It's time for another butchering recap of a Yan Jie movie, this time 杀出太平镇 / Killing Taiping Town. Previous recap on 神算子蔣敬 / Divine Mathematician Jiang Jing is here.
This was the first Yan Jie film I ever watched since I laid eyes on him in Nirvana in Fire, so seeing him go from that traditional Han topknot hairstyle to a modern hairstyle was quite a surprise!
For the record... I much prefer his Nirvana look on the left >_> I mean the short modern hair isn’t bad, he just looks way more handsome on the left than he already is. Still cute on the right though! (despite looking slightly murderous here. But there’s a reason for that.)
Onto the film, which takes place in around... 1920s? I think. I must point out that throughout this entire film, Yan Jie’s character, Tingsen, is covered from head to toe with the thickest plot armor ever, so I’m going to do a Tingsen’s Plot Armor count as part of the recap. So anyway, in the opening scene, Tingsen visits some shady night auction that is selling young women. He specifically targets the organiser, let’s call her Auctioneer Woman, offering to “buy” her with... well, a pair of handcuffs.
Dun dun DUN! I guess that’s one way to reveal you’re an undercover cop. Realizing the place is now surrounded by the police, Auctioneer Woman begins her escape but is followed closely by Tingsen. He orders his cop buddies to free all the young women while he dashes after her.
The fight scenes are probably the best part of this movie. There are tons of cool action and WHOA YAN JIE THOSE PANTS ARE SO TIGHT ON YOU MAN
I mean, what the hell?! Each butt cheek is so so SO prominent. How do you even move comfortably in these? How many pairs of pants have you ripped while shooting this movie? Wait, why am I even complaining? THESE PANTS ARE AMAZING *shot*.
LET’S NOT GET DISTRACTED BY THOSE VERY ROUND ASS CHEEKS so despite beating her and getting so very close to capturing Auctioneer Woman, she slips out of his grasp and escapes.
Next morning he wakes up in his own house, where his pregnant wife is worried sick as she tends to his wounds and convinces him not to do anything dangerous again. Of course he promises he won’t do it again. Of course he’s going to break this promise later.
Duty calls (literally, the phone rings) and Tingsen leaves his worried wife to get to work. Chief informs Tingsen of a local gang group led by Gang Boss (top left), with 3 important subordinates under him: Big Macho Baldie (top right), Demon Barber (bottom left) and finally Auctioneer Woman (bottom right).
Chief is all, “Hey Tingsen get rid of all these bad people for me k” but Tingsen remembers his wife’s words and goes, “Naaaaah man I’m only a lowly street cop I ain’t dealing with these big bad boys” OH HO HOOOOO we’ll see about that, won’t we, pretty boy.
Night comes, Tingsen successfully intercepts a group of people transporting opium, and surprise surprise, they work for Gang Boss. Undeterred by threats and bribery, he confiscates and burns it all, but not without giving away his full name as well. He basically just stuck a massive bullseye target onto his back at this point.
Police shift is done for the day and IT’S TIME TO GET DRUNK WITH THE COP BUDDIES! ALL THE DRINKING YAY. Look at Tingsen splashing alcohol all around his mouth, letting the liquid sloppily dribble down his chin and onto the floor. I bet only about 30% of the alcohol actually went into his mouth.
... those bottles look suspiciously clear, like bottles of WATER LOL. None of those liquids look alcoholic, unless it’s all straight up vodka, but I highly doubt that.
Drinking done and deeply intoxicated, Tingsen and his cop buddies stumble drunkely back to his house, and OHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIII
GUESS WHOSE WIFE AND UNBORN CHILD JUST GOT MURDERED
Her throat has been slit, and as he holds her dead body he notices evidence left behind, a small pile of tobacco:
With the help of his cop buddies, Tingsen tracks down the location of the murderer whose day job happens to be a barber. Tingsen asks for a shave so he can get super close to the man and give him a good sniff to confirm the tobacco scent definitely matches:
Yep it’s him alright. Demon Barber (one of the 3 important subordinates of Gang Boss) realizes the purpose of Tingsen’s visit and, using the razor, slices more than just Tingsen’s non-existent beard:
Fight scene ensues, the entire shop gets trashed and OH HEY IT’S YAN JIE’S ASS CHEEKS AGAIN
Demon Barber definitely doesn’t make it easy. After numerous cuts, slices, bruises (Tingsen’s Plot Armor #1) and way too much furniture breaking, Tingsen eventually defeats Demon Barber and unremorsefully ends his life.
As Tingsen and cop buddies attempt to leave the vicinity, Big Macho Baldie arrives with his goons, surrounding and capturing all of them.
They finally come face to face with Gang Boss who straight up murders 2 of the cop buddies. Aww man, I liked those characters, they all had good brotherly chemistry in the earlier scenes.
Auctioneer Woman is here too. Gang Boss announces that Tingsen’s life is hers to take, so she grabs her dagger, stabs him in the chest - but wait - the big thick medallion he wears (Tingsen’s Plot Armor #2) under his shirt prevents her penetration.
So rather than stabbing him again maybe a little more to the left, or right, or up, or down (not that I encourage we kill off Yan Jie’s character), she suggests that they lock him up for a few days... so she can kill him another day. Because she her reason is something like “I only stab once a day”. Errr, ok. Good ethics... I... guess...? Tingsen’s Plot Armor #3.
