beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2018-01-20 06:26 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2018-01-20 06:26 pm
Entry tags:
Dragon, with Donnie Yen
I really should read more about a movie before I watch, because now I'm feeling very tense. And that was nastier than I expected from a 15.
I knew with Donnie Yen there would be plenty of fighting, which I wanted to watch, but there were a lot more messily detached body parts than I wanted to see. Also there were Very Bad Things (think Countrycide), but happening to children; though there was room to believe he spared them, the police report said elsewise.
It was in one thread a detective story of the sort where the police guy thinks everyone is rotten and goes around trying to enforce the law without empathy and ends up far as I could tell beat to death. But he learned to have feelings again by the end so that was his win?
Donnie Yen's character's story was that he father was evil and made him do evil things (involving butchers and steamed meat buns), but he decides not to be evil and leaves. When the past catches up with him he does his best not to fight but ends up fighting anyway. And 'does his best' involves cutting his own arm off because it did evil, which is really pretty emphatic. But by then his father is waiting at his house with his wife and kids, and there was violence involving them that was super tense but didn't quite hurt the four year old. But scary. But then he started fighting back.
They end up outside in the rain and according to the subtitles evil father says god made him his son but then the son betrayed him, so he can't be blamed for killing him now. Only then he gets hit by lighting, which seems like a pretty emphatic refutation of that point of view on god's part. Evil father fried, son who is a murderer but doesn't want to be lives, with only one arm, and the ending... I honestly couldn't figure out if it meant he was leaving his family or if it meant she finally trusted him. But they were all alive and sort of well, so, that's... something.
So there were some vicious and nasty fight sequences, flying teeth and ears and an arm, corpses just kind of lying around being examined in some detail, internal organs and quite a lot about the aggressive sort of acupuncture where a handful of needles kills someone even if you just stick them in their heel. I am not a fan of the needles bit. And then there was violence against a four year old. And the whole thing was family violence. And it was just nasty.
I can see what they were doing with that, it had a theme and like artistic metaphor bits, but it was darker and messier than I would want to watch again. So that's going in the get rid pile.
... I realise when the point is to watch people beat up on each other it might seem strange to object to certain specific ways of showing violence and consequences, but, I am going to have to watch something else to get this one out of my head, so, not okay.
But someone watching for different reasons might like it.
I knew with Donnie Yen there would be plenty of fighting, which I wanted to watch, but there were a lot more messily detached body parts than I wanted to see. Also there were Very Bad Things (think Countrycide), but happening to children; though there was room to believe he spared them, the police report said elsewise.
It was in one thread a detective story of the sort where the police guy thinks everyone is rotten and goes around trying to enforce the law without empathy and ends up far as I could tell beat to death. But he learned to have feelings again by the end so that was his win?
Donnie Yen's character's story was that he father was evil and made him do evil things (involving butchers and steamed meat buns), but he decides not to be evil and leaves. When the past catches up with him he does his best not to fight but ends up fighting anyway. And 'does his best' involves cutting his own arm off because it did evil, which is really pretty emphatic. But by then his father is waiting at his house with his wife and kids, and there was violence involving them that was super tense but didn't quite hurt the four year old. But scary. But then he started fighting back.
They end up outside in the rain and according to the subtitles evil father says god made him his son but then the son betrayed him, so he can't be blamed for killing him now. Only then he gets hit by lighting, which seems like a pretty emphatic refutation of that point of view on god's part. Evil father fried, son who is a murderer but doesn't want to be lives, with only one arm, and the ending... I honestly couldn't figure out if it meant he was leaving his family or if it meant she finally trusted him. But they were all alive and sort of well, so, that's... something.
So there were some vicious and nasty fight sequences, flying teeth and ears and an arm, corpses just kind of lying around being examined in some detail, internal organs and quite a lot about the aggressive sort of acupuncture where a handful of needles kills someone even if you just stick them in their heel. I am not a fan of the needles bit. And then there was violence against a four year old. And the whole thing was family violence. And it was just nasty.
I can see what they were doing with that, it had a theme and like artistic metaphor bits, but it was darker and messier than I would want to watch again. So that's going in the get rid pile.
... I realise when the point is to watch people beat up on each other it might seem strange to object to certain specific ways of showing violence and consequences, but, I am going to have to watch something else to get this one out of my head, so, not okay.
But someone watching for different reasons might like it.