Inseparable (2012)

Daniel Wu plays a mild mannered, affluent, urban professional in Guangzhou who is faced with a few personal problems which the film generalizes as the consequence of modern China's capitalist system. He works at a seemingly unscrupulous corporation which is rushing to market with an unsafe prosthetic product despite his objections. He is 'asked' by a supervisor to lie about the product's safety at an upcoming public securities exchange hearing. Daniel is also bypassed for a promotion which is given to the son of the company's owner. At home, he struggles to maintain his marriage after his wife who had recently suffered the miscarriage of a deformed fetus. It is revealed later that the wife was taking folic supplements from a company that had been using fillers in their products. This part is based on a true story. Unable to cope with these pressures, Daniel's character attempts suicide but is foiled by a mysterious, nosy expat neighbor, Kevin Spacey who has some unconventional ideas for Daniel's catharsis. They include vandalism and costumed vigilantism. Daniel's bilingual character is unconvincing as is the washed up looking Spacey who appeared awkward and out of place. Perhaps that was intentional when we learn towards the end that Spacey's character and the version of the 'wife' who accompanied them on their escapades are not who they seem. This was an unoriginal, choppy genre blend of 'KickAss','Breaking Bad' and some sophomoric social commentary about China's post-marxist economic boom.

The writer and director of this film was Dayyan Eng. His story relates the unusual experiences of Li (Daniel Wu) a design engineer at an up and coming industrial firm which makes human prosthetic limbs. He is good at his job, but now comes under tremendous pressure to hurry up and finish his latest design, which seems to have a flaw in it. At the same time, his marriage is falling apart and he seeks desperately to save it. However, he finds life difficult and far too demanding to deal with and decides to commit suicide. However, like everything else in his crumbling situation he is interrupted by Chuck (Kevin Spacey) a very noisy neighbor, who offers to help. Having tried medicinal drugs, Li discovers they create more problems for him and Chuck's advice only turns him into a Superhero. The movie is briefly comical, but it is not sustained. Indeed, with the likes of Kevin Spacey and with character actor (Armagoddon) Peter Stormare this audience member expected much, much more. As it is, Spacey's exceptional talents are wasted and the movie submerges into deep waters where it is relegated to sink on it's own. ***

This is far from being a original flick which is alright if the progressions and development is good. But that isn't really the case here, it's kind of a "Fight Club" meets "Kick-Ass" mash up that isn't all that fun or thrilling. It's watchable but pretty darn mediocre at best. Instead it just comes off mediocre. Putting 2 different concept into one movie can work and in this case it does to some degree. But those 2 concepts or ideas has been done much better individually. The editing is also poorly done and just seem all over the place sometimes. It's like a group of people got together and was like dude "Fight Club" is a cool movie or other movies that has to do with some dude hallucinating and lets put vigilante superheroes in it cause that is always cool. For a straight to DVD movie the production is decent and the cinematography is good for a straight to DVD movie. The thought of a guy that is down on his luck so breaks down and hallucinates and becomes a vigilante superhero with no powers may seem like a coherent movie that would be cool to watch. And I will say it's watchable but nothing special.5.8/10

This movie would be great if it's concepts were original. The script is basically a mash up of several Hollywood concepts/twists which are by the way, very apparent to the viewer. The film felt dragged out a lot of the time.Kevin Spacey does what he does best. He's a well trained actor and it shows in his work. I think Daniel Wu did alright considering who his supporting actor was.There are ways to answer questions clearly and ways to answer them subtly (something the show 'Mad Men' does very well). This movie went for the latter and didn't do a very good job of it. It was confusing in a bad way, especially with how Daniel Wu's wife was portrayed.I will give a kudos to Spacey for stepping into the Chinese market before the rest of Hollywood's actors realize what early exposure there now could do for their global careers in the future.