Asian Movie Review: Special ID (特殊身份, 2013)

I've been lazy to write reviews of the last few films I've watched on DVD, but tonight I went to the theater to see a film, so worth taking some time to review properly.

Caught a showing of "Special ID" starring Donnie Yen, Andy On, Jing Tian and Collin Chou.  As you can imagine, its a Donnie Yen martial arts action vehicle...  heavy on the martial arts action, with a good dash of vehicle. :-P

Donnie plays an undercover cop who has infiltrated the triads and manages to end up finding himself in 10 vs 1 fights WAY too often.   Andy plays a disciple turned rival gangster who's brutally working his way up the food chain.  Jing Tian is a Shenzhen cop who ends up getting matched with Donnie when his duties take him across the border into the Mainland.

I could do a deep introspection into how this film presents an idealized and contradictory view of how Hong Kong fits into the modern China but its best not to think about it too much (how come every other sceen is on the opposite side of the border from the one before?!?)  just unplug and enjoy the action.  See Donnie punch people, see Donnie kick people, see Donnie wrestle people to the ground and MMA their asses...   yes, this movie has a lot of 'Flash Point' style fighting.    Although its not as flashy,  its nice to see something a bit different from the run of the mill action movie fighting.

Andy is pretty badass... he has some good fight scenes... definitely looked like making this film was PAINFUL! :-P

Jing Tian's character is kind of an extraneous one... but she is tolerable as they make her role more than just an annoying damsel in distress for Donnie to have to save...  but I have to say her arms are way too skinny to make me believe she could kick that much ass. ;-)

Lots of supporting roles from familiar faces including Ken Lo, Frankie Ng Chi-Hung, Heng Jai from Tonick and our own Terence Yin. 

Anyway, as a 'brain on auto-pilot' type action movie, I give it a solid 6/10.   Don't expect much more and just enjoy the fighting and the performances. 

ps - Here's Sean's review on The Silver Spleen:Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dFjFFtjc0