Badges of Fury (2013)

When a series of strange deaths occur the Hong Kong police suspect murder. Taken individually each looks like a tragic accident but each man died with a fixed smile on his face and each of their funerals was attended by the same woman. The case is taken by a trio of detectives; impulsive Wang Bu Er; older Huang Fei Hong, who is a master of kung-fu and Angela, their sergeant. Their first suspect is the woman at the funerals; actress Liu Jin Shui. She had dated each of the dead men and they had each left her. Her sister, Dai Yiyi, is suspected too; each of the men had moved on to her… indeed her feminine charms are noticed by just about every man who sets eyes on her. As the case progresses more suspects arise and there will be quite a few fights before the case is solved.Anybody watching this expecting lots of top quality martial arts action or realism is likely to be disappointed… especially as that is what the DVD cover promises… it may say 'Genre: action/martial arts' on the box but this is a comedy plain and simple. What martial arts we see is 'enhanced' with unbelievable CGI… we certainly don't get the stunning choreography of a Jackie Chan movie or the wire-work of wuxia films. Once one has got over that it is possible to enjoy this film as a slap stick comedy. Another surprise is that Jet Li isn't the lead actor; that is Wen Zhang. The cast do a decent enough job; although it is sometimes hard to tell overacting from part of the deliberate comedy. The case isn't the most gripping; it really just serves to link the series of comedy moments. These vary from laugh-out-loud funny to cringe inducing. As stated before the action features a fair amount of CGI and this is the films biggest let down; it doesn't look real enough… the opening which should grab the viewer's attention merely made me wonder why I was watching! Overall if you want a silly action comedy it is fun enough and it is probably suitable for anybody old enough to read the subtitles… although some viewers might find the camera's fascination with Dai Yiyi's impressive cleavage a bit too much!These comments are based on watching in Mandarin with English subtitles.

"Badges of Fury" is a short and fast paced action comedy movie which is certainly entertaining but overall disappointingly superficial. The movie has a clever marketing strategy and includes many cameos by famous Chinese stars which include not only actors but also sportsmen for example. The longest cameo includes Jet Li who appears from time to time in this movie but doesn't really play an important role as the trailers might suggest. Even when he's there, his acting is wooden and lifeless and this could be considered his worst movie ever and I'm saying this as a big fan who has watched almost all of his movies. The film is also a parody of several Hongkong blockbusters from the last thirty years. Some of the insinuations are funny, for example when the main characters coincidentally capture a fashion icon who is behind online piracy acts. Most jokes are though either silly in a very childish way when we get to hear weird cartoon noises during some action scenes and overacted reactions by some of the characters. These ridiculous noises that seem to be taken off some old Looney Tunes episodes are overused in the first half of the movie and get completely dropped in the second part. Other jokes are simply sexual innuendos as we get to see many close-ups of Liu Yan's big breasts which get a lot of attention from female and male characters throughout the entire film. In general, men are mostly portrayed as dumb and superficial machos while women are mostly portrayed as silly sexual objects. I'm someone who likes to laugh a lot and this includes dirty and slapstick humour but this kind of silly rehashed comedy is nothing but embarrassing.The action scenes are quite a mixed bag. Most of them are voluntarily exaggerated and feature massive CGI effects that kill any kind of charm that the parodied Hongkong classics have. Still, a few fighting scenes are well executed and filmed. They are filled with adrenaline and grace and use several interesting items as weapons. Even in his weakest movie, an elderly Jet Li can still show off his incredible talent and his acolyte Zhang Wen does a quite convincing job if one ignores the distracting slapstick moments during his fighting scenes. On the other side, the final fighting scene involving Jet Li is overlong and unspectacular.The plot of this movie is extremely odd. The film starts with three random slapstick murders where the victims all die with a strange smile on their faces. The main suspect of the movie is a shy actress with good manners in her late twenties who hasn't got her breakthrough yet and who was engaged to each victim over the past years. Her sister soon becomes another important suspect as the superficial beauty with bad manners stole each of her sister's fiancés and sold insurances to them that made her a wealthy woman when they died. The unpredictable final twist of the movie where a rabbit gets pulled out of a hat is though so absurd that it even feels misplaced in a slapstick comedy flick. In between the morbidly amusing opening and the forced twist followed by a stereotypical happy ending, a few more plot lines are introduced only to justify many pointless cameo appearances. None of the few potentially promising ideas such as the relationship between the two investigating officers or the meeting of the criminal gang at the beginning of the movie are pushed further. Any kind of character development is completely absent in this hollow movie.In the end, this movie is bearable because of a few gripping action scenes, a couple of acceptable jokes, a high number of cameos by famous actors and allusions to classics any Hongkong cinephile should know and the fact that one is impatiently waiting for the outcome of the story as the tension slightly increases even if the twist ends up being a huge letdown. Despite its obvious flaws, I was overall very well entertained by this dynamical movie for the reasons mentioned above. I would surely watch it again in a couple of years. Those who are mainly planning to watch this movie because they are expecting an explosive martial arts blockbuster with Jet Li should be careful though and rather rent the film for a reasonable price instead of buying it or going to the movies.

when i saw Jet Li and Corey Yuen together I couldn't wait to see this and i wasn't disappointed, one of my favourite films of all time if Fong Sai Yuk known for it's over the top wire work, quirky humor and a fun ride. This has it all. it felt like a nice call back to early 90's Hong Kong cinema. Looking at the reviews it looks like people were expecting the usual poor quality US films Jet Li has diluted his career with, this film is not that (one persons complaint was the subtitles were too fast... which says it all about that person)even looking at the trailer you can get a good feel for the tone of this film so at least watch that first. Although it doesn't surpass the likes of Fong Sai Yuk, once upon a time in China or Dr Wai it's still a fun hour and a half with some great wire- fu

Review: I really tried hard to keep interested in this film, but my eyes couldn't take the bloody subtitles that were moving way too fast. I ended up just watching the fighting scenes, which were really ridiculous because of the string action. The music is annoying throughout the movie, and the characters look like there making fools of themselves throughout the film. As for plot line, I haven't got a clue what was going on because I only looked at the screen a few times. I got tricked by the poster, because I thought that it was going to be a Jet Li movie with loads of action, but I hardly saw him in the film. I might have enjoyed the movie if I could speak the language, but it just wasn't for me. Disappointing.Round-Up: Whatever did happen to Jet Li? There was a time when he was popping up in American movies, showing off his fighting skills, but he seems to have gone off the radar. A lot of these fighting star do a tour in Hollywood for a couple of years and then there contract runs out and there not heard of again. The same thing happen to Jackie Chan with his Rush Hour franchise which seemed to dry up after a while. Anyway, I'm not liking this new way of filming Kung fu movies with the characters flying everywhere on strings and doing really unbelievable stunts. I'm a fan of the old school movies like Thundering Mantis and Drunken Master, so this movie just didn't work for me.I recommend this movie to people who are into there silly Hong Kong movies with some action but a ridiculous storyline. 1/10