Movie Review: 14 Blades/錦衣衛

Donnie Yen only needs one blade.

That blade is Donnie Yen.Last night the Gang of Film (電影人幫) continued the Lunar New Year Marathon with14 Blades/錦衣衛, the latest offering from sexy, flexy, Donnie Yen: There is no global warming. Donnie Yen is just that hot.Donnie Yen's ego makes Quentin Tarantino seem humble. His films are becoming increasingly about Donnie Yen and less and less like stories.

I heard that he will star in Sex and Yen 3D.

They stand for Donnie, Donnie, andDonnie .

I knew all this going in, but hey, I see movies so you don't have to.

I should actually give the Donnie-nator some credit;14 Blades/錦衣衛is the funniest New Year movie of 2010.

Too bad it's a drama.

And he shouldn't get all the credit for the laughs, either. Everybody chips in, on both sides of the camera, in pre- and post-production,  I mean everybody.

Except Wu Ma. He was great, if only because he's Wu Ma.

And he was in Chinese Ghost Story.

And he can do action scenes better than Uma Thurman, even at the age of 143.

There's more sucking in this film than the entireFire Island Film Festival.

Speaking of which, Wu Chun was the leader of the Chinese antecedent to the Village People:I wish Kate Tsui wore that outfit.The story (what little of it there was) seemed to have been written in about 5 minutes.

On the back of a napkin.

That got torn in half so a big chunk of the story is missing.

The suspension of disbelief required for this film would make the phrase "George Bush, Ph.D." sound plausible.

The plot holes, logic lapses, and just plain stupid sh*t are too numerous to list, so let me give you just this one:

At one point, Donnie gives Kate Tsui something in order to save Vicky Zhao, after telling Vicky that her life was not as important as that thing. Obviously, she is more important to him than that thing. A couple scenes later, he uses Vicky as a decoy to distract Kate in order to get the thing back.

And I'm supposed to careabout these poltroons?

They're all complete f@#$ing morons for thinking the way they do and for allowing themselves to be ordered around by each other. Donnie Yen vs. PredatorBut there are so many morons in and around this film that it almost becomes understandable.

The CGI looked like it was done by (and for) Sony Playstation.

One of Kate Tsui's 'signature' moves is repeated in the film. I don't mean the move, I mean the CGI.

It's exactly the f@#$ing same. They recycledit.

During a helicopter shot of Kate Tsui's character driving a wagon, she is very obviously doubled by a man.

With a beard.

 If it was me, I could forgive it, because I would be sitting in a place that Kate Tsui sat in. And maybe it would still be warm.

From the heat of her @ss.

It's very hot.漂亮水暖工臀部Jesus, I need to focus.

During the climactic battle -

Let me get this out of the way right now - If you heard about a fight scene between Donnie Yen and... Kate Tsui, would you ever in your worst nightmares think that you would have to use the qualifier "climactic" with it?

Well, during said battle, Kate keeps slipping out of  multiple layers of robes, which Donnie's super-duper blade of death (that sat in a fire for 5 seconds and therefore became red-hot) sets alight.

Kate loses clothing, Donnie burns it.

" Keep going!" I blurted out, mindless of the other people watching the film.

Sadly, this was not to be. After all, this film is China-friendly, and as a consequence there shall be nothing prurient or sexual.

What there will be, however, is a glaring and repugnant anti-Uighur subtext wherein Muslims are shifty towel-headed conspirators and thieves whose minarets are nothing more than gilded signs that implicitly shout "Bad people here!", and they want to subvert China and revolt against a righteous government.

Oh yeah?Fuckyou. The Donnie Yen parodies in

All's Well End's Well Too 2010/花田囍事2010 and 72 Tenants of Prosperity/72家租客are actually better than this Donnie Yen film.