Fatal Contact (2006)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I give it a 10.It's a movie full of soul.It starts pretty funny, gets into serious talking.But the ending and the characters make everything possible.It's about life, it's about priorities, it's about the human soul.If the soul is too damaged it will never survive happier times, it will crumble under it's own weight.Gives perspective on life....most people won't understand or appreciate it. The actors are playing a serious and simple act, they don't have fancy words or eccentric habits. The scenes are pretty simple and focus on the characters. I would not miss this movie if i like to see the unseen. The main characters are like children, they are in a pure form of existence, they are mortals, they are human.

Young acrobat in a Chinese Opera style show is wanted by the mob to fight in underground boxing matches. He refuses, but later decides to try it when he and his girl realize there's money to be made. Moving in with one of the gangsters named the Captain he starts to fight and win. As his handlers realize that there is money to be made he begins to fight more and more punishing matches and things begin to go in ways he never expected.Good but not great action film plays at times more like a romance and buddy comedy. To be certain there are some very good fight scenes, but more of the film seems to be about the characters. This is both good and bad. Good because we get to meet the Captain, a low level gangster who is actually a kung fu master himself. He's trying to get enough money to open a dim sum place for his mom. His scenes, which at first seem forced turn out to be some of the more charming of the whole film. The problem here is he's much more interesting then the two leads who have some charm but ultimately blend in with everyone else. In more then one fight scene I wasn't sure which guy I was rooting for. Then in the final half hour things go in a different direction. While it did get me to sit up and take notice, I wasn't sure if this was a new twist or something that had been foreshadowed since it was only at this one point I realized I hadn't really been paying attention. I have no idea how you'll react to the turn of events but they a tad downbeat.Is the film worth seeing? yes no maybe. The fights are good, the drama fair. The trouble is that its really far from gripping. You don't really care for the characters, other than Captain, and I found myself watching more to see the fights then anything else. I think the only way to explain this is as an odd drama with fights.5 Out of 10. The choice to see it is yours.

I've watched a lot of HK action films... some are pretty amazing, many are guilty pleasures, and sadly a few are just plain awful. This one falls into the latter category. Fatal Contact is terrible, and not in that "so bad it's good" enjoyable sort of way. The writing is awkward, the acting is hollow, and the direction is stiff and joyless. Every scene is miserable. It's like someone made a backyard-grade production with half a normal film's budget. I don't speak Chinese, so I read the subtitles... which means I can be pretty generous with regards to the performances, especially in a martial arts film. When I can tell how flat and mechanical the acting is, even across the language barrier, you know it's pretty bad. The dialog is recited as if read from scribbled cue cards. Actors stare at nothing in particular, making nervous faces like they've just ad-libbed a bad line.. they even sometimes look at the camera. This may seem like a petty complaint for a silly action movie, but it really makes it impossible to enter into the film and feel any excitement.The script is similarly weak...dull, fragmented, predictable, preachy, and at times painfully misogynistic. Even for manic HK genre film, the tone is inconsistent. It seems to hit a sour note at almost every turn. I might have praised this film for showing illegal underground boxing matches in realistically mundane environments like old train stations, fluorescent-lit rented hotel conference chambers, boat marinas, etc, but somehow the lack of interesting locations or presentation often robs the scenes of any drama they would normally have. Instead, it just feels cheap and unimaginative.So what about the action? Jacky Wu has always been a competent martial performer, if not particularly engaging on a personal level, and the action sequences should be the highlight of this film. Unfortunately, the impact is consistently killed by bad editing and unexciting villains. The choreography is pretty dull and unexciting. Every confrontation is a disappointment. Granted, Wu does pull off a couple of sweet moves. Unfortunately I mean that LITERALLY... I think I counted them and there are about two. Wu is a proved talent, but this film is strong evidence that having good screen fighters is not enough to carry even a fun action cheapie if every other aspect of the movie fails.Notably Ronald Cheng DOES sort of portray an interesting character... I was hoping for him to become more significant in the story, but don't be fooled. NOTHING happens with this character. That goes Lam Suet and Ken Lo too, sadly. The familiar HK supporting faces in this film are no indication of its quality. I was under the impression that a Dragon Dynasty release would at least be worth a look. Don't waste your time... or if you must, skip to the fight scenes just to relieve your curiosity. Nothing else here is even remotely worthwhile.

The real reason anyone will see fatal contact is for the action. With that in mind, you may have to forgive a little bit of the jumpy and clichéd story telling.The action sequences are frequent, and well choreographed. It's an interesting combination of brutal and flashy. Wu Jing will throw several jumping multi-kicks, but because the general rhythm of the fights are captured well, it doesn't look too far fetched. The choreographers throw in some pretty believable elements in the competition fights. You may see the fighters just hop around a it to psych each other out, and you'll notice, the more brutal the fights get, the less visible these sportsman like elements become. It's pretty interesting. There's no wirework and very little, if any, video speed up that is flamboyant in some HK movies.Wu Jing really struts his stuff in this movie. I would say in general, he's very similar to jet li. He has this strange brutalness that jet li embodies in his roles with a modern setting. He looks wild, but clean at the same time. Wu Jing is younger, more vibrant, and he even has more flare than Jet Li. An actor like Donnie Yen has a different kind of appeal, but because Jet Li is getting old, and probably no longer doing action movies anymore, Wu Jing would make a superb replacement.The story has almost no introduction, no time to familiarize a little with the characters, and the actual revelations about the characters are sporratic and placed in seemingly random places. It has a terrible and nonsensical love story, which luckily, isn't the focus. The whole setup is pretty nonsensical as well. Some guys walk into an opera performance, and somehow recognize skill in a performer. They ask him to fight underground for them, and they offer a lot of money. Of course, a lowly wushu performer is poor, and he eventually decides he neeeds the money. The setup is all a little fantastical to me, especially with the realistic setting. I feel it would be more at home in an aime than a live action movie with a modern day setting. It helped a lot to almost imagine Fatal Contact taking place in some alternate universe where the underground fighting scene is big money, and the scouters are like pimps. A world where performers are poor, but incredibly talented fighters. It's almost romantic if you think of it that way. So the setting is bearable and kinda interesting if you give it some of your imagination, but the story is still hampered by tons of cheesy dialogue and that oh so corny romance.It's all about the action though, and that totally does not fail to disappoint. My favorite action movie in recent times is Sha Po Lang. The stories in both are at least a little cliché, but SPL had the cleaner, less sporratic story telling. It also had cinematography of a higher quality than Fatal Contact. Still though, Wu Jing and his action co-stars drive a really tough bargain. His moves are cleaner, flashier, and he's more vibrant than Donnie Yen. I almost can't decide of Fatal Contact trumps SPL or not.