How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 8 January 2014
This article is a review of UNBEATABLE.
Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2013. (For more information, click here.)
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“You’re eating the eggs rolled in my bruises,” Chin Fai (Nick Cheung)
“Dam you Fai!” Dani (Crystal Lee)
A mixed martial arts movie soaked in sickly melodrama was not the refreshing spin on the cage fighting subgenre one hoped for. Check out in its stead the glorious FIST OF LEGEND (2013). UNBEATABLE is the second chance one has given director Dante Lam. THE STOOL PIGEON (2010) was similar histrionic dross, working there within the cops and crims genre.
Chin Fai, nicknamed charmingly “Scumbag Fai”, has fled Beijing, owing gambling debts to Boss Chan totalling $200,000. Chin used to be a mixed martial arts champion; now hiding out in Macau, he works as a cleaner and odd-job man in an old friend’s gym. Do you wonder whether Chin will come out of retirement? Before finally donning gloves and gumshield, the audience is forced to wait an eternity. Inevitability and anticipation sometimes go hand in hand, though skill is required in the nurturing.
“Dam you Fai!” Dani (Crystal Lee)
A mixed martial arts movie soaked in sickly melodrama was not the refreshing spin on the cage fighting subgenre one hoped for. Check out in its stead the glorious FIST OF LEGEND (2013). UNBEATABLE is the second chance one has given director Dante Lam. THE STOOL PIGEON (2010) was similar histrionic dross, working there within the cops and crims genre.
Chin Fai, nicknamed charmingly “Scumbag Fai”, has fled Beijing, owing gambling debts to Boss Chan totalling $200,000. Chin used to be a mixed martial arts champion; now hiding out in Macau, he works as a cleaner and odd-job man in an old friend’s gym. Do you wonder whether Chin will come out of retirement? Before finally donning gloves and gumshield, the audience is forced to wait an eternity. Inevitability and anticipation sometimes go hand in hand, though skill is required in the nurturing.
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Happenstance causes Lin Siqi (Eddie Peng) to begin training at the same gym. Siqi has daddy issues. Viewed as a disappointment to Papa Lin (Jack Kao), how does Siqi desire to demonstrate his mettle? That’s right, not become a doctor or lawyer, become a mixed martial artist. Papa Lin is now an alcoholic after losing billions on real estate, and verbally abuses his son in self-loathing. Will they reconcile heart-warmingly (read: Not heart-warmingly), and Papa Lin learn the error of his ways, after a competition bout? One will leave it to you to surmise. Siqi eventually discovers Fai’s hidden talents and gets him Mr Miyagi-style to train him. Cue copious amounts of cheesy music and bland training montages. As AUSTIN POWERS was meant to kill off the laser beams from space story conceit, surely TEAM AMERICA was due to do the same for that hoary sports/action cliché. There’s just 10 weeks before the first match. Say what?! Fellow competitors must have been training for years.
Meanwhile, a subplot concerns Chin’s living arrangements. He rents a room in a small apartment with a mentally disturbed woman, Gwen (Mei Ting), and her 10-year-old daughter Dani. Their backstory should have been moving and utilised as social commentary. Rather, it’s a clunky tool attempting to give UNBEATABLE some “heart” (it doesn’t), and wider appeal beyond fight fans. Grief treatment is devoid of nuanced smarts.
The Golden Rumble tournament, offering the winner $2 million, is the big prize to solve all their problems. Like WARRIOR, there is a glossing over of citizens falling through community cracks, and having them beaten to a pulp, reinforcing the supposed purity of unadulterated capitalism. UNBEATABLE of course throws in a nefarious nemesis, sans morality, for our heroes to battle against in the ring.
Luckily the acting is committed, and the ensemble elevates the material. An occasional line of dialogue rises above the mush, “I don’t want to die without any good memories,” Fai observes. It’s the first interesting thing said. UNBEATABLE ends pretty soon after. The rest includes leaden speech, such as a commentator exclaiming, “Truly the punch that changed the world!”
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