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Hard Target 2
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Universal Pictures Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (6th September 2016). |
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The Film
 After accidentally killing his sparring partner-turned-competitor Jonny (Troy Honeysett) in the ring, disgraced MMA fighter Wes "The Jailor" Baylor (Jarhead 3's Scott Adkins) exiles himself to Thailand where he gargles with booze yet still remains ripped enough to dominate in illegal street bouts. Paid to fight as part of the entertainment at a rooftop party, Wes catches the eye of wealthy fight promoter Johan Aldrich (Prison Break's Robert Knepper) who tries to tempt him into an event he is organizing in Myanmar with a half-million dollar purse. Wes initially rebuffs Aldrich's offer of a lucrative final bout but then convinces himself that he can find redemption by winning the purse and building the beach house Jonny dreamt of for himself and his wife Kay (Katrina Grey). Wes strong-arms Aldrich into increasing the purse to a million dollars and then accepts. Upon arriving in Myanmar, however, he discovers that his opponent is actually a party of big game hunters – flamboyant Spanish bullfighter Esparto (Truth's Adam Saunders), "the Mark Zuckerberg of the First Person Shooter" Landon Marshall (The Hunter's Jamie Timony), Texan father and son hunting team Jacob (Chopper's Peter Hardy) and Tobias (Strangerland's Sean Keenan) Zimling, badass daddy's girl oil baron Sofia (The Number 23's Rhona Mitra), and pompous "Chief Lord" Maduka ('s Gigi Velicitat) who shows up too late for an introduction and exits just as quickly – and that he is the prey in yet another variation on Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" with a million dollar purse of rubies and a head start to the Thai border with the Myanmar military government (represented by Only God Forgives' Sahajak Boonthanakit) willing to look the other way after having previously supplied their own political prisoners as "hard targets" in Aldrich's previous hunts. Having been directed towards the eastern border through one hundred miles of jungle, Wes instead heads north which is only forty miles (thanks to the treasured watch Jonny meant to gift him after the fateful fight) but finds the hunting party inexplicably fast on his tail with the help of Aldrich's drones along with a GPS device Wes takes forever to realize is hidden among the rubies. After Wes makes short work of Maduka and his superior firepower, the rest of the party start to realize that the former MMA fighter is a superior "hard target" while Aldrich begins to worry in spite of his bravado about bad publicity from losing clients and the increasingly uncontrollable bloodlust of his chief henchman Madden (Once Were Warriors' Temuera Morrison). Wes meanwhile makes the acquaintance of Tha (Ann Truong), a native of the area exiled with her people to slums along the border when Aldrich bought off the government to use the area as his playing field who has returned to make offerings to the village's temple and to raise money in order to buy back the land, as well as to search for her brother Win (Never Back Down 3's Amarin Cholvibul) who she suspects was a previous target of the hunt. When Tha offers to lead him to the border, she becomes a bonus target for the hunting party. Having tried to get himself killed in the ring, Wes finally finds something worth fighting for and must survive to expose Aldrich's atrocities to the outside world. Thoroughly cheesy yet oddly entertaining and even endearing in its willingness to embrace every dated action movie cliché with gusto without fear of insulting the intelligence of its knowing audience who know what to expect from Roel Reinè, helmer of such sequels as The Condemned 2, Death Race 2, Death Race 3: Inferno , The Marine 2, and The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (everyone else should have some idea of what to expect from the generic action cover and the fact that it is titled Hard Target 2 even if they were not born when John Woo's Hard Target first came out). Wes wails his friend's name after he realizes he has killed him, Aldrich's ultra-modern glass and steel office has a samurai suit of armer on display as its sole piece of décor and he gives Wes a long-winded lecture on precision while expertly filleting a fish for sushi, the film film is so blasé in its portrayal of Myanmar's military corruption even as fleeing prey are gunned down in the middle of downtown, and no badass hunter will let a little shrapnel from a nearby exploding vehicle stop them from a slow motion weapon-brandishing walk (the CGI is as cartoonish as ever). The shout outs to Woo start right off with a pre-credits chase sequence and extend to doves flapping around in slow motion around Wes' hovel of a Thai dwelling made pretty by artful shafts of sunlight (he must have drank so much just to sleep through that racket), but much of it may be indistinguishable from the already derivative style that Reinè as director, cinematographer, and camera operator (as well as drone navigator) revels in as an excuse to play with the newest camera toys. The fight choreography of Seng Kawee (Bangkok Dangerous) is top notch and could have been more exhilarating had Reinè not sapped the visceral punch by fiddling with the framerate in every other shot or intercutting separate fights even if the outcome is always a fait accompli. Adkins really is the only performer too good for the film with some of the cast seemingly afraid or too dignified to go over-the-top (even with the Texan elder at his rapiest) while others are as uninspired as the writing (rarely a compelling screen presence, even Mitra cannot be held fully responsible for her blah "girl with a gun" badass characterization). There's plenty for a reviewer to pick at but it is the same kind of stuff that makes a seventies or eighties exploitation pic enjoyable, and one would have to hope that there will be more along this line (maybe shoot for a bit better) to showcase Adkins' athletics since Hollywood seems to have given up on action flicks meant to actually entertain.
