BUY this!! I own every Dragon Dynasty title, this is definielty one of my favorite ones, Jacky WU is unstoppable and the fight in the restaurant is crazy!!
(2.5 STARS) Generic Cops: Decent Actions, Overblown Direction In "Invisible Target" three cops (played by Nicholas Tse, Jaycee Chan and Shawn Yue) join forces to hunt down the criminals involved in a money truck robbery using a bomb. The robbers are also seeking the one who betrayed them and took the money. The story is too long and could have been more compact, but still acceptable. The three stars did good a good job, if not outstanding, as the characters with their own motives. The baddies by Wu Jing and Andy On, though a bit overacting, are not bad. And there are plenty of actions (I will come back to the topic later).
But I couldn't like the film very much. Not a total disaster, I admit, but watching the film became slightly painful after around the 60-minute mark. Maybe that is because of the bad jokes that should have been cut. Or maybe because of the film's tasteless way of depicting the villains who talk too much and point a gun to a little girl. The answer is simple, I think. It is Benny Chan, the director and his overblown direction. And unlike Michael Bay, his overblown style is not fun to see.
Obviously director Benny Chan thought his previous film "Rob-B-Hood" (starring Jackie Chan, Jaycee's father) needed more actions. "Invisible Target" provides action scenes including shoot-outs, explosions, rooftop chase and martial arts fighting. The actors did their own stunts which are impressive. In spite of their fine jobs, however, some actions are overlong and repetitious. You will see glasses smashed, cars exploded and people falling from upstairs again and again, some of which repeat the same patterns. Benny Chan needs the skills of Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen who can add variation to actions they do with props and weapons.
As I said before, this is not a terrible film. It is decent, but is also a kind of film that would make you think it could have been much better with a more skilled hand.
Worthless movie I don't know what else to say. This is a completely worthless movie. The bad guys seem like they are all great actors, but because of a bad script there is nothing interesting about them. Some of the fights are good, but there are no good 1 on 1 fights, and the fights that are good aren't nearly long enough. In the final fight Wu Jing gets to show off his amazing skills, but with 3 guys going against him and not even putting up a fight it gets very boring. And I didn't feel anything for any of the characters even though I think there was supposed to be a couple of those crying type moments. Shawn Yue does good in his role, and Jackie Chan's son Jaycee looks like he could be a great actor. The problem is Nicholas Tse, and more of a problem is director Benny Chan. Nicholas Tse can be good, but he needs the right role. He doesn't fit into the role of a super tough young cop who's face twitches when he gets mad. You can make him look as tough as you want but the guy is always going to look like a weakling. I've never liked Nic Tse as a screen fighter, and this movie doesn't change my opinion. He throws a few nice kicks, but nothing else caught my eye. The guy just looks weak as an actor and a fighter. He does do a nice fall down some stairs, so I have to give him credit for that. And it's not like I am totally against Nic Tse, it's that I rarely see a good acting performance from him, and I have never seen him give a good fighting performance. And as for Benny Chan, what can I say? His movies have gone downhill ever since his first 3 good movies, Big Bullet, Man Wanted and Who Am I.
Invisible Target does have a lot of action, just not the action I was looking for. I didn't like this movie in any way. I only got brief flashes of things I enjoyed, and then it was quickly ruined by bad wirework, glass that looks like it would break if you breathed on it, bad script, etc...
2/5
The DVD from Dragon Dynasty is overloaded with special features. There's long interviews with Benny Chan, Jaycee Chan, Shawn Yue, Wu Jing, Phillip Ng, Vincent Sze and Andy On, there's a couple of behind the scenes features, deleted scenes, and a commentary with Bey Logan, Shawn Yue, Jaycee Chan and Andy On.
An Action Packed Martial Arts Movie Invisible Target is one of the better martial arts movies I've watched in a long time especially nowadays where martial arts films don't appeal as much as they did before. The action is top notch quality, directed Benny Chan a veteran Hong Kong director who has done many films like this one. The difference with this film and other martial arts films is that the story is actually "decent". There is a good plot and good character development each having their own back stories and motives. The martial arts is great and the acting is good enough, this movie is good enough for a rent at least, don't miss this one.
How Do You Kill An Invisible Target? The Good Things *Loads of great action. The fight scenes had smashing choreography. Lots of other pursuits, gunfights, and explosions throughout. *Filming style was pretty good. *The story was good. Even though it branched off to protray three different protagonists, it was still easy to comprehend. *Good acting as well. The three main characters were well-developed, memorable, and great to watch.
The Bad Things *The second half of the movie slowed down quite a bit and became heavily loaded with melodrama (whereas the first half was exciting). *Overall, it felt a bit long (probably because so much happened).
I was very pleased with this film; it had much more action than I thought it would have. With the big explosive opening and all of the fights that followed, my first thought was that this was like a Chinese version of a "Die Hard" film. Even though the last hour of the movie slowed down a little, it was still great overall. Highly reccomended to anybody who likes martial arts, or action movies in general.
The disc has excellent video and audio quality. It has both English and Chinese audio tracks, and English and Spanish subtitles. Disc one includes a commentary, trailers, and a making-of feature. Disc two includes a bunch of interviews, a bunch of deleted scenes, and more featurettes.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
