With just four days to the end of the year, Jackie Chan’s Bleeding Steel made it as my WORST movie of 2017.
It was cheesy, hokey, and tried to copy (badly) every sci-fi movie out there. You could see they were lifting from Star Wars, Star Trek, GI Joe, Hellraiser, Underworld, Transformers, Terminator, Power Rangers, and the Matrix in this rojak.
This review will contain spoilers because it doesn’t matter if you know what happens.
The first warning that this was going to be bad was the sheer number of production companies involved. I counted more than ten in the intro. It felt like half of the Chinese movie industry was involved in it.
Then came a list of Executive Producers and Producers. You could make ten more movies with the army of producers listed in the opening credits.
Bleeding Steel couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It started out serious. Then it became a an unfunny slapstick comedy. Then it became a tragic melodrama (“Papa! Papa!”). Then it became serious again. It was like five different genres rolled into one.
It was unintentionally funny too. I laughed out loud when Jackie Chan’s (spoiler alert) arm grew back in the end.
You can tell the Sydney tourism board was involved because you see the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge in many scenes, in the day, in the night, in a panning shot, in a drone shot… they got their money’s worth.
Audi was a major sponsor, I think. In one major chase scene, the bad guys drove Audi and Jackie Chan also drove an Audi. It was like everyone drove Audi in Sydney. But the bad guys drove black Audi cars.
Show Lo, who was the “comedic” sidekick in the movie, was easily the most annoying character in the movie and the most unfunny one too.
The random angmoh villain woman’s acting was sooooo bad. Did anyone in the public notice her silly outfit with the cape and her black motorcycle helmet soldiers walking around the streets of Sydney? Why didn’t anyone call the police?
In fact, why does every angmoh in this movie act so badly? Did they run out of budget to hire credible westerners to act in it?
My friend who fell asleep through bits of the movie asked me , “Did I miss anything? Where did the bad guy get his space ship?”
”No, you missed nothing. That space ship came out of nowhere. They never explain how the bad guy could afford, or have the tech, to build one,” I replied.
There was also a totally unnecessary scene involving some hooligans bullying the teenage protagonist, filled with racist stereotypes: black dude and his buddies wants to molest and/or rape her, gets kicked in the balls. Twice. Look at the black pervert guy holding his balls in pain, the movie seems to be saying.
Also disturbing was the unnecessary scene where some “witch” pulls apart the teen heroine’s shirt to expose her bra and chest, to administer an emergency injection. What the.
Jackie Chan looks old enough to be the father of the lady cop sidekick, and old enough to be the grandfather of the teen who plays his daughter.
Other moments of stupidity: When Jackie Chan fell out of the villain’s space ship (which developed a malfunction for no reason whatsoever and exploded), he was falling without a parachute, He somehow managed to catch up with his daughter and the lady cop sharing a parachute, and they talked in midair.
Good thing I only paid nine ringgit (three Singapore dollars) to watch it in a Kuching cinema.
There is NO way this movie deserves a 6.8/10 score on IMDB. I call shenanigans.
It was kind of sad that Jackie Chan actually made this movie, tarnishing his movie career legacy. That movie poster of him falling from the sky is symbolic of his credibility going down the tubes after this stinker.
When I saw Jackie Chan getting beaten up by the villain, I was actually hoping the villain would win.
Bleeding Steel was just bleeding lousy. No amount of Chinese money spent on the action scenes and (poor) CG can save it.
Save your money and wait for the movie to show up on some pirated movie streaming site. And don’t watch it even then.
Recent Comments