Martial Arts Suprisingly Dissappointing

Before renting this, I saw Jason Yee's demo reel on his site and read up on his competitive record, and I know Ron Yuan, who starred in and choreographed the fights is capable of making good fight scenes, but for the majority of the movie, I really felt like the fights weren't quite where they needed to be.

I liked the CGI blood when he did face punches or any strike to the face, and there were some really cool moments of choreography in the movie, it's not all crap, but I think they could've saved this flick had they put a ton of effort into the fight scenes. Then it would've be a C grade murder mystery with great fighting. As it stands, it's a C grade murder mystery with mostly C grade fights, even with Lateef Crowder in it (who offers the movie's best fight scene).

It's a shame because I really liked what I saw on Yee's personal site, and his record, fights with Cung Le, and his forms should've all ensured that the fight scenes would be beyond simply just good, but great, and I have to say, they were far from that. A lot of it was just very utilitarian, he accomplished what he set out to do without too much flare or stye.
It's okay to have grounded, realistic choreography, but it still has to be exciting looking a la The Man from Nowhere or The Bourne Trilogy. Since I already mentioned Yee's obvious talents, I think it was Yuan's choreography and perhaps the doubles involved that really dropped the ball, it all could've been a little more solid.

The copy and pasted Oldboy hallway fight after the 2nd Lateef scene legitimately did have it's moments, so I will give credit where it's due. I liked how he was able to be hit and not a super-human, and how he showed his exhaustion. Many of his techniques were believable, just not quite exciting enough. I think more hand-trapping, Wing Chun-type hand action would've benefited the choreography immensely.

As it stands, it's not quite strong enough in fight scenes to be a memorable martial arts movie and not quite strong enough to be a good murder mystery. Had one of those aspects been stronger, then the passable nature of the other would've been acceptable, but since both were average, the movie was average.

I would however like to see Jason Yee in more stuff, he's got a good presence and vibe as well as talent.

"Bulls**t MR.Han Man!!"--Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon