Sammo Hung double feature GO!!!
Kung Fu Chefs sort of rips off Stephen Chow's God of Cookery, which sort of ripped off Tsui Hark's The Chinese Feast, which basically was a culinary obsessed remake of The God of Gamblers. What I'm saying here is that despite how unusual things might sound from even the title alone, this film follows a well established formula. On the plus side, Sammo Hung is the kinda guy who's wholly plausible for both ends of the title's equation, he obviously likes the byproduct of cooking, and he's ace at kung fu (still, at being effing old and massive).
But he's not exactly the star, there's also the young, promising martial arts student with a side interest in cooking that he takes under his wing. Together they're out to smash the bad guys, either through cooking or punching. Its a feather light action comedy that entertains and has some actually pretty good action sequences (not so many, buy hety), but nothing really sticks. It doesn't help that Vanness Wu (yes, that's a man's name) is completely fucking horrible as the protege. He's not just a bad actor, but an intensly irritating one, mugging frantically even beyond the expectations of a silent film mime (shuddup, it makes sense). The forced inclusion of pop stars continues to be a blight on the Asian genre film industry, but at least, in this case, its not a completely fatal wound.
2.5/5Much better is
Wushu, which takes the radical idea of instead of teaching people who know how to sing how to do martial arts, it takes martial artists and teaches them how to act, barely. The half dozen young stars here (with about two subsequent film roles combined since this 2008 production) really do know their stuff, and get lots of opportunities to showboat in a film that's all about them either competing in a regional tournament or foiling child kidnappers with vague intentions. When people are punching and kicking, its quite good, when they're not, its very earnest and ingratiatingly corny. Sammo Hung gets to be warmly paternalistic here and actually gives one of his better performances. He's obviously more invested here then he was in Kung Fu Chefs, even though hi character still really likes to cook.
If there wasn't so much very well executed violence you'd be left with a film that's all about noble self sacrifice and all that other stuff Chinese censors love to push, and that would be kind of okay too. Its charming, in its own way, and at least manages to be diverting enough until the next sequence of sledgehammer assisted violence crops up.
3.5/5Nicolas Cage badly needs money, this we know, but if he's going to be a hired gun he might as well do it in entertainingly nutso films like the most recent Ghost Rider, and to a lesser extent
Seeking Justice, which is a solid thriller that isn't really thrilling, but better then mediocre.
Lets just get this out of the way, its dumb film with a kernal of a good idea (a terrorist/mafia-esque vigilante organization), but before you can ever take things too seriously you'd have to put up with a miscast as always January Jones as the damaged wife, histrionic dialog, and the most Niclolas Cage-ist performance to come out in at least a month. Its not madman Cage in a crappy genre film, but the weird touches that stick out do work in the film's favor. And Guy Pearce is legitimately pretty great as the villain. Its undeniably a potboiler, but hey, its not like anybody who buys a ticket for this (me) isn't expecting just that, and on those terms its more or less successful. Look for it to be a basic cable staple in a few years.
3/5
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