FATAL CONTACT (2006): Review
An excellent Wu Jing performance surrounded by a terrible Wu Jing performance.
However, if you can get past the painfully generic/corny title, you might be surprised by an incredibly good action movie wrapped inside a pretty generic one.
Fatal Contact (2006)
starring: Wu Jing, Ronald Cheng, Miki Yeung, Theresa Fu, Ken Lo, Timmy Hung
directed by: Dennis Lau
A young Chinese opera performer (Wu Jing), gets hooked up in an underground fighting tournament where the stakes keep getting raised, making it harder for him to get out.
The story is painfully slow, and is filled top to bottom with unlikable characters. The characters are 2-dimensional and annoying, and are only made worse when fleshed out further in the incredibly long dialogue scenes. Wu Jing is the generic soft-hearted good guy, but lacking any depth or charisma to make you cheer for him other than the fact he’s clearly “Player 1.” Ken Lo plays the main villain, which was fun to see him in his getup, but he doesn’t break out any moves and his scenes are limited.
However, if you can stomach the exasperatingly long scenes of conversation, the movie changes gears completely when they start fighting. It is fast, frenetic and peppered with very impressive Street Fighter-like moves. Andy On and Xing Yu make cameos in some of the bigger fights and have very impressive battles. Normally I hate most wire-fu, however it is used here sparingly and minimally, so most of the fights carry heavy weight. I’d even argue when they pull a video-game move, it’s still impressive due to the difficulty of the stunt.
SHOULD I WATCH IT?
I love seeing Wu Jing fight, but most of his roles really leave a lot to be desired, and this one is no exception. Feel free to fast forward the talking parts, but the fights definitely make it worth the price of admission. Yes, watch it!
Story Rating: [usr 1] Kung Fu Rating: [usr 4]
