Author: Andrew Saroch

Brilliant. Heart-breaking. Life-affirming. Devastating. These are the first words that came to my mind as the credits rolled.

It’s just disappointing that the obvious craft at work by the experienced crew on ‘The Revenger’ never quite translates into a solid, coherent whole.

‘Vanguard’ tries to be a slick, Chinese version of ‘Mission: Impossible’ but has no idea what made the Tom Cruise film popular with viewers and critics alike.

It is a confident film that merely allows the people involved to tell their story without the need for the makers to chime in unnecessarily.

‘The Bravest Escort Group’ was one of those films you start watching while all the while thinking that it must have either been edited down from a much longer version or part of a series.

The cast is not without charm, the idea not without potential, but ‘The Real Iron Monkey’ is a certified dud.

The result is every bit as slick as viewers have come to expect from the film-makers, but severely lacking in genre staples like tension or excitement.

What could have been an amusing film sprinkled with a bit of action is more like a woefully over-exaggerated piece of fluff that wastes a good cast.

‘The Grand Grandmaster’ barely has enough good material for a TikTok clip though and it should be noted that this drudgery goes on for a full two hours.

‘Crocodile Island’ is deadly earnest which doesn’t quite work when characters are facing spiders the size of a shire horse.

‘A City Called Dragon’ is one of many 70s Taiwanese action films that deserve a wider audience and hopefully modest reviews like this can help.

Overall this is an interesting, thoughtful collection of stories that shows promise. Yet it is once again a film whose historical significance leaves more of an impression than the material therein.