Desperado

Story: Zhou Ke (Danny Chan) is a former special agent and is now known everywhere as a desperado. A ghost, the terror of the underworld. One day, he has to free his best friend Barno (Xing Yu) from the clutches of a drug lord, who is also responsible for having Zhou Ke's wife and daughter killed. He is able to tear the drug ring apart, but finds out that the drug lord's right-hand man, Ruan Ho (Banke), betrayed his boss and is actually the one who carried out the murder of Zhou Ke's family. The police arrive and Ruan Ho manages to escape while Zhou Ke is seriously injured and taken away by the police. He ends up going to prison for nine years. When he gets out, he works as a clown on the street and befriends little Ling Ling (Wang Bao Tong), who is the daughter of Detective Xue Ze (Luo Liqun). One day, the father can't come to a performance of his girl and Zhou Ke steps in, but suddenly some alleged policemen appear at the school. However, they are clearly gangsters and have some kind of connection to Ruan Ho since they have the same tattoos on their wrists as Ruan Ho does. Zhou Ke flees from the gangsters and takes Ling Ling with him. The pursuers seem to be looking for something that the little girl unknowingly carries with her. Zhou Ke can't expect to get any help from the police, because he has a criminal record, and from their point of view, it seems like he is the one who kidnapped a little girl. At least he is eventually able to convince detective Xue Ze that he is not the villain in the whole story. Nonetheless, the desperado now also has the chance to finally take revenge on Ruan Ho ...

Review: If you are desperately looking for action cinema in which things don't always feel so extremely polished, you will often end up on Chinese streaming services. Accordingly, "Desperado" can also be found on iQIYI. Cheng Siyi takes charge as the director, someone who already gave Tony Jaa the opportunity to show off some bone-crushing action in "Striking Rescue". "Desperado" falls into the same category and therefore requires you to completely switch off your brain and not be bothered by the fact that it draws inspiration from numerous clichés of every action movie that came out within the last forty years. The story is therefore quite insignificant, and the fact that a small child who needs protection and therefore makes our practically invulnerable hero a bit more vulnerable is by no means original either. Nevertheless, the flick tries to give us a few nice twists, which only make it all the more clear that this is not where the movie's strengths lie. But both the atmosphere and action manage to score some points. It certainly helps that the lead actor is someone who knows a thing or two about his craft.

Most people probably recognize Danny Chan as the Bruce Lee lookalike goalkeeper in "Shaolin Soccer". Since then, he was never really able to get rid of this image, until he was eventually even asked to play the martial arts legend in "Ip Man 4". This time, however, it's different, and he gets to carry an entire movie as the action hero, but without having to fight across the screen in a yellow jumpsuit. In fact, Danny Chan is even one of the movie's greatest strengths as he is quite charismatic, so much so that we are willing to overlook the rather unpolished nature of the hero. In addition, Zhou Ke is technically invincible, most of the time he doesn't even break a sweat. So, the fun part of the action is just to find out how exactly he will take out his next opponent. In one scene, he even switches weapons for each gangster, which is completely unnecessary, and only seems to serve the purpose of having some fun himself. Of course, such an unstoppable killing machine might come across quite cold for the audience, but in scenes away from any bloodbath Danny Chan manages to breathe life into his character.

This is also achieved by the fact that Zhou Ke has an alter ego as a clown. We find out in flashbacks that he's always had problems with smiling and so he is able to build a bond with Ling Ling and the viewer by using a lot of make-up and wearing pretty loud clothes. The fact that the movie works quite well on an interpersonal level is also thanks to Wang Baotong, who is not as annoying in the role of the little girl as we first suspected, but of course, she is still responsible for getting our hero in a few dicey situations every now and then. In addition, there is Miya Muqi ("Kung Fu Yoga"), another investigator who feels randomly thrown into the movie, and there is some guy who represents the supposedly funny supporting role, which fortunately disappears so far into the background soon enough that he doesn't get on your nerves. Nevertheless, there are still enough clichés that could have been avoided. This includes some rather unnecessary CGI, although surprisingly there are also some practical effects, and a few twists, especially regarding the villain, which are pretty predictable. It's impossible to overlook the fact that the director also tried to include some drama into the movie.

Unfortunately, the last third of the movie seems bloated with all the melodrama, the forced tears, and the already mentioned twists, so that the movie is almost in danger of falling apart. Just to give you a quick insight: With its 100 minutes running time, you feel like you're watching the finale at some point, and then you realize there is still half an hour left. And it is exactly this half hour which would have needed to be condensed a lot. What doesn't work either is the way the movie presents us with the (rather predictable) real villain but doesn't build up any threat coming from him beforehand. Which, of course, was not possible because it was supposed to be a surprise. Although the hero and the little girl work quite well as an anchor within the story and the chemistry between the two also works, we are still missing a well-crafted background story. Probably more so because director Cheng was certainly on his way to implement one but somehow stopped halfway through. Which means that the finale does not touch us as much emotionally as it is supposed to, and the ensuing tears simply seem insincere.

The action is impressive, though. It's also nice not to get those typical super-fast editing and the shaky camera work, as is often the case in streaming movies. Cheng Siyi knows his craft, and Danny Chan obviously does too, which results in some good scenes. In addition to the punches and kicks, which make do without adding any flourishes and offer a lot of impact instead, there are also car chases, shootouts that pay homage to John Woo, and a little Jackie Chan also shines through in a memorable scene with a taxi or later on in an apartment. In the meantime, the sets are quite dirty as we are in a fantasy world that is set somewhere between Hong Kong and Thailand (and where everyone speaks another language, but somehow people still understand each other), so that the hard-hitting action gets a suitable backdrop. Nevertheless, things don't turn out all too dark, as the relationship between Zhou Ke and Ling Ling - even if it is quite superficial - grounds the movie and gives off a spark of hope. It's clear that "Desperado" has some problems, especially when it comes to its story, and that it struggles with the typical action movie clichés. However, if you don't expect anything exceptional, you'll get a pretty entertaining action flick here. You can only hope that Danny Chan will get a few more leading roles as he certainly has what it takes to be an action star.

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