REVIEW: Never Say Never (2023)
Wang Baoqiang in a career defining movie? Bye bye Detective Chinatown!
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Now this is exactly the kind of movie Wang Baoqiang had in him – and I am glad that we all finally get a chance to see the kind of results he can produce.
PLOT
Tenghui is the manager of a Sand mine that’s losing money. Previously released from prison for assault and doping charges, he was once an up and coming MMA style fighter.
He is tricked into starting an MMA club by a sleazy business man who is trying to defraud the government, and is encourage to find some homeless children to help pull off the scam. However, he instead decides to train the children to put on fake fights, but he is called out for it.
The fake fights turn real, and end up attracting attention from parents who want him to train and feed their children, while at the same time he continues to develop the two oldest boys in his care Mu Su and Ma Hu to become champions of the sport.
But a decade later a video surfaces of their brutal first fight, and a scandal erupts that questions his ethics.
TALKING POINTS
Firstly a very big thank you to the team at China Lion for the preview of this movie. They are the official distributor of the movie in Australia and New Zealand, and the move is set to release theatrically on August 3 – so please check your local cinema listing for times.
A lot of people know Wang Baoqiang from his Hong Kong movies like Iceman and Kung Fu Jungle where he starred alongside Donnie Yen, or his role as the villain in Fairy Tale Killer, not realising he had a long career a decade before that in the mainland. And of course, nowadays he is known for his role in Detective Chinatown.
(note: in the video above, I mention a movie that is a biopic about his life and that he directed. This movie was actually directed by Stanley Tong and is about something else. My memory failed me)
I prefer watching him in these serious roles, I don’t really like his comedy stuff because he plays the buffoon which suits his look, but he tends to overdo it. When he plays to his strengths, which is fighting – and he is a well trained martial artist – then his results are worth watching.
There is a big drama element to this film, and all those scenes are handled well. There’s a standout scene where he is in police station talking to his Salt mine manager after he is arrested, and the camera angles, composition and shots add a lot of feeling an already powerful scene.
Then it’s the way he has wrangled the absolute best out of the child actors in the film. The two kids who play the younger Mu Su and Ma Hu are just terrific, and then he manages to choreograph them in a couple of very tight and explosive action scenes. Brutal one on one fights with a two boys who cant be older than 10 or 12.
But the highlight of the film, without a doubt, is the final fight. Without giving too much away, there is this inspired switch to presenting the final bout in Black and White – to me I got this feel of Raging Bull, but that’s probably more a coincidence than anything, but it’s not just a fight – it’s a redemption, but the presentation is something I haven’t seen in Chinese cinema before. Slightly over-edited, but there are just some absolutely inspired camera angles and shots, and it wraps up the movie perfectly, hiding the brutality but also eliciting an emotional response from the audience.
Then there is a great cameo in this film from Xiao Yang who plays the sleazy businessman and Xing Yu as the dodgy gym owner that I really enjoyed, and pacing of the movie is spot on. It’s two hours but it doesn’t feel like it.
It’s not perfect – the movie kind of forgets about all the other children towards the end, and we actually don’t get to know too much about them throughout the film either. It’s also rather heavy-handed emotionally, which is to be expected for both a Chinese film and a movie that appeals to a wide audience.
And it certain has appealed to that wide audience. This is currently the 4th highest grossing film in China for 2023 and will probably end the year in the Top 5. Word of mouth has been very kind to this film with an average score of 7.5 on Douban.
What are my overall thoughts?
Which is why I give this movie 4 stars. It’s an extremely enjoyable film that finally showcases the talent of Wang Baoqiang, and I honestly hope that his movie leads to him directing some pure kung-fu action movies. Because out of everyone in Hong Kong and China right now, he has the talent to pull it off.
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Genre Kung Fu Action Drama
Director Wang Baoqiang
Starring Wang Baoqiang, Yongsheng Chen
Original Title 八角笼中
Alternative Title Octagonal
Country of Origin China
Release Date 6 July 2023