I got to watch this in the theatre and that's partially why I started watching the whole franchise. Sadly, I found that as the series went on, I found myself being disappointed more. My negative review does have to be taken with a grain of salt as I've watched the whole series in succession. It does bear a question on how to best review movie series. The only time I had really done this was with John Wick but even John Wick had an overarching story rather than each movie being a separate one on its own.
My major complaint lies with the main villain - the corrupt "DEA" agent. He was a familiar face to me from "Our Beloved Summer" but I felt like his screen presence was much more lacking in comparison to the previous two antagonists. His evilness felt contrived and forced whereas the previous villains felt truly formidable. He felt like he was trying to be intimidating when he's actually not. The plot points were furthered by introducing a clash between criminals but that took away the focus from the main villain and muddled with the story.
With the Yakuza being involved, they definitely tried to add more variations with the action scenes but I felt some of them were unnecessary and just existed for the sake of having it there. Not many scenes were as memorable and impressive. I wish they just kept it as R-rated as the first one and pushed with that because it really does take away a lot. The humor that was a consistent plus in the prior movies felt like a downgrade in this one. The natural humor felt more forced for the sake of the series and became increasingly predictable.
Don Lee still performs well and his presence does carry the movie but I wonder if the weight of the franchise has become too heavy for the man.
My major complaint lies with the main villain - the corrupt "DEA" agent. He was a familiar face to me from "Our Beloved Summer" but I felt like his screen presence was much more lacking in comparison to the previous two antagonists. His evilness felt contrived and forced whereas the previous villains felt truly formidable. He felt like he was trying to be intimidating when he's actually not. The plot points were furthered by introducing a clash between criminals but that took away the focus from the main villain and muddled with the story.
With the Yakuza being involved, they definitely tried to add more variations with the action scenes but I felt some of them were unnecessary and just existed for the sake of having it there. Not many scenes were as memorable and impressive. I wish they just kept it as R-rated as the first one and pushed with that because it really does take away a lot. The humor that was a consistent plus in the prior movies felt like a downgrade in this one. The natural humor felt more forced for the sake of the series and became increasingly predictable.
Don Lee still performs well and his presence does carry the movie but I wonder if the weight of the franchise has become too heavy for the man.