recently reviewed the "Ultimate Fighter" tetralogy in succession and wrote four articles, introducing the ins and outs of the role of Boyka played by Hollywood's number one actor, Scott Adkins.
As the pinnacle of Hollywood action movies, "The Ultimate Fighter" deserves a good talk. Moreover, after writing this series, I still feel unfinished and want to continue talking about action movies by Scott Adkins.
As a result, it was found that Scott Adkins' best-performing work besides "The Ultimate Fighter" was " Avengers ", which was released in 2019. However, this film only scored 6.8 points on Douban. It shows that apart from action movie fans, ordinary audiences still have quite a lot of opinions on Scott Adkins. They all dislike his acting skills and the film cannot be up to par.
More importantly, I discovered that I had watched "Avengers" in 2019 and wrote a short review.
I racked my brains, but I couldn’t remember what the story of this film was about. I wanted to watch it again, but then I gave up after watching the beginning and found it uninspiring. I'll try another movie starring Scott Adkins. In this way,
relived John Woo's first film "The Target" in Hollywood in early 1993, and then watched the sequel "The Target 2" starring Scott Adkins, which was released in 2016.
It is said that Scott Adkins saved "The Ultimate Fighter". Because after the filming of the first part, the actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced and thrown into prison for tax evasion. As a substitute, Scott Adkins was called to replace Wesley Snipes and starred in "The Ultimate Fighter 2". Unexpectedly, he jumped from a substitute to the absolute protagonist of this series, completely saving the show. This IP has shaped Boyka into a classic in his life, and has also become a classic that will never fade in the hearts of action movies.
"Target" is John Woo's first movie in Hollywood. Watching it now, I still feel that the story is very good, but the filming was a bit sloppy. The leading actor, Jean-Claude Van Damme, is quite handsome, with a full atmosphere and coolness. It completely proves that John Woo has the ability to break into Hollywood, giving him the opportunity to shoot the next masterpieces " face change " and "Mission: Impossible 2".
Scott Adkins, after 23 years, actually thought of shooting a sequel to John Woo's original idea. He probably wanted to replicate the miracle of "The Ultimate Fighter" and save the "Ultimate Target" IP again.
It can be said that the creativity of "Target 2" is very good, the photography is not bad, and it fully has the elements to become a high-quality action movie. However, the screenwriter insisted on superfluous and added a nondescript love scene. As a result, the rhythm of the film suddenly became fragmented and ugly, seriously lowering the film's score and reducing it to a clichéd Hollywood product. Pity. Saving John Woo fell into failure.
Let’s first talk about John Woo and “Target”.
John Woo, as one of the "three major directors of violent aesthetics in the world" along with Quentin Tarantino and Takeshi Kitano, has shot a series of Hong Kong action films/gunfight films that have become a favorite of action films around the world. After he arrived in Hollywood, he also made super-hit films such as "Face" and "Mission: Impossible 2". Unfortunately, his peak period was too short, and his Hollywood journey was ruined by "Windtalker".
Although John Woo tried hard to save himself, except for "Red Cliff" which made a lot of money, all other films were sold out without exception. Gradually, John Woo's pace of releasing films has slowed down.
At the end of 2023, John Woo quietly launched a new work "Silent Night Fighting". The original idea was good, the male protagonist had no lines throughout the whole process, and he played a role of "a ruthless person who doesn't talk much". However, the script was too stretched, which still made this movie less popular. The film once again hit the streets, quietly went online and then disappeared quietly, as if it had never existed. ( film review : John Woo’s comeback film turned out to be self-defeating. Is the director really old?)
So, at this time, I am still full of sighs when I review "The Last Target".This film is filled with a lot of John Woo's usual Hong Kong film shooting techniques: flying pigeons, horizontal shooting, flowing windbreakers, classic slow motion, endless shooting of double guns... the story is Back in Hong Kong, the male lead was replaced by Chow Yun-fat, and there was no sense of disobedience at all.
Even though the film looked rough, he was still the John Woo that everyone liked, so he was able to continue filming in Hollywood and developed into a great director.
The story of "Ultimate Target" is quite creative. A group of extremely bored rich people actually want to treat human beings as prey and live targets to shoot and kill. In order to have a sense of accomplishment, they also specifically look for veterans, because these people have received military training and have a strong foundation, and they seem to have a greater sense of accomplishment when shooting. In order to escape the sanctions of the law, they specifically look for lonely retired soldiers, those old people with no relatives and no descendants, who are tricked into the area where the killer is, as the ultimate target for the rich to hunt and kill brutally.
