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Rebel: 2-disc Ultimate Edition (The)
R1 - America - Dragon Dynasty Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (27th December 2008). |
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The Film
 In United States films, there’s rarely a perspective of Vietnam outside of the war with the United States in the 1970’s, filled with lots of helicopters, lots of 1970’s pop music, and screaming in the jungle. So in a way it’s really refreshing to see a story set in and about Vietnam, especially after there’s been a growth of martial arts movies outside of China, like Tony Jaa’s explosion of Thai martial arts cinema. “The Rebel” (2008) emerges out of Vietnamese action cinema and claims to be the most expensive Vietnamese movie ever made (at around $1.5 million U.S. Dollars). The plot is almost a throwback to the slew of Chinese Kung Fu movies of the 70’s and onwards as the film takes place in 1920’s Vietnam under French Colonialism, showing a display of the native resistance to the imperialists who lord over them. Of course these evil colonials are not particularly great for the Vietnamese people and so a rebellion forms, which leads to the colonial government creating a counter-rebellion police group headed up by the sadistic Sy (Dustin Nguyen). After an assault on a French auto convoy, Sy’s group captures a rebel woman Vo Thanh Thuy (Veronica Ngo) whose father has more information about the rebellion. Sy decides to torture her, but his second in command Cuong (Johnny Tri Nguyen) falls in love and escapes with her to join the rebellion, only to be pursued by Sy and the French police until a final conflict erupts. First and foremost the fight scenes and kung-fu in the movie is really engaging, fun to watch and a lot of these scenes have some great stunt and wire work. Though there are a couple of fights that are not so great mixed in, overall the film’s stunts and fight choreography by Johnny Tri Nguyen is really good and keeps the action moving through all of the action sequences of the film. The final ‘boss fight’ at the end of the movie where the protagonist fights the main villain goes on for nearly 10 minutes and is exciting the whole way through. Outside of the fights however, the story itself is fine enough, though it doesn’t really pull me in to the whole scope of the movie. I buy in to the romance between Cuong and Vo and his willingness to turn away from the government, but it still seems a bit forced and you can see it coming a mile away. But this still doesn’t take away from the rest of the movie on it’s own. The writing to set up the plot and move it along the way is fine enough, as is the acting that pushes the movie forwards between fights. All of the actors do a good job keeping with the script and pulling it with them in to each fight, and then once the fight hits the script falls aside until they can pick it back up again when the fight ends. The directing by Charlie Nguyen does a good job of showing everything through the movie, all of the action scenes are well choreographed in front of the camera so you actually get to watch the fight rather than just a series of insert shots that try to convince your brain that there’s action going on when there’s really isn’t. Nguyen does some interesting directorial choices for dream sequences that give a good feeling of the bizarre and odd, especially his obsession with a particular shot of two lizards. Holistically though the directing for the movie is much like the plot of the movie itself, it’s good and hits all the necessary points between action sequences, but really starts to shine when the good guys and bad guys throw down. Overall, “The Rebel” is a great display of Kung-fu talent and fight coordinating and the plot is good enough to keep me watching the movie and not just wanting to jump between chapters to get to the next fight sequence. The romance and rebellion angle is good enough to push the plot forward and upward between fights and make for an above average Kung-fu film.
Video
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the movie comes through fairly well in a visual sense. The transfer looks okay, but could have been a bit cleaner, there are a few screen pops and the occasional dirt that will show up on screen but the colors of the film and the overall look created by lighting come through nicely.
Audio
There’s a fair selection of audio tracks available on the disc, but for this review I chose the Vietnamese Dolby Digital 5.1 track which comes through well, all of the audio comes well and the music works well into the movie (except for some overly-dramatic scoring at the very end). The levels all work out and there are no pops or drop outs; overall, from a technical standpoint the audio is nicely put together. There is also a Vietnamese DTS 5.1 track, as well as an English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track (where the major stars provide their own voice-over). Also included are English, Spanish and English for the hearing impaired subtitle tracks.
Extras
The 2-Disc set is equipped with a healthy supply of extras including an audio commentary, several featurettes, three interviews, a deleted scene and bonus trailers. DISC ONE: The only real special feature on this disc is the audio commentary featuring actors Johnny Tri Nguyen, Dustin Nguyen, Veronica Ngo and Asian Cinema Expert Bey Logan. Logan leads the commentary between the four and does a good job of keeping the pace and keeping everyone involved in the commentary. There are some interesting bits about the filming locations, the different styles of fighting in the fight scenes and the production of the story itself, with a lot of joking and laughing between the four commentators, keeping it interesting and worth listening to. There are also a few start-up bonus trailers for: - “Fist of Legend” runs for 1 minute 45 seconds. - “Hard Boiled” runs for 2 minutes and 10 seconds. - “Flashpoint” runs for 1 minute and 28 seconds. DISC TWO: As a side note, all of the special features on this disc also come equipped with an optional English subtitle track, and a track of English for the hearing impaired. First on this disc are three interviews with the leading actors of the film: - “Empty Hand, Noble Heart: An Exclusive interview with Leading Man Johnny Tri Nguyen” runs for 31 minutes and 49 seconds. Johnny Tri Nguyen talks about his experience in martial arts and the style he uses in the film, also talking about his role in “The Protector” (2005) and “Cradle 2 The Grave” (2003) and how he got into the film industry. It’s a nice interview that covers both his acting, martial arts, stunt and writing experience, going in depth and using a good deal of clips from the different movies mentioned to keep things interesting and engaging for the full half hour. - “Cry for Freedom: An Exclusive Interview with Leading Lady Veronica Ngo” runs for 33 minutes and 28 seconds. Another very in depth interview where Ngo talks about her life and childhood, growing up in Norway after her family left Vietnam, and getting going with a career in her home country. Again a good use of clips to keep the interview rolling, there’s some interesting conversations that have been brought up in commentary, but with some extra stories and behind the scenes footage that are really interesting to see and hear. “The Dark Destroyer: An Exclusive interview with Leading Protagonist Dustin Nguyen” runs for 35 minutes and 22 seconds. Nguyen talks about how he got in to acting and how he got into martial arts and his style of fighting. Another solid interview where Nguyen makes some interesting points about the type of Vietnam that we see in “The Rebel” and talking about how he had to improve his Vietnamese for the movie, well complimented with a collection of clips and behind the scenes images or clips. The "Behind-the-Scenes" gallery is really a collection of featurettes that feature the behind the scenes making of different fight scenes: - “Three Wise Men” runs for 2 minutes and 47 seconds, this featurette deals with the final fight between Dustin Nguyen and (Johnny Tri Nguyen, a nice behind the scenes look which goes through the choreography of the fight as the two actors talk about how the fight will go down on camera, a very interesting short. - “Air Time” runs for 2 minutes and 50 seconds. This featurette also goes through the same final fight going through all the different clips and takes where (Johnny Tri Nguyen tries to get that high flying kick ready and to hit correctly, including footage of Johnny back at the editing table to talk about how the fight looks on camera. - “Axed” runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. Here Johnny and Dustin work on the final spinning kick that comes down before the very end of the final fight, a really cool look at how the different kicks go down and shot from different angles that appear in the movie that help show how these sort of super kicks are done safely. - “Eye Opener” runs for 2 minutes and 36 seconds, this featurette shows some more of the behind the scenes choreography of the final fight scene, this time the section with the sword fight. It’s really funny to see the actors practicing their grunts and groans and kicks all at the same time in slow motion, another cool behind-the-scenes featurette. - “First Strike” runs for 2 minutes and 22 seconds. Here (Johnny Tri Nguyen and the crew try to plan out the opening fight scene on the waterfront when the French vehicle is assaulted, (Johnny Tri Nguyen and director Charlie Nguyen talk about the framing and setup for the stunt of the flying kick. - “Collateral Damage” runs for 1 minute and 44 seconds, while practicing for one of the combat scenes the car accidently gets broken up and one of the stuntmen accidently slices up his hand on set. - “Road Kill” runs for 1 minute 45 seconds, this scene features the initial run of cars filing in to the opening waterfront scene when one of the stunt men gets hit by the car but walks away safely. - “Playing to Camera” runs for 2 minutes and 28 seconds. In this scene Ngo makes faces to the camera while She, Johnny, Dustin, and the rest of the crew prepare for her oncoming assault on one of the French colonial vehicles - “Indestructible” runs for 1 minute 42 seconds, features the fight scene between Ngo and Dustin during their first fight scene, giving another good look at the role of Johnny Nguyen as the Stunt coordinator in the film. - “Take One for the Team” runs for 2 minutes and 47 seconds. Johnny Tri Nguyen coordinates the fight with the prison guards during the Jailbreak and they go through a few different takes of the dame fight from different angles giving a more full view of the fight filming process. - “Under Fire” runs for 2 minutes, the final scene in this set of behind-the-scenes featurettes, this clip shows the setup for the gunshots set up behind Ngo and she talks about her nervousness for the upcoming scene because of the small explosions going off behind her. Next is the featurette “One Man Army: A Martial Arts Demonstration By Johnny Tri Nguyen” which runs for 3 minutes and 18 seconds. In this featurette Johnny goes over the different techniques used in the film from different perspectives in a sparring environment with two of the stuntmen from the film. Another impressive display of the prowess of Johnny Tri Nguyen and the amount of coordinating put into the overall fight, another solid clip. “Iron Jacket: A Deleted Scene from the Preview cut of ‘The Rebel’” runs for 41 seconds, this short deleted scene simply features Dustin Nguyen’s character training, presumably for his Iron Jacket style demonstrated in the film. Finally is “‘The Rebel:’ An Original Making of Featurette” which runs for 37 minutes and 37 seconds. This hefty and full length featurette covers the entirety of the film production, talking with the director, the main actors, and different people involved in the movie. This making of goes through the different props designed of the film and how everything was put together, though could do with some voice over commentary to keep things going through the entirety of the making of, though the special effects crew is definitely a highlight of the film as the lead special effects guy is pretty hilarious to hear talking about the different effects shots he has set up. Yet another quality featurette rounding out a solid set of special features on this second disc.
Overall
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