Author of this article: Li Xiaotian
Speaking of action movies, Hong Kong movies once played a huge role in building action movies in the field of world cinema.
As a film genre, Hong Kong action films, like Japanese sword films and American western films, have become a unique film genre of Hong Kong films. They naturally play a leading role in global action films. "Oriental violence aesthetics" has also become a Hong Kong action film genre. A label for the piece. The characteristic of the tag
is that it is "beautiful". The action appears "good-looking" when presented in the camera. It is not only effective but also good-looking. This is the distinctive feature of Hong Kong action movies. In order to learn from Hollywood, they directly invited Yuen Woo-Ping, Liu Jialiang, Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan, Yuan Kui, Donnie Yen, Lin Dian and others to be film action directors, and produced a number of blockbusters with Chinese-style action movies, such as "The Matrix" and "The Killing". "Dead Bill", "Transformers", "X-Men", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Trafficker", "Blade" and other series of movies.
However, time has changed, and with the decline of Hong Kong movies, Hong Kong action movies have lost their original glory and can no longer be popular. With the rise of the " John Wick " series, Hollywood action movies have entered a new era. Regarding the new trend of Hollywood action movies, you can see: Hollywood Jianghu, an alternative perspective to interpret the ups and downs of the movie martial arts gangs
Actions influenced by "John Wick" no longer simply pursue the stretch of fighting actions, and even the actors do not have action skills It doesn't matter, we rely on fast editing, mobile shooting, etc. to make up for it. The actions are simple and efficient, hitting the mark in one hit, and integrating the actions into the plot. A characteristic of these action movies is that the action is part of the plot. Unlike Hong Kong action movies, which are almost ostentatious, there is no problem in picking out the action alone, and cutting out the action scenes still does not affect the overall plot.
This trend of Hollywood action movies has even begun to backfire, affecting Chinese action movies, such as " Wolf Warrior 2", which we are proud of. The action in the film is so beautiful because of its action guidance. Sam Hargreave is a rising star in Hollywood action films. He later directed "The Rescue" alone, which became a new classic as soon as it was born. Chinese audiences all think that what Wu Jing is showing is Chinese. Don't they know that he uses the most authentic and cutting-edge Hollywood technology? He used Hollywood techniques to film a Chinese story.
Most of the current action movies have the shadow of "John Wick", which is deeply affecting the development of action movies.
So, is the only style of action movie "John Wick"?
Of course not! "60 Minutes" to be introduced here is a new attempt at an action movie.
As a movie, this German action movie in early 2024 seems unremarkable, and it can hardly be called a masterpiece. However, as an action movie with MMA as the main fighting style, it is still worthy of the attention of action movie fans, especially those who like MMA, it is even more worthy of attention.
mma is the abbreviation of mixed martial arts. It is a relatively open competitive fighting sport. It can stand and strike, and can also fight on the ground. Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and wrestling are allowed during the duel. , taekwondo, karate, judo, Sanda and other technical movements, it is the "decathlon" in combat sports.
There are many MMA-themed movies, and there are many good-looking ones, such as "The Ultimate Fighter" and "No Back Down", which respectively promoted Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White. Others like "Warrior" "" Guild Wars" and so on are also good, and they have contributed several acting awards respectively. But there is a shortcoming of these movies, that is, they are all sports-type movies, and they are all inspirational movies. MMA is used in competition, and they are shot to express MMA, which limits the audience level a lot. The real classic of
mma is " fuse ". This film is led by Donnie Yen. The actions designed at the peak of his acting career fully integrated mma into the military action film, making the action of the whole story particularly beautiful. .Although this film is currently not that famous among Chinese action films, in the eyes of Western action film fans, especially mma fans, "The Fuse" is as good as a biblical masterpiece.
The best thing about "The Fuse" is that on the surface it has nothing to do with mma. It is just a serious police film, a story about police catching criminals. It can't even be said to be exciting, but it is full of energy. Action director and starring Donnie Yen brought out all the essence of mma and showed mma in actual combat, which is completely different from the cuddling and beating movements in traditional competitive films. In the film, while the police were arresting criminals, Donnie Yen successively demonstrated free fighting, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, sleep locks, Sanda, close combat, and ground fighting. There are traditional Hong Kong action movies that combine action scenes with each other. The good-looking side is shown, and he also punches cruelly and quickly, showing the trend of fierce and fierce action movies, making almost every action scene in the film exciting, just like an MMA textbook.
Now, the "60 Minutes" that everyone has seen is another non-competitive mma action film, which also shows the role of mma in actual combat. However, it does not go as far as "The Fuse". The protagonist of the story is still an MMA athlete. The story tells that before an upcoming mma competition, he suddenly received a call from his ex-wife, asking him to appear in front of his daughter who was about to have a birthday party within an hour, that is, within 60 minutes. Otherwise, the family will be completely broken up and the daughter will never be seen again.
For the sake of his family, the male protagonist ran away and gave up the game when the game was about to start. He wanted to rush home to see his daughter and save his family from danger.
However, what he didn't know was that the game he was about to play had been controlled by the mafia. The gang invested huge sums of money on him, making him lose the first two games in a best-of-three game. , and then turned defeat into victory in the third game, thus winning a huge amount of gambling money for the gangster.
The male protagonist's abandonment immediately angered the mafia. What's going on? If you escape during the battle, what will happen to the money invested by the mafia? Where does the bigger boss behind the mafia put his face?
As a result, the mafia began to stop and arrest the male protagonist, and a tracking scene full of fists and kicks was staged. At first, what the Mafia wanted was for the hero to return to the field and finish the game. Later, the gangster discovered that it was impossible to return to the game, so all that was left was to take revenge and make the hero pay the price.
Therefore, the name "60 Minutes" refers to the 60 minutes in time. The entire story also takes place in the tracking scene within 60 minutes, and then displays MMA's actions in the fierce actual combat.
Ordinarily, the MMA fights in this movie are more reasonable than those in "The Fuse", because the male protagonist is an MMA athlete, and these moves are the ones he is most familiar with, and those moves are the most reasonable to use in the fight. On the contrary, "The Fuse" is a bit unclear. Why these actions are used instead of other actions? It doesn't make sense. It just looks good.
Just like the story of "The Fuse" is not worth mentioning, the story of "Dou Zhen 60" is not worth mentioning, and it cannot even stand up to much scrutiny. But as an action movie, you just don't have to think about it, just look at the process, just look at the action and that's it.
The plot of "60 Minutes" is quite compact and very tense. The tracking scenes are well-organized and quite oppressive. The MMA fighting scenes are exciting, and that's enough.
I am used to the assembly line work of Hollywood. It is a kind of change to watch this kind of German film occasionally and watch this kind of unique action film. It is also quite interesting.
