Kill Zone
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Movie Reviews of Kill Zone
Movie Review: SPL aka Kill Zone - the best Hong Kong action movie in years!
Summary: 5 Stars
SPL aka Saat Po Long/Sha Po Lang aka Kill Zone is the best Hong Kong actioner in years, featuring superb performances from Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam and some seriously vicious I'm-not-showing-off-I-really-want-to-kill-you fight scenes.
The plot is fairly standard, with Yam's dying cop on the verge of retirement crossing the line to put away Hung's very unpleasant gang lord (there's NOTHING loveable about Sammo here), implicating his replacement Yen and dooming his men as everything goes seriously wrong, but it's the execution that raises it above the norm. Aside from the brutal and convincing fight scenes superbly staged by Yen, Wai-Sun Yip's direction of the film around them is particularly strong, managing to balance a stylish but not overpowering visual sense with a gravitas and grasp of character that gives the inevitable violence more weight. That's not to say there aren't plotholes - in one scene Hung's wife is incapable of having children and in the next she's got a one-month old child, while no police force in the world would release a criminal when they have video footage of him playing golf with an undercover cop's head even if he doesn't deliver the coup de grace - but there are fewer than usual for the genre, and if you can make allowances the strengths far outweigh them. Very, very impressive.
Amazingly, not only does the US DVD have more special features than the Hong Kong version, but for possibly the first time in their history the Weinsteins have resisted the temptation to cut an Asian film to ribbons and rescore it for the US market!
Movie Review: The best Hong Kong Action movie since the 80s
Summary: 5 Stars
"Kill Zone" - known properly as Sha Po Lang (and improperly as Saat Po Long on the IMDb) - is quite simply one of the finest Hong Kong action movies of all time. It draws heavily on the City Noir genre established and epitomised by John Woo in the 1980s, with corrupt cops and evil crime bosses at every turn. Unlike Woo's movies, the action here is mostly in the realm of martial arts, not gunplay. Donnie Yen, a long established Hong Kong star only recently making his North American debut in Shanghai Knights, plays a policeman newly assigned to a squad led by Simon Yam, who is hellbent on punishing crime boss Sammo Hung by any means necessary. The fighting in this movie is beyond belief - Yen is said to have set out to one-up "Ong Bak" and re-energize Hong Kong fight cinema. Yen, along with Sammo Hung (an old hand at chinese kung-fu movies) and Wu Jing take the fights to the next level. The alley fight between Wu and Yen is a standout - supposedly the director told them to just fight it out, and Yen told Wu to go as hard as possible, because he could take anything Wu threw at him. The story is also first-rate, and in fact takes up much more of the movie than the fighting does. This is no Tony Jaa one-note story, this is an epic exploration of the dark side of man. I could go on for pages, but trust me: you owe it to yourself to see this movie.Movie Review: and now the match we've all been waiting for...
Summary: 5 Stars
When I learned that Kill Zone would feature a showdown between Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen (and not even knowing who was good guy and who was bad), I had to get this movie. For years these 2 have starred in many martial arts movies and delivered top notch fights, but have never faced head to head. So I watched. Wow. The "entire" movie was actually wonderful.
Kill Zone really only has 2 major fights, both at the end, but the drama and emotions throughout the movie are so powerful, you can feel the emotions in these 2 fights. The cast is wonderful. The story is superb. Its a tale of revenge told like almost no other. I absouletly loved it. The good cops, led by the Simon Yam charcater, are like family. When they begin to perish under the criminal boss Po (Sammo Hung) and his handy 2nd in command, the good guys become bad to get revenge. The Donnie Yen character shows up, and discovers the cops secrets for revenge, and he tries to stop them at first, but later he gets just as emotionally involved.
I enjoyed the way in which the movie was presented, and how it progressed. Finally a movie, especially martial arts, with flashback scenes that are not cheesy, but very important for the story. If you want a martial arts movie with some depth, Kill Zone is a must. There is nothing else quite like it.
Movie Review: Hollywood Eat your Heart Out
Summary: 5 Stars
Kill Zone has everything I wanted but overloaded me on everything else I DIDN'T expect and what a ride it was. It had drama like I've never experienced, action I've NEVER felt so enthralled by and cinematography that was nothing but OUTSTANDING! I got it mostly because it had Donnie Yen in it and I was not disappointed one bit by his amazingly powerful martial artist abilities... the movie itself is beyond words to describe it any further except that you must BUY THIS MOVIE!
I'm not one for spoilers but I will tell you that the ending is something you wouldn't ever expect, and it has become a timeless classic in my eyes. Kill Zone all the way-- this is definitely a martial arts film that deserves its marks and has become a legendary item in my collection. This is indeed the Holy Grail of martial arts movies.
Movie Review: Best of the New Kung Fu Cop movies
Summary: 5 Stars
A violent and beautiful intricate story, furious action, and an ending that will leave you stunned. My main gripe is with Dragon Dynasty renaming of this movie to "Kill Zone", they could have tried a little harder to translate "Sha Po Lang". What are we trying to say to the American Consumers? It's obvious this is an Asian film, and Kung Fu fans will be the main audience who purchase this film. I'm a Kung Fu fanatic and the name of the film actually turned me away from purchasing it because it sounded so stupid. Only through reading reviews of the movie and by Dragon Dynasty releasing this as it's 1st release I decided to purchase it. This movie belongs as the best Kung Fu Cop movies such as Hard Boild and The Killer.