Author: Andrew Saroch

Working with what is probably a minimal budget by Hollywood standards, Chin Ka-Lok fashions quite an impressive action film, complete with international locations and slick looking set-pieces.

Unfortunately for Jingle Ma, ‘Europe Raiders’ is dated in a way that the nearly twenty years old ‘Tokyo Raiders’ isn’t, a production old before its time despite the 2018 bells and whistles.

A film that gives the viewer the experience of rolling down a hill in a barrel full of dirty razor blades without having to leave one’s home.

‘Kung Fu League’ displays the good and bad of Lau, a fact that means it’s never a smooth journey through the hundred minutes, but you don’t necessarily feel too aggravated by the end.

‘Big Brother’ is a wasted opportunity. It is enjoyable enough for its duration, but every scene seems like it’s been pinched from the genre book written with Dead Poets’ Society strokes.

The pacing is just right, the locations are skilfully used and Liu has taken a deceptively simple story and given it layers of interest beneath.

‘The Unity of Heroes’ is a slipshod update of the Wong Fei-Hung myth, a film wholly lacking in not only chemistry but also everything else that made the Tsui Hark chapters so influential.

It’s all very pleasant as a celeb-spotting exercise though it does remind you of the much better films these stars have already been in, productions you should be watching instead.

The humour is never forced and the drama never over-cooked, meaning that as a whole, the film hits its targets with remarkable accuracy.

Once again, Japan has given us the cinematic equivalent of an antique porcelain swan – something so beautiful, delicate and sublimely crafted that it’s hard not to be impressed.

There are some genuinely witty moments in there and they prove the perfect covering for the many more that end with a whimper.

‘Wrath of Silence’ builds up well after a slow start and, while not quite bringing the viewer to the edge of their seat, evolves into a more than decent mixture of arthouse aesthetics and nuts-and-bolts action.