American Chinatown (1996)

I love this movie so much

Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Or not.The story is pretty thin, trying to recall that of a 90's Hong Kong gangster flick. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for the HK pieces, they actually had mob connections and some of the elements were quite visceral and real. Boy meets girl, they both fall into doomed love.The ending is a cliffhanger-- probably the only good narrative element in the story, and even that falls a little short.This film has pretty solid action sequences-- though one thing can be said; there's a goon who appears several times on all different sides (a goon in awe of Yong, the 'samurai' yakuza guy etc) and that causes a lot of confusion.For a '96 movie, the cast seems decked out in what appears to be 80's throwback fashion. That and the stiff acting combined makes it seem like a day time soap.It's not a bad movie. But only worth watching if your brain is on auto pilot and you have absolutely nothing else to do.

I've made it a habit of recent years to walk through the video store and try to find the lower budget movies that might have some of the new names of directing, acting, or producing. There has been some really cool movies coming out of Korea lately, and I thought this was one of them.I haven't seen a movie this bad with martial arts in it since "The Vault" with Bas Rutten. Goes to show that all the martial arts ability in the world doesn't mean jack in the world of acting. If this movie was a vehicle to demonstrate the Martial Art or the abilities of the performer (Think Tony Jaa in "Ong Bak, Thai Warrior" or Bruce Lee in "Enter the Dragon") it was a really poor job. I can't think of a single reason to make a movie this bad except sheer boredom. And a desperate need to drop $30,000 dollars hard earned cash without leaving for Las Vegas. And no, that wasn't a compliment! Was there anything I can say about the good? American Chinatown's cast (with the noted exceptions of Robert Z'Dar and Liat Goodson) are all current or previous practitioners of Hwa Rang Do,(thank you, Yahoo! Search Engine!) If you can get past the terrible acting, terrible script, lack of characterization and any financial backing what-so-ever, some of the fight sequences have the usual Korean flash of outstanding kicks and joint locks that we've seen from Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido. Depressingly, the stuff on their web site was more entertaining then the film. There are some quick, (and by quick I mean SHORT) fight scenes in the movie with weapons demonstrating disarms and take downs. Yep, and there is a sword duel as well in there.First rule of making a great movie: Great script. After seeing this movie and some of the other steaming piles of garbage in Hollywood I'll even lower my standards to 'okay' script and this movie still wouldn't cut it. Before I can even harp on the acting I have to say that NO actor would have been able to save the dialog of this movie. Had Bruce Lee risen from the grave looking to do this as a film, one read through of the script would have put him right back in the grave. Yes, its THAT bad! Second Rule of making a great movie: Great Talent. That usually refers to actors, but it extends to everybody on the production crew. The movie is terribly lighted, horribly sounded, and the editing is a sheer nightmare. There are virtually no cut-aways, no multiple angles, and no effects what-so-ever. What you end up with is a single shot, single frame, 15 seconds to a minute long take of action from 1 (!) angle from which to see anything. I guess it solved that little problem most big budget movies call, 'Continuity.' (As if this movie was worried about continuity... how's that Eyepatch, Eric T. Lee? Wait, which character are you playing now...? it changes every few scenes when I fall asleep...) There's nothing I like seeing more in a low budget film than actors playing multiple roles...badly.And the acting! ****SPOILER ALERT**** The scene with Goodson's character getting attacked by the two thugs/ blue haired (!) rapists in the alley... Yeah, I was rooting for the rapists at that point. At least THEY were convincing. Oh man, and how much tough guy posturing can one movie have? I felt like the director's main note to the actors was "If you forget a line, just mumble, smoke, and look tough." There is a lot of mumbling, smoking, and people trying to look tough in this movie.Third Rule of making a great action movie: If it's an action movie, showcase the action! This movie's entire script (I use the term 'script' loosely) is honestly just there to string together fight scene to fight scene. So, if the production crew was at least being honest with themselves, they would of thrown every cent into multiple camera angles, decent lighting, and some added FX for the fights. Since they didn't, you have martial arts that would have the possibility of being pretty good on film if we could: A) see what they were doing when the shot isn't being blocked by someone's body, wall or shadow, B) have realistic battle wounds ****SPOILER****(Yes, Taejoon, I am talking about you... how does a slash across the belly give you a limp?! My God, Igor lurches more convincingly!) C) have some effects that really show the subtitles of what you are doing, I.E. Slow motion, quick cut aways, and for Pete's sake, multiple angles! And lastly, D) Coherency... but I can't fault them too much on that with a script that bad.A great set of fight scenes should be able to tell you about both the characters in the movie and how their character is expressed in the way they fight. The end duel in 'Rob Roy', The Duel in "The Empire Strikes Back", even the street brawl in "They Live" can all be watched separately from the rest of the film with the sound off and people are able to tell who these characters are and what they are feeling from what we see. ****SPOILER**** With American Chinatown, you can only tell who the good guy was at the end of the movie because he is the last guy left... limping.I give this movie one star out of respect that people tried to make a movie. What we got was American Chinatown. They may be great martial artists, but there is an art to film making too... one that takes a whole lot more respect then we see it given here. Invest in some acting lessons, talk with production on HOW to showcase the martial arts, and spend some actual money next time around and you might have something worthy of 'Straight To Video.'

I'm not sure what to say about this film that will be helpful to anyone who wants to know about it. Frankly the only thing that comes to mind is don't.The story of two friends who's loyalty is tested when a woman comes between them is painful to watch. I've seen enough movies to know when there is a problem beyond the script, in this case its mainly the acting which is best categorized as bad. Its a combination of poor acting choices, characters posturing to look tough mixed with what can only be described in an overly generous mood as non-acting. Characters speak as if they are rehearsing rather than performing. Even Robert Z'Dar, of Maniac Cop fame, an actor you can always count on for a good performance comes across as phoning it in from three towns away.Its all very laughable.Technically this film isn't much better. The sets feel like they were left over from a bad high school music video. The camera work seems more like the point and shoot variety. My guess is that this was made for almost no money and it shows. (An aside- while watching this movie I was struck by one thought over and over again, which might explain why the film is the way it is, and that is I'm not certain that this film was ever intended for an English language market. There is something about it that makes me think that this was made to be shipped over seas and dubbed in to Thai or Korean or Chinese. If thats the case I's suggest trying to find an import of this dubbed into a foreign language and subtitled back into English.-It's probably going to play better) I really can't recommend this film to anyone unless they are trying to see every film with martial arts ever made. To put it another way I paid 99 cents for the DVD of this film and I feel ripped off.