Director: Vincent Soberano
Year: 2020
Country: Philippines
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Kung-Fu
Plot:
In the years following the arrival of the Aswang, a team of Blood Hunters manages to stumble upon a young woman hunting a powerful vampire. Once they realize his partner is in the area, they bring her into their camp to train with them when a special warrior becomes involved through the two attempting to launch a new attack. Deciding to beat them to the punch, they launch a surprise assault on the Aswang headquarters to stop them.
Review:
Overall, this one does have its moments. One of the film’s best qualities is that the brevity means that there’s plenty of hard-hitting martial arts fighting. Due to the storyline constraints featuring the Aswangs having superhuman strength, the fast, enhanced choreography and movements on display come off really well. The opening confrontations in the forest or the series of training battles are exciting enough yet the real fun of the film is the major battles in the finale. As the rescue team advances on the Aswang hideout in a solid firefight, the series of hand-to-hand battles inside their headquarters is filled with high-energy battles. With each member of the assault team and the Aswangs allowed to show off their physical prowess, these elongated fight scenes are very satisfying and enjoyable. Combined with some fine make-up work on the Aswangs, the film has some likable elements.
That said, the film does have a few issues. The biggest problem here is the annoying and irritating tactic of shaking the camera around way too much for its action scenes. Nearly all of the martial arts battles are full of this, getting up close and personal to the action, which is then further downgraded by moving the camera all over the place. It ends up making the film exciting as something is always happening but also frustrating as most of that activity becomes disorienting after a while. Thankfully, this process is rapidly diminished for the finale compared to the beginning as the shaking, jerking camerawork employed for the shorter sequences brings them down in enjoyment as compared to the more traditional setups in the finale. As well, the comic book-style of doing scene transitions, cutting to a still-shot of the last moment on-screen then switching to a comic panel that launches the next sequence, becomes somewhat joining for every time it occurs. These are what hold the film down.
Overview: ***.5/5
With a one-sided focus on martial arts skills and action scenes, this one serves itself well in that singular regard but doesn't really do much else despite still not having much else to say about it. Viewers familiar with the previous entries in the franchise or are aficionados of low-budget martial arts efforts should have a lot of fun with this one while those without much interest in those qualities might not enjoy this one.
This review was originally published on Asian Movie Pulse and is gratefully reprinted with their cooperation.
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