The audience will die tonight, of boredom.
I got the name of the movie via a list on the website "Asianmoviepulse". It was listed as "The 10 Best Asian Action / Martial Arts Movies of 2018". Since it hasd titles like The Night Comes For Us and The Witch: Part 1 in it, I thought of giving the others in the list a go as well.
The movie has a very simple plot that follows the protagonist Kray and her group of ragtag friends. Short on money, they decide to take a gig that is supposed to be a cashout for them. IN an unexpected turn of events they get entangled with a gang of organ traffickers and have to survive the night against all odds.
The movie opens with a scene where we see Kray taking on 2 goons by herself as a stunt double and it turns out to be shooting for some film. This was the 1st red flag for me. As soon as the action starts the camera starts jumping between different angles. You see someone trying to land a punch and the camera cuts to another angle before it actually lands. I thought that this might be because the director wants to present a dramatic scenario for the movie being shot. But that didn't turn out to be the case. This is the case throughout the movie. As soon as there is a tension build up, the camera stars to shake and cutting angles. You never see a fight sequence clearly. The childish camera works adds more confusion than drama and never works in favour.
The characters too are rather shallow and cliched. No time has been taken to develop them and this makes them very unrelatable. You get you warrior princess, a tomboy, an obese comedian and a fading love angle all in the same frame. The worst part is that none of this is even slightly believable. On one hand, Kray is shown as a formidable stunt woman who replaces famous actresses who can't do their own action scenes. On the other, you can clearly see that she can't even lift her leg above her waist while kicking. Every single punch that is thrown never lands but is complemented by a fake punch sound which makes the action even more terrible. No matter what the weapon, a machete or a gun, it seems people don't bleed. They just hold their stomach and limp a little.
I could never really put my finger on anything that I liked. This a terrible piece of cinema. Avoid it.
