14 Blades

When one watches the movie '14 Blades', I can bet all my Ang Pow $$$ that it is because the poster loudly declares Donnie Yen as their main actor for the film. I mean this guy has to be the hottest, most bankable actor in Asia right now. Just look at the 'Bodyguards & Assassins' poster, I don't think he is the main actor but yet he takes up the biggest space in the poster and stands right in the middle. So clearly, lots of movie studios and producers want to cash in on his namesake and hire him as the star hoping to draw audiences into the theaters, synonymous to how flies get attracted to blue light.

'14 Blade' tells the story of how Donnie's character Qing Long (Green Dragon) was trained to be a cold-blooded assassin for the Ming Emperor, a special breed of elite bodyguards. The movie started almost like 30 mins of the story has gone past, with Qing Long betrayed by an Eunuch and left for dead by one of his own comrades played by Qi Yu Wu. So Qing Long becomes a wanted fugitive and with the help of a security escort firm led by Vicki Zhao Wei, he attempts to find the traitors and seek vengeance....no sorry honor for himself. Along the way, a exiled warlord played by Samo Hung sent his highly trained assassin Tuo Tuo (literally means undress undress) to hunt and kill Qing Long, who (Samo) intends to overthrow the Emperor and usurp the throne. Oh and did I forget to mention that a band of bandits led by Wu Zun joined forces with Qing Long to destroy the traitors. And guess what is Wu Zun's character called, 沙漠判官。

If you find the story complicated, its because it IS complicated. And I doubt that was the intent. The script suffers from over exhaustion of too many sub plots and an overkill of characters that dosen't add to the progression of the main plot, which I doubt there is one anyway. But that can still be salvaged by some really cool action sequences, but even that is severely lacking here. Instead of letting Donnie do his stuff, that is cool ass kicking action they decided to do something horrifying instead. They let him ACT!!! I'm not doubting Donnie as an actor, I'm just doubting him as a non-action actor. When Donnie is not fighting bad guys, he really looks like a fish out of water, struggling hard to breath. His botoxic expression really makes it a torture to watch and at time I cringe more than I did when I was watching 'SAW'. But Wu Zun and Qi Yu Wu can both become serious contenders to be the worst actor yet. I guess the director probably wanted Wu Zun to be this cool and ruthless desert bandit, but honestly he failed utterly and ended looking more like a white version of Kumar acting as a villian. I honestly also don't know why Qi Yu Wu keeps getting roles that dosen't require him to speak more than 5 sentences in a single take, he is becoming a male 'vase' for Raintree pictures. So when I look at the casting choices, it became apparent to me that the sole marketing strategy of this film is to attract young idol audiences of the 3 male lead stars. So what has story and substance got to do with it??

If the producers had focused on the plot leading to Qing Long's betrayal they might have more material to express with. I really missed the older 武侠片 like 笑傲江湖，黄飛鸿 1 & 2. They really had such a wonderful story complemented by great actions. Here I witnessed a mediocre production with ludicrous special effects and bad acting, it was a failure from all angles as far as I'm concerned. No wonder Donnie look so indifferent throughout the film, but I guess Raintree must have paid him a hefty fee for his role. If all else fails, this 14 Blades can become an example of what NOT to do for a 武侠片, and I honestly wonder if we will ever get to see a good one ever again.