Da Peng, Ou Hao, Li Meng, Cao Bingkun, Cao Weiyu, Sha Baoliang, Wulantuoya Duo, Zhang Ningjian, Xia En. Official statistics imply that violent crime is close to an all-time low across China today, but you would hardly guess as much from the glut of commercial-leaning crime and gangster movies that the Middle Kingdom is producing and, as often as not, given the accessibility of the genre and the historical pedigree of Asian action thrillers, exporting as well.
This particular redemptive narrative device comes in the shape of the adorably frowny-faced Qiqi , the little girl whom desperate, debt-ridden loser Liu Xiaojun finds bound in the trunk of the car he boosts at the behest of his shady friend Lao Wan . Qiqi is determined to be brought to her father, but it’s her hysterically worried mother that Xiaojun first reaches, and that’s when he discovers that the ornery moppet is actually worth ¥2 million in ransom.
The problems with “Vortex” are abstract and general, rather than specific. Most of the individual below-the-line departments do a decent job . Cheng MazhiYuan’s cinematography favors the moody, rain-slicked, grittily saturated aesthetic that is already well established for films in this genre, but his framing often finds an angle new enough, or a perspective deep enough, to keep visual interest from lagging. The fight scenes are competent, if not particularly inspired, although Ou Hao, as the more psycho of the thuggish brothers, Xia Xi, does bring an edge of handsome, wild-card menace to his thwackings, shootings and smashings.
The abrupt change of heart that happens somewhere in the last third of the of the film is as expected as it is unconvincing. Not even Jung Teacher and Lee San Youl’s omnipresent score, which makes it very clear for anyone not paying attention in the back just where we are emotionally at every moment, can quite smooth out the sharply zig-zagging motivations of characters who seem mechanistically trapped within the plot, rather than its agents.
Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »
Source: THR - 🏆 411. / 53 Read more »
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »
Source: BuzzFeed - 🏆 730. / 51 Read more »
Source: wmag - 🏆 723. / 51 Read more »
Variety | 2019Shanghai International Film Festival
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »