IMDB Score – 6.0
Rotten Tomato Score – 71%

Directed By – Keanu Reeves
Starring – Tiger Hu Chen, Keanu Reeves, Karen Mok, Simon Yam, and Iko Uwais

A young martial artist’s unparalleled Tai Chi skills land him in a highly lucrative underworld fight club.

This was crap.

I don’t really know another way to put it. I pretty much hated it. This film marks the first time Keanu Reeves has ever been behind the camera and while the camera work is promising and occasionally impressive, the end result of his labor is a complete corn fest that seems like it was written by a 8th grader who likes karate. It’s a B level script that makes sense but takes the same generic story arcs from every bad American TV show and terrible 80s kung fu movie. We have one of the following…

1. Ambitious but naive protagonist that falls down the wrong path only to see the error of his ways
2. A gritty detective that will stop at nothing to avenge the death of an innocent, EVEN IF IT MEANS THROWING THE BOOK OUT THE WINDOW.
3. A villain who is never ever seen fighting who just so happens to be the hardest fight of all.
4. A comic relief henchman who likes American slang and rap music.
5. A disappointed master.

It all just felt so silly. If this was all just an homage to old fashioned kung fu movies and not to be taken as a serious attempt at a film then I owe Mr. Reeves an apology. Somehow I don’t don’t think that was the case. Tiger Chen happens to be an excellent and legendary martial artist so the impressive fight scenes were enough to keep my attention but just not enough to keep this film from spoiling. This also might just be the worst acting role from Keanu Reeves. He’s comically bad. The whole thing was comically bad. Maybe I didn’t get it.

No, I got it. It was bad.

1/5