Director: Sheldon Lettich
Year: 1991
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: The Corsican Brothers
Genre: Action
Plot:
After their parents’ murder, twin brothers are separated for nearly twenty-five years where they grew up on opposite sides of the world, one working as a fitness instructor in Beverly Hills while the other a smuggler on the streets on Hong Kong. When the Beverly Hills troop are aware of the others’ presence, they see it as a sign of them to return to rightfully claim an inheritance that was due to them from their parents’ death. Reuniting in Hong Kong, they realize their different upbringings allow them to fight against the Triad-enforced crime group looking to control the city and look to take back what is rightfully theirs.
Review:
Overall, there’s plenty of enjoyable aspects to this one. One of the more engaging aspects of the film is the manner in which this one mixes together the elements of action comedy that offer up plenty of fun nostalgia. The comedy, obviously centered around the fancy and refined Chad being out of his element in the rough-and-tough streets of Hong Kong and the series of misidentifications that arrive whenever people confuse him for Alex which not only results in some fine comedic situations but also provides some solid action here. While in the realm of the comedic, most of the hilarious comebacks and insults they have with each other goes so well with the remarks about his bright clothing colors and styles which are quite fun to see play out.
When it moves away from that and focuses back on the action, the film has plenty to like about it. Starting with the opening shootout from the car ambush that results in the parents being killed and the continued firefight setting up the main scenario within the film, there’s a lot of fun here. The confrontation on the boat with the interrupted smuggling hand-off turning into a fine boat chase through the Hong Kong harbor and a confrontation with the thugs in the restaurant have some really enjoyable elements to them, while the fantastic shootout from their surprise ambush on the docks has plenty of stellar influences from the Hong Kong action scene with the flipping and dual hand-held gunplay to create a really impressive and dynamic sequence.
As well as this stellar action, the martial arts action is quite enjoyable and gets plenty of strong aspects to it. As expected with Van Damme in this kind of film. The various fights and confrontations they have here, from brief knockouts with henchmen to the movements required to stay alive and the individual attacks that take out the guards chasing them on the streets of Hong Kong, it manages to display enough martial arts action to get things ready for the finale. As each brother gets a special fight, with Chad getting to fight the spur-bedecked henchman in an illuminated compartment who keeps ducking out of the shadows and the special return fight between Alex and the muscular bodyguard that’s well-choreographed and has some real-world fun for it. All combined together these are more than enough to make this worthwhile.
There are a few areas here that really don’t need to be here. The biggest factor with this one is the utterly clueless idea throughout here to have the infidelity angle that crops up in the latter half here. The setup for this one plotline is incredibly contrived, based solely on the drunken thoughts of one night thinking solely about the possibility of it happening when everything that’s occurred until then has never brought that concept forward. With this inclusion featuring some rather clumsy exposition to carry it on, this serves merely to pad out the running time without any kind of proper resolution further making it really confusing. As well, a few of the matte shots look rather suspect not only where the two are on-screen together but also for some of the stuntwork which are just enough to hold this one down slightly.
Overview: ****.5/5
With minor nagging nitpicks to hold this one back from a stellar series of action setups alongside some fun comedic interludes to spice this up, the film has a lot to like about it and becomes one of the better entries from his catalog. Look into this one if you’re nostalgic for this type of genre piece, a fan of the creative side or looking for a fun and breezy action film, while those not looking for this type of film should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment