The Wrath of Vajra (2013)
In the 1930s , a Japanese cult called The Temple of Hades was ordered to cooperate with the Japanese military to destroy China. They buy so many young children from poor family , who will be trained as a lethal killing machine and serve the Empire of Japan. One of them is Vajra , who was forced by his captors to fight for the food , and accidentally causing the death of his brother. Several years later , Vajra grown up and become one of the biggest killer in the Hades sect. Vajra escapes to China and joins Shaolin , where he receives spiritual enlightenment and determined to support China against Japan.
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Overrated and overhyped
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Light on story, boring dialog, but that's okay because this is an action film. Acting is cringingly bad, even for an action film.This is basically a martial arts film made with a bunch of stunt men doing acting duty. The ones that do look the part/have decent acting, unfortunately can't fight. When the scene is stunt man vs stunt man, the fighting looks good, even when it's just an unimportant background fight. When the scene calls for stunt man vs non stunt man... the fight is boring even when it's the "featured" fight.Spoilers coming, although really there's not much to spoil. The hero has to fight three "bosses".The first boss fight is against a guy suffering from gigantism, like Andre the Giant, except without the athleticism. The guy basically poses in an uncoordinated way while the hero beats on him. This is a "look" actor, for his imposing size, no acting skills, no stunt work skills, boring fight.The second boss fight "Crazy Monkey" is actually crazy good. After you've managed to survive his acting, you will be rewarded with a very well choreographed and creative fight. This is a "stunt" actor, just like the hero. No looks, no acting skills, but excellent stunt work.The third and final fight is against the boss a.k.a. steroid boy. I had high hopes for steroid boy. He managed to pull off a menacing and driven persona, and looks quite impressively intimidating. Unfortunately this guy is no stunt man. He's slow, and not used to martial arts movements. Studio magic was used to fix this such as speeding up the frames, to varying amounts of success. But overall the fight ended up being pretty boring.This film gets a 6 from the strength of the Crazy Monkey fight alone, it is very well done. I would say fast forward and just watch the Crazy Monkey fight.
"... unknowing martial artists are summoned to a mysterious island to compete in a tournament whose outcome will decide the fate of the world."That was the plot for Mortal Combat. It worked there because you had some fun characters.Doesn't work as well here when you don't have Raiden or Sub-Zero. Which is too bad, it would have certainly made this film more bearable. Perhaps it was because I watched with both subs and dubs, but I found pretty much everything retarded... except for the fight scenes.If you like Kung-Fu movies, it's worth a watch for the fight scenes, the movie is fun... just a bad Mortal Combat remake...
I will keep this short, this film was great!A unique concept and simple story carry this movie from point A to point B, while setting up plenty of fights and action! If you like martial arts movies, i'm sure you'll enjoy this.The movie has a darker tone to it, and characters are introduced appropriately. The choreography was very good for the most part, feeling gritty and with impact. I would've liked to see slightly longer shots in some of fight editing, but still, its a lot better than most of the stuff out there. The movie itself was shot beautifully. Certain scenes and setting (Shaolin / Hades) just look deep, and vivid. My verdict, if your into martial arts films, check it out!
I am an avid lover of martial arts movies, specially Chinese/Japanese movies. The good ones usually either have very good fight scenes, and/or motivating morals and/or good comedy scenes. This movie has none of them. Apart from the last couple of fight scenes, which too was uneventful, there is no real action here. Story was really lame and most lines contain the words "Hades" or "Vajra", neither of which is properly explained. Above all, it takes the whole china-japan war to a whole new (and stupid) level which only aims to create more discord and has no historical background. In all, a waste of time, will not recommend it to anybody.