Yeah, right, i could say this film was indeed based on a true incident, but the dramatized scenarios and the plots were totally gone astray, making the whole film only with very shallow face value, full of non-stop actions and nothing more. Lot of production budget was invested on these endless firefight scenes, but in the end, it just turned out to be a messy film with pointless outcome. I have to ask during and after watched this film: What's the point? You threw in so many and so much resources and manpower just wanted to get one big drug trafficker, lost so many highly trained guys in order to get certain targets, did such wastes really worth it? Saving face or seeking justice for what?
The usual problem of the Chinese films is they're full of patriotic slogans, "We have to let our Chinese citizens get the real fact and truth, no matter what!" The stereotyped instruction that the higher ranking officers or bureaucrats give to their lower ranking guys is always stupid non-sense: "Be careful, watch yourself, no matter what we have to sacrifice, we have to get this guy." That's why You always see a scene in Chinese movies when a guy climbing up a ladder, the others down there always telling that climber with a WTF instruction: "Be careful! Don't fall down!" WTF!? This stupid must-have dialog and scenes in Chinese films is like what we usually see in the Korean films: The actor always talking to himself or herself of what he or she was thinking during that moment. The typical Korean movies always with such stupid monologue, actor(s) talking to himself or herself in order to let the audiences know what he or she was thinking and in the meantime, explaining some part of the story-line.
Lots of stunts and special effects in this messy but pointless film. One of the reviewers gave this film a low rating just because it's not quite accurate or true to the real incident. I have to disagree to this reviewer's comment: Movies are always dramatized, they usually got some ideas from a true incident, but not always had to follow the truth or fact, otherwise it would only become a documentary; because only documentary films have to follow the truth and should not be dramatized. But this film was a completely dramatized commercial film, so it didn't have to be exactly like what really happened.
But fair is fair, there are things in this film that need to be complimented: 1) The stunts carried out by the Thai stunt specialists in this film is top-notched performance.
2) The chases in the streets, the gun fights in the mall and elsewhere, the close combats, the explosions, the atrocity and cruelty of the drug organization...all the special effects were carried out spectacularly well, almost seamlessly. The logistics and the synchronization were pretty maturely thought through, shot and edited nicely. Thai actors are great in doing these again and again.
3) The cinematography, the handling of the camera lens, the shooting angles of all settings were great.
This film has the touch of the three "Expendable" films and those "Rambo" franchise films. The camouflage uniforms when the Chinese Special Force wore to invade the drug lord camp were a wrong choice. They should wear the green ones instead of the purple browns ones, those uniforms just exposed them so well. We looked at the screen, all of them stood out like sore thumbs. Also, the dialog among the Chinese somehow still felt weak and contrite.
If this film could have omitted those cliche Chinese patriotic slogans, those big words about what they did were purely for their country and the Communist Party, then I might give this film a 9.
The usual problem of the Chinese films is they're full of patriotic slogans, "We have to let our Chinese citizens get the real fact and truth, no matter what!" The stereotyped instruction that the higher ranking officers or bureaucrats give to their lower ranking guys is always stupid non-sense: "Be careful, watch yourself, no matter what we have to sacrifice, we have to get this guy." That's why You always see a scene in Chinese movies when a guy climbing up a ladder, the others down there always telling that climber with a WTF instruction: "Be careful! Don't fall down!" WTF!? This stupid must-have dialog and scenes in Chinese films is like what we usually see in the Korean films: The actor always talking to himself or herself of what he or she was thinking during that moment. The typical Korean movies always with such stupid monologue, actor(s) talking to himself or herself in order to let the audiences know what he or she was thinking and in the meantime, explaining some part of the story-line.
Lots of stunts and special effects in this messy but pointless film. One of the reviewers gave this film a low rating just because it's not quite accurate or true to the real incident. I have to disagree to this reviewer's comment: Movies are always dramatized, they usually got some ideas from a true incident, but not always had to follow the truth or fact, otherwise it would only become a documentary; because only documentary films have to follow the truth and should not be dramatized. But this film was a completely dramatized commercial film, so it didn't have to be exactly like what really happened.
But fair is fair, there are things in this film that need to be complimented: 1) The stunts carried out by the Thai stunt specialists in this film is top-notched performance.
2) The chases in the streets, the gun fights in the mall and elsewhere, the close combats, the explosions, the atrocity and cruelty of the drug organization...all the special effects were carried out spectacularly well, almost seamlessly. The logistics and the synchronization were pretty maturely thought through, shot and edited nicely. Thai actors are great in doing these again and again.
3) The cinematography, the handling of the camera lens, the shooting angles of all settings were great.
This film has the touch of the three "Expendable" films and those "Rambo" franchise films. The camouflage uniforms when the Chinese Special Force wore to invade the drug lord camp were a wrong choice. They should wear the green ones instead of the purple browns ones, those uniforms just exposed them so well. We looked at the screen, all of them stood out like sore thumbs. Also, the dialog among the Chinese somehow still felt weak and contrite.
If this film could have omitted those cliche Chinese patriotic slogans, those big words about what they did were purely for their country and the Communist Party, then I might give this film a 9.