Author: Andrew Skeates

Sticking with ‘SPL 2’ makes for an overall rewarding experience as director Soi Cheang takes the viewer on a wild, thrilling and at times incredibly dark ride.

Superbly paced, mounted and executed, one should simply sit back and enjoy this kung fu spectacle.

Certainly tries to recapture some of the magic of the genre defining original but unfortunately ends up a somewhat shallow effort.

While it’ll never scale the heights of its Hong Kong counterparts of the day, this fast and fun sequel still delivers the Rothock, Norton and Cooke action goods.

This sort of sequel/prequel has its moments also but is nowhere near as fun, is often confusing and unfortunately feels like a half arsed attempt to cash in on the first flick.

As good as a belated direct-to-DVD sequel to a John Woo/Jean Claude Van Damme classic gets.

‘Satan Returns’ can’t decide if it’s a serious dark thriller or a goofy over-the-top action horror combo.

Sparse of budget and meaningful dialogue, the film instead sticks to its high-kicking guns and delivers a surfeit of high impact fight scenes.

This slick looking and battle charged war film doesn’t stray too far from the well worn war movie path but certainly tells an inspiring and conflict heavy tale from the Korean War.

Wu Jing’s second stab at directing, after ‘Legendary Assassin’, is an all guns blazing, military action, explosions riot.

This Japanese blockbuster is like a head on collision between a big budget disaster flick and a Lifetime/Hallmark/True Movies film of the week.

Yet another good looking Chinese epic that tries to cram way too much historical happenings into a somewhat brief running time but is still an okay stab by Chan to tackle “serious” filmmaking once again.