Cast Member: Zhang Hanyu

This is a lustrous production that flatters to deceive, aiming for the intellect, but eventually preferring to show empty spectacle and supposed depth.

A personal story told on a grand scale ‘Assembly’ is as good as war flicks get, finding a near perfect balance between a personal journey and large scale combat.

‘Look For A Star’ will be welcomed by the legions of Andy Lau fans who are keen for the star to return to a genre he dominated at the end of the century.

Not the return to modern action many a Woo fan may have hoped for but fun in fits and starts if you can forgive its flaws.

Lam has made better films but, along with Benny Chan, he is at the forefront of Hong Kong action in terms of delivering large scale spectacle.

It’s big, it’s brash and in several sequences surprisingly gory but ‘Operation Red Sea’ is big screen, blockbusting action done well.

After a surge of period and fantasy styled films, Donnie Yen returns to modern day cop action territory in the somewhat schlocky but no less entertaining ‘Special ID’.

Certainly not subtle but if you can forgive its flaws and instead bask in its blockbuster credentials, then ‘The Battle At Lake Changjin’ delivers some spectacular war movie action.

The film veers between harrowing war bloodshed and comic book daredevil action and while it never shies away from the horrors of war the film is always entertaining: certainly, from an action standpoint.

Had ‘The Captain’ focused on the drama on the plane and not felt the need to flick back-and-forth to dull secondary characters, it might have brought the true story to the screen with aplomb.

‘The Great Wall’ packs in a monster amount of large scale action as Damon, Jing et al take on the horde of monsters in ever increasingly elaborate ways.

‘White Vengeance’ – in keeping with the generic expectations of recent years – has big, bruising conflict aplenty and it’s those moments that tend to have the greatest impact.