Shanghai Affairs
Review
Stars: Donnie Yen, Yu Rong Guang
What I appreciate now is a martial arts movie that has a very attractive plot and the right mood setting for that plot. After seeing "King of the Sea" and not being very impressed, I was happy to feel refreshed after watching "Shanghai Affairs" knowing that what I had just seen was extremely original.
The plot involves Donnie Yen and his apprentice, Bond, both of whom work as doctors who have just moved to a small area in Shaghai, China. The villagers, who are delighted to see the newcomers, are also in a bit of trouble from the Axe Gang, headed by Yu Rong Guang, who does a surperb job of acting as usual. The Axe Gang has an inside connection with a powerful someone in Shanghai who would allow them to take the village land in order to build a casino. Donnie and Bond become involved in the conflict and from that comes a great amount of character development and emotion towards everyone including the menacing Yu Rong Guang.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of this recent (1998) film is the cinematography. Everything is clear and crisp. There wasn't a single shot that was incomplete. Whenever a fight occurred, I could see everything that was happening, and it was a great sensation. Donnie Yen apparently enjoyed the Japanese way of filming dark moods by taking old abandoned buildings and lots (LOTS) of leaves floating and putting it all into a shot with almost no sunlight due to the thick clouds in the sky. In addition to that, the score to "Shanghai Affairs" consists of a low bellow during the fights, and still a somewhat dark mood during the more uplifting scenes.
On top of that, the fights were indeed very imaginative. But I'd like to address a small complaint I had. Actually 3. The first is that there were some group fights that were too exaddurated. Donnie takes on 40 guys with hatchets, with a tree branch. I started thinking he was Wong Fei Hung. Secondly, the sounds weren't effective for the blocks during the action. Had Donnie used the same ones from the old Jackie movies which consisted of simple slaps then it would have been, well, better. Secondly, there are 3 or so small (3 seconds each) scenes shot from behind a fighter that have him just flailing his arms around at nothing, and still the sound effects are going. It just looks too corny to even watch, but luckily those parts are so sparse you may even miss them. Now, the good stuff. The fights were great. For example, there is a scene in the beginning where the axe gang attacks the villagers. Donnie and Bond intervene and, although some action is slightly exaderrated, they do some good looking ass kicking. Donnie, at one point, uses the neck ties of 2 men to hold them together, and with them he blocks one man with an axe, tangles him up, and sends all 3 into the wall of a store.
Another refreshing scene was a good 1 minute fight with Donnie and Yu using Chin Na on eachother. It looks painful, which was the intent. Funny thing was that I heard bones crunch, and they just walked away afterwords. Oh well, it looked great.
The highlight of the film, IMHO, comes at the end when Yu and Donnie face off for the last time (They have a great looking bout in the middle as well, but it seemed as though Donnie had a double at one point...!?). The camera work here is totally admirable and absolutely effective in showing the ability of both actors. I'm telling everyone right now, YU RONG GUANG IS UNDERUSED, UNDERPAID, AND UNDERAPPRECIATED. He needs to direct his own movie where he stars as the main guy, and does lots of Wu Shu, cause the guy is AMAZING, and he's OLD TOO!! For those who didn't know it, he plays the main Imperial Guard in Jackie Chan's Shanghai Noon, who also fights Jackie at the end open handedly and then with weapons. Also, see Supercop 2 for some of his talent. Anyways, now that everyone knows how great this guy is (You can also rent Jet Li's The Enforcer (which is actually My Father Is a Hero with a cooler name) at Blockbuster now, he's in that and does some good moves and I personally think that he outshines Jet Li in it. K I'm done), I can go on about "Shanghai Affairs". (He's pretty buff too, for an old guy, I mean he must be in his 40's, maybe, dunno the guy moves like a madman, faster than Jackie at times, sorry). The scene here shows Yu fighting against Donnie first with only hand to hand combat. Yu on the left, Donnie on the right, but a different cut for both of them. First we see Donnie block for a bit and we can also see Yu's arms going crazy, and does some interesting punches, some of which look like Eagle moves (Like I said, the guy moves). Then the camera moves back to Yu who's doing his thing, very well too mind you. Then back to Donnie, blocking and occasionally throwing a punch, then back to Yu, then to Donnie, then to Yu, and then to Donnie again. It's all done extremely well. Leaves falling out of trees and the old building in the background complement the scene so well you think that some trajedy just occurred even if you hadn't seen the rest of the movie. Next, we get an awesome showcase of Yu's ability to just kick and kick repeatedly (although there is one time when we catch a glimpse of a double throwing a fake leg out at Donnie, which is a common HK stunt, and was used in Police Story and Who Am I?). Yu does a great jumping roundhouse that extends perfectly, and lots of great forward snap kicks.
Finally, the two go inside (somehow Yu kicks Donnie from the side of the building to the inside, but it's good they go inside anyways). Here Yu breaks out the axe on a chain, and it's good. No doubles here, it's just Yu and Donnie. Donnie does a very cool HK spin unattended, onto Yu, followed by a knee to his head. I'll let you see the rest.
What did I learn? I learned that, as I said for a whole page, Yu Rong Guang is underused. He is an expert. He is better than any American martial artist on screen. He is faster than most HK martial artists. He moves better than most HK martial artists. He's older than most HK martial artists. Imagine Ken Lo in Drunken Master 2. When we sat there and wondered, "Why the hell don't they put him in more movies? He's great, he looks good when he fights. Jackie picked a great contestant, he's as good as Jackie dammit!" the same thing occurs in "Shanghai Affairs" with Yu. Plus, the guy can act, which is great as well. Oh and don't forget Donnie, he's always great. But I just wanna say that Yu easily matches him. Since the two are so different though, I can't tell who is better or who would win in a fight. All I can say is that they're both great, and Yu needs to be in more GOOD movies.
I give it a 9/10, the other point would go for more action and less of the group fighting.
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