 | MOVIE #1,219 • 🍿🍿 • 11.02.23 It’s been over a month since our last edition of “Well, Hong?” my A-Z filmography review series of every feature that legendary actor James Hong appeared in. And this one was easily the worst yet. A direct-to-video or streaming effort (I honestly don’t know where/how this came out and also don’t care to research) starring the late Tom Sizemore alongside bland handsome man Jordan Belfi in the lead and Bai Ling, who is easily the best part of this movie and really it’s only saving grace (the highlighted review on IMDB is titled “Astonishingly bad embarrassment to the artform of filmcraft… but fun to see Bai Ling” and that sums it up perfectly). However, Better Criminal did offer up this amazing shot of Hong which is now the new header gif for this series… |
I was excited to watch a "not horror" after SPOOKY MONTH 2023 but the stink of this one is evident from the opening pre-credits sequence…
Just a horrid mess: tonally, visually and everything in between. I thought Hong would only be in this for one scene (which is a recurring theme of this endeavor) but no, he’s actually in TWO whole scenes. And he’s fine, as usual. But the only thing saving this from being a near-ZERO is the appearance of Ling, who is just completely batshit, like the female/Chinese-American version of Crispin Glover…
Sadly she’s only on-screen a handful of times.
In terms of “plot,” there are so many moving pieces, it’s impossible to keep up with: main cop/lead actor and his ambiguous morality, his mentor (Sizemore) and his unambiguous motivations (bad), the "good" LAPD cops, the drug cartel, stepdaughter of cartel guy who hooks up with main cop, the Asian crime syndicate run by Hong, the nerdy informant hacker guy who's addicted to drugs, the FBI, and a Middle Eastern terrorist subplot that pops up literally in the final five minutes. It's only confusing to follow if you try to get invested in it, but luckily it's so boring and bad, that's not a problem! I did appreciate this ending though…
That guy pulling the trigger on the two leads is a total non- character, just some random cop who we’ve never seen before. That’s how the movie ends. LOL. But, seriously, don’t watch this.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,218 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,220 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,218 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,220 ⫸
A police officer is forced to work for two warring crime syndicates while under an internal investigation. It was released on October 3, 2016.
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