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You know, this movie has got so much shit dumped on it that I went into it expecting the crappiest movie ever, or something to the equivalent. I was positively surprised to find it an entertaining, but ultimately extremely meaningless piece of cinema. The story has a few sideplots here and there, but they're primarily meaningless, just like the main story (which is pretty dumb as well). It's basically just a bunch of extremely weak and clichéd characters duking it out constantly, except occasionally we get to see them talk some korny dialogue. Also, sometimes there are weird transitions, mostly using the movie's logo to change from scene to scene. Oh yeah, the story is also extremely predictable and full of plot holes. All the actors are surprisingly mediocre, even though most of them do have enough charisma to pull off the roles they're given. The only standout is the guy who played the old man who made the tournament possible. Also I would've loved to see more of Gen Fu, but we basically saw him in a whoopping 3 or 4 scenes of the movie, and never properly saw him fight, which is pretty annoying since he would've looked hilarious.
DOA is an incredibly good looking film. Every fight scene featured here is simply a great watch, because of the unique and extremely variable visuals found here. The choreography is somewhat regular, even though slightly more high flying than in most movies, but the direction makes it look about two hundred times better than it really is. Yuen uses the fact that he can do whatever he wants with the fights since they don't mean much to the half-assed story, and he uses it pretty much as well as a human being could within a limited budget. The editor also did a great job here, but only kinda... Some of the scenes are really weirdly cut. First we see someone fall down, then we see the opponent start a kick, and then all the sudden the fallen one is standing again in order to receive the kick. It just bothered me slightly, that's all. Yuen seriously did an awesome job here, and I personally would love to see more of him, perhaps next time something with a point.
That was the problem here. This movie had no meaning whatsoever. It was basically just random, awesome fights, and if you want to see something more, don't get this movie... But fuck it, I don't need anything more than that personally. This is a great movie to watch after you turn off your brain for a moment, because it is so incredibly entertaining when the fights come. Just fun, nothing more, nothing less.
7/10
