SPL: Kill Zone (2006)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The fight scene between Donnie Yen and Jing Wu at a back alley, is arguably the most authentic and intense action scene, in the whole history of cinema. It is just thrilling and brilliant. This scene makes the movie both Donnie Yen's best and Jing Wu's best of their entire careers.

This is a low budget movie about good intentioned cops taking the law into their own hands to take out the bad guys. With some kung-fu fighting mixed in. When it came to the cops trying to frame and wipe out the bad guys, it just wasn't all that interesting. Nor was it all that entertaining to watch. In another words it just wasn't one of the great Hong Kong crime syndicate movie or anything like that. So I just wanted to get to the fight scenes. Which is very very few in this movie. There is two main things that stands out about this movie. The first, is the fight between Donnie Yen and Wu Jing. The second is the ending, which I just didn't expect. Besides that this is a watchable flick, but not really a stand out movie.6/10

A variety of Hong Kong's top-tier male actors come to the forefront in this modern gangster tale of iconic issues: moral consequences & power struggles. The cinematography is gritty and stylized to the point where you can breathe in the tension on-screen, which properly sets the tone and makes this one of the biggest positive attributes for the movie. The HK film legend Sammo Hung plays arguably his darkest role as a crime lord who takes pity on no one and crushes everything outside his personal interests. Another HK film veteran Simon Yam, is the leader of a group of detectives who will do anything to bring Sammo down regardless of police protocols. The plot is fairly simple as a cat & mouse chase ensues throughout the nighttime ambiance of downtown Hong Kong sparking a blood-feud between detectives and gangsters. The film excels in creating emotional drama between characters and impressing the audience with snowballing suspense that explodes in the third act. An incredible martial arts display happens here, thanks to action masters Donnie Yen, Wu Jing, and Sammo Hung. Unfortunately the melodrama is exaggerated to the brink of absurdity, even within the bounds of other HK crime films, and you'll become tired of seeing extended shots of concluding moral quandaries. Even so you'll glance over the flaws thanks to the charisma and superb fight choreography of the lead actors. The story, albeit unoriginal, is genuinely interesting. You'll be sucked in the drama meanwhile becoming emotionally invested in the detective squad. A fresh entry in the long-running crime genre from HK. -8/10

Inspector Ma Kwun (Donnie Yen) must make some difficult decisions when he discovers that Chan (Simon Yam), the police detective he is about to replace, and his loyal men have been bending the law in order to convict ruthless gangland boss Wong Po (Sammo Hung).Donnie Yen first smashed his way onto my screen over twenty years ago in the excellent Hong Kong fight-fests In the Line of Duty 4 and Tiger Cage II; sadly, subsequent roles in some less than memorable films saw him slowly slipping off my radar during the 90s (with only Iron Monkey making any lasting impression on me). However, having just seen S.P.L. (AKA Kill Zone), a powerful crime drama enlivened by some amazingly brutal action, I'll be sure to track his every move from now on.Admittedly, with both Yen and Hung on board, I would have loved to have seen a little more fight action, but I found the story compelling enough to hold my attention until the inevitable bad guys/good guy showdown, at which point all hell breaks loose and kung fu fans finally get to enjoy some blisteringly fast and bloody battles. Also serving to make S.P.L. slightly more memorable than your average Hong Kong cop drama are the inclusion of a really loathsome assassin (played by Jacky Wu) and writer/director Wilson Yip's relentlessly grim approach which offers little hope for any of the characters and culminates in a real downer of an ending that left me speechless.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.