Tag Archives: Sung Kang

2009, Action/Adventure, ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

Fast & Furious (2009, Justin Lin)

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With Fast & Furious, director Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan do something incredible. They take what, a decade before would have been at best a video game spin-off (maybe featuring the original, now down in their career cast's voices), and make an energetically mercenary movie out of it. The film's ludicrous at almost every turn, but it's hard not to appreciate a huge budget in CGI being spent on car chase after car chase.

Oh, there are some real cars racing, but Lin apes the conclusion to Return of the Jedi for the finale–just with cars. It's entirely admirable and entirely pointless. There's not an honest moment in the entire movie, everything is perfectly calculated to entertain. The film gets too loud and almost too busy–Gal Gadot's useless character is in the not really bad bad Bond girl part–seemingly because Vin Diesel wants a lot of tear jerker scenes to be a tough guy during.

Lin doesn't want to hold a shot–he's clearly more into Michael Bay for car chase inspiration than Billy Friedkin–but his composition is good and Amir Mokri does a fine job shooting the film. The real car racing footage looks great. All the composite CGI stuff is a little too obvious, but it's a video game, you're not supposed to care.

The film does require a certain enthusiasm for Diesel and Paul Walker's bromance; Lin gets a surprisingly okay performance from Walker.

Like I said, big, loud, dumb, sometimes perfectly amiable.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Justin Lin; screenplay by Chris Morgan, based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson; director of photography, Amir Mokri; edited by Fred Raskin and Christian Wagner; music by Brian Tyler; production designer, Ida Random; produced by Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel and Michael Fottrell; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Conner), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty), Jordana Brewster (Mia), John Ortiz (Campos), Laz Alonso (Fenix), Sung Kang (Han), Tego Calderon (Tego), Gal Gadot (Gisele), Jack Conley (Penning), Liza Lapira (Trinh), Shea Whigham (Stasiak) and Don Omar (Don Omar).

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2009, Not Recommended, Short

Los Bandoleros (2009, Vin Diesel)

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The strange part of Los Bandoleros isn’t how it ends lame–it’s how well it starts. Sure, there’s this dumb story about how Vin Diesel, on the lamb in the Dominican Republic, has become a Robin Hood to the local people.

Oh, right, forgot–It’s a Fast and the Furious vanity short “film” from Diesel. Undoubtedly something the studio did to make him happy.

Anyway, besides the stupid club scene and the foreshadowing for the subsequent action movie and, most of all, besides Michelle Rodriguez… Diesel’s got a not bad eye for his location shooting in the Dominican Republic. He’s got a great photographer (Shawn Kim) and, even though the script is really contrived, at least the pre-franchise stuff works.

It’s pretentious, sure, with Diesel telling the story of the little people, but the movie looks great. But looking great isn’t enough to make up for Rodriguez’s vapid performance.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Vin Diesel; written by Diesel and T.J. Mancini; director of photography, Shawn Kim; edited by Justin Bourret and Sonia Gonzalez-Martinez; production designer, Wilhem Perez; produced by Diesel and Jessy Terrero; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty Ortiz), Sung Kang (Han Lue), Tego Calderon (Tego Leo), Don Omar (Santos), F. Valentino Morales (Malo), Mirtha Michelle (Mirtha) and Juan Fernández (Elvis).

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2006, Action/Adventure, ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, Justin Lin)

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Identifying the most interesting thing about The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn’t difficult. There’s so very little interesting about the film at all, anything slightly interesting becomes rather vibrant and engaging. Unfortunately, it’s the really weird treatment of girls in the film. Not women, but high school-aged girls. They are either mercenary or damaged and, since they’re not with leading man Lucas Black, their boyfriends try to kill them during car races.

It’s very strange. In the second instance, Nathalie Kelley is riding in Black’s car as her boyfriend, played by Brian Tee, tries to kill them. The first one has the girl in her boyfriend’s car and him just not caring about her safety in order to beat Black in the race.

Except Tokyo Drift takes a long time to establish Black can actually drive a car well. He races at the beginning and isn’t particularly impressive; then he goes to Tokyo and races and isn’t impressive there either. Not until Sung Kang comes along and teaches him how to “drift” is Black any good at driving.

Black doesn’t have much of a character to play. He says he can drive, the film doesn’t show it. He says he can fight, the film doesn’t show it. He seems to think he can treat Kelley right, the film doesn’t show it. They have zero chemistry. In one of his only good moves, director Lin decided not to force it.

Great editing, bad music, decent enough final cameo.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Justin Lin; written by Chris Morgan; director of photography, Stephen F. Windon; edited by Kelly Matsumoto, Dallas Puett and Fred Raskin; music by Brian Tyler; production designer, Ida Random; produced by Neal H. Moritz; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Lucas Black (Sean Boswell), Shad Moss (Twinkie), Nathalie Kelley (Neela), Brian Tee (D.K.), Sung Kang (Han), Leonardo Nam (Morimoto), Brian Goodman (Major Boswell), Chiba Shin’ichi (Uncle Kamata), Zachery Ty Bryan (Clay), Nikki Griffin (Cindy), Jason Tobin (Earl), Kitagawa Keiko (Reiko), Lynda Boyd (Ms. Boswell) and Vincent Laresca (Case Worker).

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2013, Action/Adventure, ★

Bullet to the Head (2013, Walter Hill)

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Bullet to the Head feels a little like an eighties buddy action movie. Between Sylvester Stallone in the lead and Walter Hill directing, it should feel more like one. But Stallone plays this one mature. He might not be playing his actual age (probably sixty-five at the time of filming), but he’s definitely supposed to be older. The film has Stallone narrating like it’s a noir–it’s not–and nicely uses pictures of him at younger ages as various mug shots.

Sarah Shahi plays his adult daughter, so there’s that maturity again. The relationship between Stallone and Shahi, mostly one or two of their scenes, is Bullet at its most sublime.

Where the film goes off the rails is Hill. The direction feels like generic modern action. Sure, the New Orleans locations give the picture some personality, but not enough to compensate for the lack of directorial presence.

While it resembles the buddy action movie genre, Bullet doesn’t actually belong. Stallone’s a hit man, his sidekick’s a moronic cop (played by Sung Kang). Kang’s bland but not unlikable; Stallone’s so mean it earns Kang sympathy. Stallone’s more likable because Kang’s an idiot.

And then there’s the jokes. The best writing in Bullet are Stallone’s Asian jokes. The one liners are leagues more inventive than anything else in the film.

As far as the supporting performances… Jason Momoa and Jon Seda stand out. Shahi’s undercooked.

Bullet’s fast, loud and not terrible. It could be better, but doesn’t need to be.

1/4★

CREDITS

Directed by Walter Hill; screenplay by Alessandro Camon, based on the comic book by Matz and Colin Wilson; director of photography, Lloyd Ahern II; edited by Timothy Alverson; music by Steve Mazzaro; production designer, Toby Corbett; produced by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Alexandra Milchan and Kevin King Templeton; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Sylvester Stallone (James Bonomo), Sung Kang (Taylor Kwon), Sarah Shahi (Lisa Bonomo), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Robert Nkomo Morel), Jason Momoa (Keegan), Jon Seda (Louis Blanchard), Holt McCallany (Hank Greely), Dane Rhodes (Lt. Lebreton), Marcus Lyle Brown (Detective Towne), Brian Van Holt (Ronnie Earl) and Christian Slater (Marcus Baptiste).

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