Invisible Target - Bombs, Guns, and Glass

Jan

17

Invisible Target - Bombs, Guns, and Glass

≡ Category: Action, Bullet Ballet, Hong Kong, Martial Arts, Movie Reviews By Country, Recommended |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action
Director: Benny Chan
Year: 2007

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE

One thing that you definitely can’t complain about in director Benny Chan’s Invisible Target is the action. I thought I’d never see another Hong Kong movie with these sorts of stunts again. Department stores worth of breakaway furniture are destroyed. Acres of glass are shattered. There’s plenty of fabulous wire enhanced kung fu with solid hits, parkour like stunts, and falls off of high places, often hitting obstacles on the way down, often filmed in an unbroken cut. Invisible Target even has some awesome fire stunts. This baby has it all, in spades. Action director Nicky Li really earned his pay. Watch out for this guy.

And director Benny Chan is no slouch either. He films the chases and fights with breathless energy. You will get pumped watching this. Which is all the more reason, when Chan manages to do so many difficult things so well, to be frustrated that he drops the ball on simple stuff.

Most egregiously, in the beginning of the movie, a thief places a bomb on the windshield of an armoured truck. Of course it goes boom. But here’s the thing: the truck is blown straight up into the air — that would never happen. When the truck comes back down, the windshield is barely dented. In another scene, someone is shot, there’s blood on the shirt, but no bullet hole. Elsewhere, shards of CGI glass end up imbedded in the ground in an extremely unlikely way, telegraphing minutes ahead that a villain is going to end up impaled on them. And there’s plenty more missteps like that. It’s a shame because these amateur hour flubs keep pulling you out of the picture.

Then there’s the acting. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that, because the leads are young and in good physical condition, they handle the fight and chase scenes beautifully. When these guys run, it’s full out. They’re faster than I was when I was a kid. But they can’t emote to save their lives. Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yu, and Jaycee Chan have exactly one expression: a sullen pout, as if when they got to the toy store, the latest edition of Grand Theft Auto was out of stock. These aren’t men, they’re children pretending to be men. Compared to these guys, Andy Lau was a character actor back in the day. These guys are pure Tiger Beat material. Worse yet, because of their pretty boy, unformed faces, it took me the better part of an hour to tell them apart.

The villains fare a little better, mostly because of Jacky Wu Jing. His scowl has a glint of cruelty that is distinctive. The rest of the gang also has unformed pretty boy looks, which further confuses the issue.

Thank God for the veterans, like Mark Cheng, Ken Lo, and Dominic Lam, who add some welcome flavor with their idiosyncratic line readings and weathered mugs.

The story? It’s an oldie, but perfectly workable.

A Thai gang robs an armoured car, killing cop Chan Chun’s (Nicholas Tse) fiancee in the process. Later on, Tien Yeng Seng (Jacky Wu Jing) humiliates Inspector Carson (Shawn Yu) during a fight with the cops. Six months before, beat cop Wai King Ho’s (Jaycee Chan) big brother, who is also a cop, disappeared. Wai thinks he is working undercover, but the police brass think he turned and joined the Thai gang. All of these guys have personal reasons to bring down the Thai gang, and they eventually join forces.

The problem is that, because of the terrible acting and some admittedly lousy dialog and scriptwriting, the story has zero emotional resonance. Dramatically speaking, Invisible Target is unforgiveably bland. All you’re left with is kick-ass action.

For me, that’s enough to recommend Invisible Target, but it’s a bit of a missed opportunity. Couldn’t the producers find young, physically fit guys with distinctive faces who could act? Having expended so much time and energy on the action, why couldn’t the filmmakers make sure the script was up to snuff? Who knows, but I’m still grateful for the trip down memory lane to the hard hitting action days of the Golden Age of Hong Kong (1985-1995).