Paradox

I miss the technical action soundness that Jaa brings to the table, and I missed it in this film, too. Not enough Tony Jaa—that’s criticism #1. But this film brought solid drama and crime thriller elements to an emotionally fueled journey and there was its strong suit. Not only that, but it was visually striking. Solid film.Hong Kong cop Lee Chung Chi (Louis Koo; Flashpoint, Kill Zone 2) teams up with Thai detective Chui Kit (Yue Wu; Birth of the Dragon) after his daughter is kidnapped in Thailand for illegal organ trafficking.Director Wilson Yip (Ip Man 1-4, Kill Zone) recruited some familiar SPL actors to new and different roles here in the SPL series. So, while this may be a sequel, there is no actual character continuity. And that’s a shame—as the action here simply does not measure up to SPL 2. Kill Zone 2 (2015; aka SPL 2) was so much more brutal, exciting and interesting than Kill Zone (2005; aka SPL) or Paradox. But this film has its merits. From cityscapes to waterfront views, this film is gorgeously shot! And speaking in terms of emotional character depth, it exceeds its predecessors.Past SPL installments did well with the rage that fuels revenge and the anger that can seep into all aspects of one’s life. This third SPL film continues to capture this, while also including profound senses of protection, desperation and bargaining in our paternal protagonist (Chi). The flashbacks sew flesh over Chi’s vulnerability, guilt and humanity.Both experienced action stars, Koo and Wu have their fair share of stunts. But in a world where I’ve seen SPL 2 and Tony Jaa’s marathoning maelstrom of maneuvers, this yields little impact beyond providing decent pacing to this action movie. However, this is more a gritty crime film than a martial arts film—for the first 40 minutes at least. But once Jaa (Tony Jaa; Ong-Bak, The Protector, Skin Trade, Kill Zone 2, Furious 7) is on the scene, things pick up and they pick up fast for as long as he holds the screen.The action choreography remains gritty and largely realistic in the scope of human-capable Jackie Chan stunt standards. However, there is a steady (but only light to moderate) physics-defiant aspect of wirework and a light seasoning of nigh-supernatural Shaolin monk featdom. No one is doing Crouching Tiger Jedi jumps, but there are more than a few moments that are impossible—even if just by a little bit. Normally, in more realistic martial arts movies, this would bother me (a lot). But it’s uncommon and relies more on practical combat than unrealistic stunts to advance the spin-kicking dialogue (i.e., to decide a victor).There are three major martial arts sequences. The early perp pursuit with Koo and Wu, the second perp pursuit which includes Jaa on the rooftop, and the meat warehouse finale.My greatest criticism of this film is that Jaa was far underutilized. That, and the lack of SPL 2’s immense choreographical prowess, hold this sequel back significantly. As we move into the meat warehouse battle finale the scything cleaver blades of whirling dervishes certainly entertain. Koo and Wu’s characters blitz the bad guys, the fight gets brutal when meat hooks come into play, and there’s barely a millisecond to take a breath between swings, clangs and parries.I may miss the level of technical action that Jaa can bring, but this piece of Asian action cinema brought solid drama and crime thriller elements to an emotionally fueled journey transforming from rescue to revenge as the plot advanced. And, as I mentioned before, this film is visually striking despite having few non-city scenes. Solid film.

All the poor reviews were from people expecting a Jason Stathom feel-good, westernized, martial arts flick. It’s not a Tony Jaa flick. It’s not even a typical Hong Kong action flick. I suppose you could say it is primarily a detective-action movie, but that would also not really be an adequate classification. Truth is, it really is something new and unfamiliar. And if you go in with that mindset, then you will appreciate how original this is. The movie does not center around the action, yet the action is top notch. It does not center around Tony Jaa, yet he delivers. In fact, the movie has all these top notch attributes that, while outstanding in their own right, serve only to distract from the core of the movie, which is a deep, layered, nuanced story of tragedy, which doesn’t hit you until maybe the day after seeing it. The topic and tone are very dark, very gritty and even too mature for it’s own sake at the box office. The intent of the story is not to make you feel good, nor jerk tears, but rather to feel despair and abomination. I give credit for going in such an uncommon direction and an exquisite delivery.

I had read some bad reviews of this somewhere so I didn't have high expectation for it.At some points, the movie tries to be more dramatic than it can handle. Perhaps the impact is lost in translation to English.The movie has very vile points that make this not suitable for anyone under 18. I would really say under 21. I'm not trying to belittle anyone that is an adult at 18, but you would be better off not seeing this movie until you are at least 21. If you wait to at least that age to watch it, you will most likely understand why I have put this warning at the front of the review.This is a cop movie. It is not a buddy cop movie. The non-female hero leads are all cops.No female hero leads; women are helpless victims that need to be saved.The martial arts fight scenes were good. As always, I can never get enough of Tony Jaa in action. The other guys were good. Fight scenes were well planned and executed. I could only but be so surprised when I just looked and saw that Sammo Hung was responsible for the action direction on this film. Honestly, based on some of the fight scenes I thought it could have been a Baa-Ram-Ewe movie, and I had just missed their involvement in the opening credits. In hindsight, I can say that the fight scenes were a bit too clean/crisp/smooth for Baa-Ram-Ewe.Based on this movie, Thai Police can't hit the side of a barn if they armed with a pistol. At the same time, this is a martial arts film so we don't expect people shooting firearms to hit anyone.Which of course leads this around to ... this isn't a kung fu movie. There are no training sequences. The people in the film know martial art simply because they know martial arts. The characters that are supposed to be native to Thailand fight with what I would call standard Thai boxing techniques. It's easy to pick them out. Our main character from Hong Kong? Harder to pick out what school he would be from. It appears to be a mixed Chinese martial art. Not a lot of clinching. Ground game is avoided. Minimal weapon use by anyone until the final parts of the movie.It is a rollercoaster ride. It will go where you don't expect it to go. It's kind of like Oldboy in that way.It isn't a movie that I will watch over and over again, but I was glad that I watched it for the experience.

This wasn't a good addition to The SPL Series at all in my opinion. Tony Jaa is wasted here. Louis Koo is no Martial Artist and I'm tired of seeing him in fighting roles. The film is downbeat and depressing at times with long breaks in between action scenes. I can see Samo Hung's action choreography and it's fantastic but there isn't much of it. Without giving anything away, I was very unsatisfied after watching Paradox. The trailers cramming the action scenes together really fooled me. Watch The Man From Nowhere instead unless you're looking for misery.

The best thing about being a prime member is that I can get to gorge on all the martial arts movies I can handle.

First off this movie is Not dub in English. at least the one I got but that don’t bother me one bit. its all Cantonese.I was really shock to see a more emotional movie than a fighting style movie even though it has fighting of martial arts to it.I totally went into this thinking otherwise but was very surprise how balance it was.you have fighting an you have tragedy an a very nasty set of people that only care for the ones who they think likes them.what a bad combination that is the greedy gets greeder an the low life feeds them.Widescreen 2.39:1Runtime 100 Min.Cantonese 5.1 DTS-HD with English Sub.

Excellent martial arts movie. Half of the movie is storyline/background setting the plot. Half of the rest is action packed and it ends in unexpected ways. Pure excellence!

Good

Great movie