Video
Universal's BD50 features a 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen transfer that is colorful, sharp, and well-detailed when the camerawork is at its least frenetic. Although it looks quite slick for the low budget, the 1.78:1 framing does make it look a tad cheaper than it might have with 2.40:1 matting as seen on the deleted scenes (the cinematographic style is such that mattes clipping the hairlines would look more edgy than clumsy).
Audio
Seemingly intending to cover all of their territories with one disc image (although the American release is coded for Region A), Universal have included a wealth of audio options from English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS 5.1, Hungarian DTS 5.1, Portugese DTS 5.1, Spanish DTS 5.1, Polish Dolby Digital 5.1, and Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 to English HoH, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Mandarin (Traditional), Czech, French, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Thai, and Turkish subtitles (the DVD edition in the package drops a number of these but adds a Japanese 5.1 track and subtitles in Japanese and Korean).
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by director/cinematographer/camera operator Roel Reinè, stars Scott Adkins and Robert Knepper, and More in which the director lists his Woo among his cinematic idols (which also include Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, and Luc Besson which should be no surprise), his excitement to learn that Universal was planning a sequel to Hard Target and his determination to "squeeze it in" between shooting and post-production on the historical epic Admiral. He also discusses the film's direct homages to Woo as well as detailing the many camera toys he got to use of the film from a CableCam knockoffs and various camera models (the bulk of the film was shot with a Red Dragon Scarlet but some shots were grabbed with a Panasonic GH4 mirrorless DSLR) and drones. The commentary track is as DIY as the film, with Reinè acting as moderator for other participants like Adkins and Knepper chiming in via the director's cellphone (on the Blu-ray, the audio commentary track has subtitles in English, French, Hungarian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish while the DVD has English, French, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Spanish). Six deleted scenes (with "Play All" option; 9:47) are included and actually add little to the film - Baylor catches Aldrich's eye when he is accosted by a stripper's boyfriend at the rooftop party before seeing him fight, Baylor sparring with a young kid early on would have set up the ending but also might have made him seem not so beyond redemption too soon, and Kay shows up onscreen during the ending sequence - and demonstrates that Reinè may not be strong on originality but at least knows how to tell a story economically. A deleted shot montage (1:59) is a reel of deleted shots too short to comprise deleted scenes. "A Fighting Chance: The Making of Hard Target 2" (5:13) is a short featurette with Reinè discussing the Woo shoutouts, the importance of a stunt and film crew who understand low-budget cinema, as well as some input from the actors. In "Hard Target 2: Through the Lens" (2:43), Reinè and the cast discuss the breakneck schedule (and how the director's operation of the camera and drones assists in getting things done quickly). In "Into the Jungle: On Location" (2:25), Reinè discusses the location possibilities in Thailand as well as working with the same dependable crew on all of his Thai films. Less interesting is "The Thrill of the Hunt" (3:13) in which the actors playing villains address the camera in-character. The extras on the Blu-ray have subtitles in English, French, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish while the DVD extras have subtitles in English, French, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Spanish.
Overall
Hard Target 2 is thoroughly cheesy yet oddly entertaining and even endearing in its willingness to embrace every dated action movie cliché with gusto without fear of insulting the intelligence of its knowing audience.
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