Iceman

 

Donnie Yen is, at the moment, one of the most prolific Hong Kong action stars working today. His success hasn’t come overnight either, he’s been working in the industry for decades, not only acting but handling action choreography and producing and directing roles as well. He lends himself to some pretty awesome action scenes, with exciting choreography and physical prowess (made even more impressive by the fact that he’s now in his fifties). He also has great acting chops when it comes to it – he can handle dramatic roles with emotional complexity and depth (see Wu Xia and Ip Man) which is more than one can say of a lot of other Asian action stars (Iko Uwais and Tony Jaa, for all their awesome fighting skills, aren't exactly ‘actors’).

Yen has been active in the industry since the eighties, but it’s only been in the last decade or so that he has risen to lofty heights of being one of the greatest and most prolific Asian action stars working today. That’s largely thanks to roles in films like Ip Man, Wu Xia and SPL. But, like just about every action star out there, the movies he stars in aren’t always great even when he’s doing a good job. Even star vehicles can be shoddy, and that’s true of some of the more recent Yen movies, many of which are brought down by poor scripts and confused plots. I actually have a theory that Yen just accepts every single role that he gets offered. That would certainly explain some of the weirder roles he’s done recently (The Monkey King, which I’ll get to later).

And so we come to Iceman. Its part goofy comedy, part action movie and part oddly serious feudal drama and the parts don’t really come together well. Some bits are okay, there are some funny moments and some nice action but none of it comes together well. It’s too messy and unfocused, to the point where even with its ninety minute runtime it feels as though not much has happened. It’s also part one of a two part film (the second part I believe still in production), meaning it lacks a satisfying structure and leaves a lot of loose threads and half boiled characters and plot points when it ends with a to be continued cliff-hanger. If anything, I’d say this movie is nothing more than laying groundwork for the sequel, as by the end it feels like nothing has been accomplished other than to set up what might happen in the sequel (and even that seems vague).

 
A truck carrying cryogenic freezing tanks crashes, damaging its cargo. Emerging from the wreckage is Ying (Donnie Yen), a warrior from Ming Dynasty China who had been frozen in an avalanche for 400 years. He struggles to make sense of the modern world, his confusion amplified when he wanders into Hong Kong’s nightclub district during a rowdy costume party. There he meets May, a party girl with money issues. She doesn’t believe his story and wants to get rid of him, but changes her tune when she finds out his pockets are overflowing with ancient gold, so she latches onto him to fleece him of his money. But then romance blooms, because of course it does, and yadda yadda yadda she falls in love with him I guess.

Also unfrozen in the wreck are Sao and Niehu, two of Ying’s former comrades determined to track him down and kill him as a traitor. They adapt faster to modern society, taking over a street gang as they begin to hunt Ying down. In the background, a cruel and sinister police chief (Simon Yam) is tracking down mysterious artefacts linked to the frozen warriors, and becomes determined to recapture, or kill, the recently thawed warriors.

The comedy stuff is of the goofy, silly and gross-out variety. Sometimes it’s funny, other times its more groan worthy. A recently thawed Ying pisses like a fire hydrant, drinks from a toilet bowl and angrily karate chops a can of tomatoes when he can’t figure out how to open it. Ying’s martial arts combat skills involve the pressing of acupuncture points, leading to some silly scenes of him disabling people (and, in one scene, healing May’s ailing grandmother by pummelling her). In one fight scene a toilet explodes, sending shit flying everywhere. Some of the ‘fish out of water’ humour works, but others just don’t. I did like Sao and Niehu’s early reactions to modern society – the former becomes obsessed with curry chicken and the latter discovers the joys of smoking, guns and pornography.

Everything to do with the Ying’s past is serious which doesn’t mesh well at all with the silly comedy stuff. It’s played straight, giving the standard ‘feudal politics and betrayal’ but barely delving into it so we don’t really know or care about what happened. We constantly hear about a magical artefact that can give the user astounding time-based powers, but it never actually comes into play in the film; it all seems like groundwork for the sequel. Simon Yam’s scenes are straight out of a gritty crime thriller (par for the course for him, it’s basically his acting bread and butter). He’s got the slick high rise building he operates out of, the buttoned-up goons, access to high-tech police forces and even has someone horrifically tortured and murdered for failing him. The issue is that he’s barely in the movie at all – he’s in the background, and gets shown a few times (and towards the end, as they build up to the cliff-hanger ending, we get to know more about him). He’ll be the villain in the sequel one assumes.

The Ying/May romance stuff just doesn’t work, but we get so many scenes of the two of them. They don’t have chemistry and he doesn’t seem interested in her at all. It’s a one sided romance – she falls for his good, positive nature while he’s mostly oblivious as he’s too focused on solving the mystery behind his freezing/betrayal/whatever. It also doesn’t help that May isn’t likeable. She’s more annoying than anything, which makes it hard to sympathise with her when she falls for Ying or . May also might be a prostitute (?). It’s actually unclear what exactly she is meant to be – her ‘job’ seemed to consist of hanging out in an alley next to a club. Yen does a better job of things, playing almost everything as a comedy movie with the almost perpetually cheerful Ying (except in those few flashbacks to feudal times). He’s likeable, and his ‘fish out of water’ innocence leads to some funny moments, but it doesn’t mesh with the fluctuating tone of the movie.

Now the action scenes are only alright. There aren’t too many of them, and the choreography isn’t impressive, but they work for what they are. They’ve got some CGI effects and the like to spruce them up, and various feudal super-powered skills come into play. They just aren’t particularly memorable and many feel a bit anticlimactic. They also come across as silly or ridiculous, even when they’re meant to be serious (Ying ‘surfing’ an avalanche on the back of a shield is silly). Take the finale for instance, Ying fighting Sao and Niehu on a bridge – the villainous duo are wielding large swords and axes, Ying uses a length of chain and there’s even a horse involved. It’s a serious fight, but looks ridiculous because Sao and Niehu’s ‘modern’ clothing and hairstyles make them look completely silly. The scene also is disappointing for the finale, because it has the feel of a mid-film fight. The stakes aren’t high enough, and it ends in such a way where you feel you’re only part-way through the movie.

Iceman is half a movie, part one of two. It ends with a ‘to be continued’ cliffhanger, and the end credits has a scene that looks to build excitement for the sequel (it doesn’t). The biggest issue is that it doesn’t feel like a satisfying whole film. The characters mostly feel like they’re killing time, wandering around aimlessly for the most part, while plot points that get barely mentioned feel like useless padding. The loose tone also doesn’t help. It’s a movie that really needed a better focus – if it dedicated itself to being a comedy it could have worked much better, but throwing in the drama and serious flashbacks confuses the feel of the movie. It’s not an awful film mind you, it’s still entertaining when it isn’t in an odd dramatic lull, but it’s never satisfying or captivating. Yen does a good job in his role, but it’s definitely not one of his better films.