Rating: 2.5

It was a big box office hit on its release, features Chingmy Yau looking adorable and has some decent chemistry between the cast, but that’s not enough to drag the viewer through the ninety-minute running time.

As a meditation on father/daughter relationships, ‘The Empty Hands’ is lazy and thinks that a slickly delivered camera shot is a good replacement for basic storytelling.

‘The Era Of Vampires’ fails to capitalise on a concept that could have turned out to be a solid film given enough care. It does raise interest from time to time but is unable to sustain that interest.

Essentially though, it’s a painfully predictable outing that is knocked down a notch or two by its awkward blend of genres.

Director Frankie Chan does, to his credit, use some intriguing environments and fully capitalises on the grandeur of the wild landscape. However he pays little intention to any logical development of plot or characters.

Chan fans may be disappointed he’s not the main focus but he does feature in an inventive scrap with Schwarzenegger and overall there is some cool action on offer.

Unfortunately, despite its intentions, its neither deliciously loopy the way you might hope that a Japanese superhero film would be nor is it especially engaging.

The laid back approach to proceedings will certainly be enjoyed by some but the film seems to take too long to get going anywhere, the suspense often diluted by a meandering pace.

Once the hunt begins the film unfortunately doesn’t bring the momentum the concept needs and clogs the narrative with various confusing subplots and too much focus on the bad guys.

It will lose most of it’s audience by the 20 minute mark and even those that do manage to stay engaged past that point will likely be sleeping by the time our heroes ‘Fly away into the sunset’.

As it stands it’s some unpretentious trashy action entertainment that won’t do much for those looking for a serious account of the Nanking massacre but should entertain B-movie fans.

Despite the visual opulence on show and a couple of decent set-pieces, ‘The Restless’ is just a bit of a shallow affair and not as much fun as it should have been.