Country: Vietnam
Genre: Action/ Martial Arts
Director: Truc ‘Charlie’ Nguyen
Year: 2006
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
Here’s an aphorism that’s almost always true: “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.” I would maintain that it’s pretty much impossible to make a great movie without a great, or at least very good script. But The Rebel comes tantalizingly close.
The production design, cinematography, and music combine to provide an overwhelmingly sensual evocation of 1920’s French colonial Vietnam. You can practically smell the tropical decay and flowers. The costumes are exquisite. The way the sets are constructed and/or dressed, courtesy of production designer Quy Tung La, drops you into 1920’s Vietnam like a time machine. Cinematographer Dominic Pereira comes up with incredible color schemes, like violet for the jail scenes. Burnt orange, dark greens and other luscious colors are also part of his palette. The camera movements are slick and smooth. Composer Christopher Wong’s score is swooningly romantic.
The martial arts are terrific, reminiscent of the Muay Thai elbow strikes and roundhouse kicks you see in the Ong Bak movies.
The stars don’t let you down, either. Johnny Nguyen, Thanh Van Ngo, and Dustin Nguyen are all good actors, capable martial artists, and gorgeous to boot. Stephane Gauger is a wonderfully slimy presence.
Actually, the basic plot is a good one.
A group of guerilla fighters have been harassing the French, assassinating top officials at will. Le Van Cuong (Johnny Nguyen) and Sy (Dustin Nguyen) are working with the French to quell the insurrection, but their motivations are different. Le Van Cuong, when he visited Paris, was seduced by the advanced civilization, and he wants these things for his native country. He figures correctly that the French will bring modernity to Vietnam. Sy’s motivation is different — he lusts for power. His boss Derue (Stephane Gauger) has promised Sy that he will return to France and give Sy his post if he captures the leader of the guerillas.
When Vo Thanh Thuy (Thanh Van Ngo), the daughter of the rebel leader, is captured during an assassination attempt, Le Van Cuong’s sympathy’s shift. Sy tortures Vo Thanh Thuy to obtain her father’s whereabouts, which Le Van Cuong cannot stomach. Soon enough, our heroes are on the run.
Now, that’s a solid if unoriginal premise. But there are problems in the script, written by star Johnny Nguyen, Truc ‘Charlie’ Nguyen, and cinematographer Dominic Pereira. Instead of speaking in language people might actually use, the characters often speak in epigrams. Huge chunks of exposition are dropped into the dialog. Ridiculous leaps of logic are required. How does Sy manage to find our heroes in the middle of the jungle? How do our heroes manage to outrun a train on foot? Once Sy captures the leader of the insurrectionists, why doesn’t he just kill him, especially when the train is attacked by Le Van Cuong and the other rebels? That last problem could have been easily solved. All the scriptwriters had to do was write some dialog to the effect that the rebel leader had to be executed publicly to break the spirit of the rebels. That would have done the trick. Here’s a piece of advice for the filmmakers. Next time guys, hire a real screenwriter.
The rest of the filmmaking is often breathtaking, but the borderline incompetent script prevents The Rebel from being truly great.