Inside the Gang Boss’ dungeons, Tingsen and his one remaining cop buddy are locked up with some a new character, I’ll just call him Prison Buddy. At this point in the movie I didn’t really understand who he was or why he too was in there. (film had no English subtitles).
Food is brought into the prison by Chinese Karl Pilkington:
While munching on his dinner (rice, cauliflower and a duck leg?), Tingsen discovers a secret message hidden in his bowl, of which I do not understand because I can’t read those words :( Perhaps it’s a way of helping him escape the prison? For some reason I suspect it’s from Auctioneer Woman.
Oh annnnnd I really, really, really like the way Yan Jie holds his chopsticks. It’s kind of adorable. But then again, I find almost everything he does is adorable. *manic fangirling*
So the new guy, Prison Buddy, helps them break out and escape. Auctioneer Woman seems to have switched sides and joins Tingsen here. The group splits up; she and Tingsen go one way as Cop and Prison Buddy take an alternative route.
Their prison escape is soon discovered by Big Macho Man who leads his goons to start a long series of shootouts at Tingsen. Oh and Tingsen is now alone here because he had a slight disagreement with Auctioneer Woman on the way so he knocked her out cold, LOL.
Man, those bullets coming from at least 20 of these guys all miss Tingsen entirely while he guns them down successfully without getting a single scrape. Tingsen’s Plot Armor #4. (Those wounds visible on him are still only from the barber visit earlier).
Big Macho Baldie eventually dies from a gunshot wound in the head from Tingsen, who loots several grenades from the dead guy’s body and equips them onto the back of his belt. Let’s have a super close up look at those grenades. For science.
Man, if each of Yan Jie’s ass cheeks doesn’t get its own line in the credits later, I’m going to be very disappointed.
Obligatory Slow-Mo Walk scene:
Upon arriving at Gang Boss’ headquarters, Tingsen is horrified to see his last remaining Cop Buddy lying dead on the floor. Noooo!!! I liked him :(
Turns out that Chief is corrupt, he killed off both Gang Boss and cop buddy to attain even more power, and attempts to win Tingsen over by offering him money, power and women. Tingsen is devastated at how far his Chief has fallen because the two had apparently grown up together.
Tingsen rejects that offer, much to Chief’s disappointment. Both Chief and Prison Buddy turn on Tingsen, man I knew this Prison Buddy guy felt a little dodgy. More action follows with more gun battles and grenade explosions as the two sides return outside to finish it off. My plot armor count is tingling!
Chief shoots TWO bullets into Tingsen’s left arm and all he does is glance at his new wounds and carry on fighting normally. WHAT. Tingsen’s Plot Armor #5.
After taking out the rest of the corrupt policemen and incapacitating Chief with a grenade, Tingsen finally goes up alone against Prison Buddy. This is my favorite fight scene in the whole movie, I really had fun watching both guys go all out on each other.
Thank you, cameraman/woman, for this lovely shot of between Yan Jie’s legs.
WHAT’S THAT, A DAGGER STABBED STRAIGHT INTO MY HEART? No big deal gimme a sec I’ll just headbutt you, yank out the dagger and carry on fighting as normal LOL Tingsen’s Plot Armor #6.
Oh and somewhere in this fight, Auctioneer Woman rejoins Tingsen but gets killed off by Prison Buddy in between punches from Tingsen.
Eventually, Tingsen returns the favor and stabs Prison Buddy back in his chest, but Prison Buddy looks away suspiciously...
Chief somehow survives Tingsen’s grenade earlier, upgrades himself to Two-Face Chief, and zombie walks over to aim his gun at Tingsen:
Tingsen then gets shot in the back. And guess what. He just. Carries. On. Tingsen’s Plot Armor #7.
THIS MAN ON THE LEFT HAS GONE THROUGH SOME SERIOUS SHIT
But worry not, his relentless Tingsen’s Plot Armor #8 allows him to loosen Prison Buddy’s grip from his neck (despite being severely wounded by this point: stabbed in the chest, two bullets in his arm, head injuries, sliced in the stomach, slices all around his arms from the barber earlier. Surely andrenaline can only get you so far...?)
Chief takes the shot, Tingsen dodges just in time (Tingsen’s Plot Armor #9) for the bullet to land right below Prison Buddy’s collar bone.
Cue badass dagger-throwing scene towards Chief:
Though looking at the above GIF closely..... did Yan Jie hurl that dagger... upwards?! LOL
Director: “Yan Jie, THROW THE DAGGER AT THE CHIEF”. Yan Jie: “OK” *chucks it at the sky*
But hey, in the next scene the dagger goes perfectly horizontally anyway towards Chief and kills him. Homing dagger it is.
The movie wraps up and we see flashbacks and scenes of most of the characters who have been killed off. Which is about 99% of the cast. Tingsen has his revenge but he does feel kinda shit. And I don’t blame him after all that horribly traumatic experience in the last 24 hours of his life.
Well, the movie was a very simple revenge story with the usual corrupt police stuff. Cool action though, interesting choice of soundtrack, I enjoyed it anyway because Yan Jie.
Next up, Shocking Huo Kung Fu / 霍家拳之威震山河
Previous recap: Divine Mathematician Jiang Jing / 神算子蔣敬.
dededos
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
titsay
germansingergirl