.
After this confusing flashback let's get back to the year 2020. After Nancy disappears, Lin follows her to China, but she gets kidnapped by Andre's badguys. The bioroid must have Nancy's blood to regenerate his body which was damaged in the explosion at the beginning of the movie. Then we have to face a pretty annoying thing. Namely, in the film Nancy's blood is able to preserve memories (especially the doctor's memories). That totally blew my fuse. Those who wrote the script probably have received bad grades of Biology all the time at school. I just want to know one thing. Why do they write a script on a topic they don't understand?
With the help of Susan and Leesom, Lin infiltrates Andre's headquarters to release Nancy in a hair raising, exciting and spectacularly fun gigantic action scene finale, ending with a stunt which evokes The Armour of God. The explosions do not seem realistic enogh, and in green screen scenes, the sky is just CGI animation. People simply do not match the background, even though fortunately their outline is not as blurry as in Chinese Zodiac (2012). On the whole, we have got a Jackie Chan best of again, featuring the best action scenes of the 2000s and the shortcomings of the stories of 70's Hong Kong movies.
With the help of Susan and Leesom, Lin infiltrates Andre's headquarters to release Nancy in a hair raising, exciting and spectacularly fun gigantic action scene finale, ending with a stunt which evokes The Armour of God. The explosions do not seem realistic enogh, and in green screen scenes, the sky is just CGI animation. People simply do not match the background, even though fortunately their outline is not as blurry as in Chinese Zodiac (2012). On the whole, we have got a Jackie Chan best of again, featuring the best action scenes of the 2000s and the shortcomings of the stories of 70's Hong Kong movies.
I met a similar level of foolishness when I watched Killer Meteors (1976) and To Kill With Intrigue (1977), and it made me pissed off back then too. Accidental Spy (2001) was a similar mess. It has the same flaws as Bleeding Steel: the characters are frustrating, the plot twists come out of nowhere without surprise, and the punch line is boring. The story is all over the place and seemed to be just an alibi to link the action scenes. Just like in the 70s. Even Police Story 1 has a better story than Bleeding Steel. Maybe because it wasn't needlessly complicated.
The whole Bleeding Steel movie feels awfully rushed. It is like it took a few minutes to write the script with even less effort than it took to write the script of Chinese Zodiac (2012). The story doesn't make a lot of sense. It has go plot holes and logical flaws.
But at least the action scenes look good and are pretty spectacular. Seemingly, they gave everything they have got into the fight scenes, and the choreography is okay at best. Maybe this is the only thing that saves the movie. Somehow, Bleeding Steel can still get a new boost at the end. It gives you some weird trash experience, which is only a level better than the worst productions in Hollywood (Ultraviola, Resident Evil: The Last Chapter).
I just want to know one thing. Why do they have to play an awful cover of the Mandarin version of the Police Story theme during the outtakes at the end credits? This does not fit Bleeding Steel. Even in Police Story 4 it was terrible in Mandarin. If they wanted to force this song anyway, at least it shoul have been in Cantonese. I have always liked that version better. Unfortunately Jackie Chan doesn't shoot his movies in Cantonese anymore.
All in all, Bleeding Steel can be watched once or twice, but it's strictly recommended only to hardcore Jackie Chan's fanatics, and only for the sake of action. It recommended only if you want to switch off your brain on rainy evenings (of course if you have nothing else to do). Bleeding Steel was not such a great disappointment, but The Foreigner (<-- Strongly recommended to watch this one instead.) was so well made that after that Bleeding Steel was like a torture device.
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