This kind of taking human life as a trifling matter naturally arouses public outrage. But since those prey have no relatives and no heirs, no one will look for them after they are killed. If no one calls the police, the police will have no way of knowing that someone is missing, and the rich man's behavior will go unpunished, as if it never happened.
The scandal broke out because the broker who was looking for prey was lazy and regarded an old man as a lonely man. However, he was not really alone, and his daughter happened to be looking for him. The male protagonist Jean-Claude Van Damme serves as his daughter's assistant, helping to find information about the missing old man. As a result, the radish was pulled out and the mud was brought out, and the series of murders finally attracted attention. Jean-Claude Van Damme also launched a desperate pursuit of the murderer. The setting of the
video seems a bit absurd, cannot withstand scrutiny, and is inconsistent with the public's psychological perception. Therefore, this video did not attract much attention. Moreover, the biggest problem with this film is that the male protagonist Jean-Claude Van Damme is not the target of being hunted by the murderer. He is just a nosy idler, a chivalrous and courageous person who loves to be cool. He has the spirit of a chivalrous person in Hong Kong movies, but his performance is too much. He is powerless and has become rootless water, and his coolness has reached a disgusting level. These factors ultimately made "Ultimate Target" only a B-level second-tier work, which was not very successful.
However, with the passage of time and the changes in the audience's aesthetics, later films such as " Battle Royale ", " The Hunger Games ", " John Wick " and other films that took people's lives but not their lives were released one after another. It became a hit, and the audience's awareness gradually became higher. Everyone found that the setting of "Ultimate Target" was still pioneering.
probably originated from this. The setting of "Ultimate Target" was picked up again. After 23 years, the sequel "Ultimate Target 2" was filmed, and the very capable Scott Arkin was hired. Sri Lanka. Ordinarily, this "Intermediate Target 2" is also quite interesting. It follows the setting of "Ultimate Target", where a group of extremely boring rich people still aim to hunt humans. If there is a demand, there will be a market, so there are good people who specialize in collecting the ultimate targets for the rich to hunt.
Scott Adkins plays an underground boxing champion in the film. He keeps boxing in order to make money. As a result, he is targeted by a gangster who deceives him into taking him to a competition with a huge bonus. As a result, the boxing champion who was moved was taken directly to the jungle of northern Myanmar, and was then told that his mission was to escape in the jungle. If he could escape from the country and escape from Myanmar into Thailand, that would be victory.
Hunters obviously do not want their prey to enter Thailand, and they do not believe that their prey can enter Thailand. But this time they met Scott Adkins.
If we follow this idea and interpret a wonderful story of jungle hunting and counter-hunting, and tighten the rhythm, we can definitely make an action classic.
However, the screenwriters always think that they must add love to this action movie. When Scott Adkins is on the run, he happens to meet a Burmese girl and takes her with him to escape, and a love story begins between the two.Such chaos immediately slowed down the plot of the film's pursuit and counter-pursuit, and suddenly became lukewarm.
What’s especially annoying is that the story also comes from the perspective of a white God. In the story, the warlords in northern Myanmar drove away the local residents in order to turn the jungle into a hunting area. The arrival of Scott Adkins was naturally regarded as the savior. He not only had to complete his counter-hunt against the rich people who hunted him, but also led the heroine and the people who were driven behind him. family, to complete the counterattack against the warlords, to save the people and the fire and water.
The white man in trouble became the savior of the backward people in the jungle. This magic was officially performed, which made the audience outside Hollywood feel sick. The perspective of white supremacy is too weak.
is just like this. It originally had a good story frame, but during the execution process, it was forced to add too many extremely disgusting scenes, and it inevitably turned into a bad movie. What a shame.
Not bad for Scott Adkins, he tried his best to act, and the action scenes are as beautiful as ever, but the story is too bad and he can't act well. There is really no way.
is really a pity.
Scott Adkins, as a result, apart from "The Ultimate Fighter 2/3/4", there is almost no work worthy of praise. "One Shot 1/2" released in the past two years is barely worth watching. The fighting scenes are quite good, but the market has sunk so much that not many people except action movie fans know about it.
is quite a pity.
is the king of Hollywood action movies, but he doesn’t have any works.
