Running Out Of Time 2 - 暗戰2 - 談判專家

Running Out Of Time 2 (暗戰2-談判專家) is an 2001 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Sean Lau, Ekin Cheng, and Kelly Lin. The film is the sequel to the highly successful first Running Out Of Time starring Andy Lau.

Lau reprises his role as inspector Ho. Called to the rooftop of a building to stop a suicide jump, he's faced with a new thief, played by Ekin. Lin plays Teresa, an insurance mogul on the heals of a massively lucrative deal. Three items under their insurance is stolen recently and held for ransom by the thief. Ho's group suspect Teresa's firm is involved in some sort of money laundering. When the thief extorts Teresa, Ho steps in to catch him. Reluctantly forced to work together, Ho and Teresa cooperate to catch the thief.

This movie shouldn't have been made. Compared to the first one, this seemed like a TV movie. Ekin's constant smiling came off more cheezy than smart or sinister. Andy just did it better in the first one. The feel of the movie also felt very TV movie like. It seemed the camera angles, production sets all seemed cheap and amateurish. Luckily the movie was in the ~90 minute range. Kelly Lin was what saved the movie for me. Still in her mid twenties when the movie was made, I was kept going with waiting for her to show up in future scenes. A very good ploy that kept me engaged to the end of the film.

Unlike the first film, I don't get the running out of time concept for Ekin as there was no terminal illness. Only that some deal was going to be influenced by X time. Which in comparison to the main protagonist death, seem very insignificant.

The Storm Warriors - 風雲II - 風雲2

The Storm Warriors (風雲II/風雲2) is 2009 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng. The supporting cast include Simon Yam, Charlene Choi, Nicholas Tse, Tiffany Tang Yan, and Kenny Ho. The movie is a sequel to the 1998 film, Storm Riders.

The movie starts with the capture of Nameless, Storm, and many other jiang hu warriors. They are captured by Lord Godless and his son, Heart. However, many of them do make an escape. Lord Godless has also been given all power by the emperor. Nameless and Lord Godless have a intense fight, but Nameless is fighting hurt and cannot defeat Godless. They all escape and Godless's men start to look for them. Wind, who was not captured, comes and aids in their escape.

After they escaped, Storm and Wind are given instructions by Nameless to seek out Lord Wicked for help. Once there, Wind is chosen by Lord Wicked to become one with a wicked demon power. Storm is than trained by Nameless.

Once Storm and Wind are trained in their arts, they go after Lord Godless and defeat him. But Wind's no longer himself, but possessed by the wicked demon eye. Storm and Wind than go at it. They fight to a standstill, but the cliff around them crumbles and Storm finally cuts the demon eye to restore Wind. But Storm falls to his demise off the cliff.



How can the sequel match the original, produced more than ten years after the original, to live up to the hype? You can't, so you just go with the flow. The movie starts off in a confusing place. How did Lord Godless capture all these heroes? Why did they escape so easily? But to the credit of the movie, it says, "forget the story, bring on the fighting". The movie is seriously 75% fighting. Swordplay fantasy fighting. CGI, slow mo, "chi" all thrown in there for good measure.

What should you expect, you should expect a film that says "to hell with character development" and say yes to "computer style fighting". This is not your Jet Li style wuxia film, but a 2009 CGI extravaganza.

I never did read the comics so I am not all that familiar with all the characters of the story, but if you watched Storm Rider: Clash of Evils (風雲決), some of the plot points are also used from there.

Forest of Death - 森冤

Forest of Death (森冤) is a 2007 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Shi Qi, Ekin Cheng, and Rain Li. The movie is directed by Danny Pang of the Pang Bros. directing duo.

The movie is about a mysterious forest that seems to attract people that want to commit suicide. Ekin Plays Ah Hai, a botanist that focuses on emotions in plants. Chu Qi plays Chi as a hard nosed detective that wants to solve every case that comes her way. Rain Li plays Ah Hai's reporter girlfriend.

The movie had a unique way of combining mystery, drama, and horror into the film. The movie was actually pretty easy to watch as I understood what Danny Pang was trying to do.

As a whole, its not too strong of a movie. As a horror film, it falls more in X-Files type territory.

The Avenging Fist - 拳神

The Avenging Fist (拳神) is a 2001 film out of Hong Kong. It stars a lot of people. But the main star is Wong Lee Hom. Apparently, the movie was to be based of Tekken, but the license was lost right before production. The movie was directed by Andrew Lau of all people.

Wong plays a young up and coming fighter. Wong's father was also a legendary fighter before his death. Now Wong wants to become the best fighter there is. However, there's a dark and secret force that threaten the world as they know it. The police investigate and love interest are introduce to Wong.

This movie was a blast to the past in terms of storyline and it goes something like this. "I like to fight, my dad liked to fight, so let's fight man!" The CGI was grossly overused, but was needed for the "world" created to house this madness.

Do you need to watch this? Yes. Will it suck? Prolly a little. But it is a no nonsense HK action movie at its core.

The Duel - 決戰紫禁之巔

The Duel - 決戰紫禁之巔 is a 2000 film out of Hong Kong starring Andy Lau and Ekin Cheng. It also stars a bunch of others, look at the cast credits for more. This is considered the third film of the martial arts trilogy from Andrew Lau. The film is based on a novel by Gu Long.



The story follows Nicky Cheung as a super detective for the imperial court. A governor played by Andy Lau of a region shows up to issue a duel challenge to the reigning number 1 swordsman, played by Ekin Cheng. The special thing about this duel is that it'll take place on the rooftop of the imperial palace. But before the duel happens, there are mysterious deaths and the disappearance of Ekin. But, in the end, the duel happens and its a CGI event to behold.

There are lots of fighting, cheezy interactions. But its a little bit of HK movie madness at work and I loved it. Watch it for the great cast, CGI, and modern martial mythos.

Rule #1, 第一誡

Rule #1 (第一誡) is a 2008 film out of Hong Kong. It's a ghost story movie starring Shawn Yue and Ekin Chen.

Shawan Yue is a stand up cop, named Lee, that stops a child killer in a parking lot. But he's shot 5 times, but with the help of a ghost, he kills the child killer. 49 days later, he awakes and his official statement is that he saw the girl get up. Now, he's transferred to the "ghost" department headed by the smoking and boozing Ekin Cheng, named Wong. Wong is set to resign and wants to get Lee trained ASAP. The motto of the department is, "It is not what it seems, so don't assume".

These ghost act more like demons and can jump from body to body via skin contact.

This was a very interesting movie. Mainly because of the reveal factor. It was a slow reveal of all the parts.

The Storm Riders - 風雲之雄霸天下

The Storm Riders (風雲之雄霸天下) is a 1998 film out of Hong Kong starring Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng. Consider the first of a martial arts movie trilogy from Andrew Lau.

Based off a Hong Kong comic book called Wind Cloud (風雲), it follows Aaron Kwok as Cloud and Ekin Cheng as Wind. Cloud's special martial arts is to leverage water and Wind's is his kicking. Both obtain legendary weapons.

The movie's been around for a long time. Back in 1998 when it came out, it was considered amazing as it was a HK movie with heavy CGI. Before this, no HK movie had used this much CGI in a film. In a sense, it was a pioneer for HK films, back in 1998. Fast forward to 2009! CGI all over the place. But still not to the extent of The Storm Riders.

I had a chance to re-watch the Taiwan DVD recently while washing dishes and it was pretty good. I am a big fan of Aaron Kwok and thought he presented Cloud the way his character is. Emotionless until those dear to him are in danger. That emotion turns to rage.

But don't come here looking for classic HK martial arts. The CGI is heavy and the fights are fantasy based.