When the rebellion rolls around, you'd better sign on board for the big win, because if movies have taught us anything it's that the renegades always win. Why? Point to their energy and idealism, sure, but the real reason the rebellion always triumphs is that they've got all the hot chicks.
How can you lose when you've got Princess Leia and Trinity on your side? You can't, that's how. Your side could be hurling pine cones at their TrampleBot 9000 and you'd still come out on top. This week Martial Arts Month takes us to 2006's The Rebel, where the bad girls are as deadly as they are pretty.
In 1922, Johnny Nguyen is a member of an elite Vietnamese force trained to stamp out anti-colonial rebellion. But he's grown weary of the bloodshed on both sides, and when his unit captures Thanh Van Ngo, the daughter of the rebel leader, he seeks redemption by helping her escape back to her father.
While some martial arts films are little more than a string of fights glued together by a few scenes of men yelling at each other about revenge, The Rebel goes the opposite route. In placing its story of love and betrayal front and center, it's a welcome surprise whenever a fistfight breaks out to interrupt the drama.
Not to say the clobberings are infrequent. And rather than more kung fu, The Rebel's leads practice vo thuat, which I believe is Vietnamese for "I am now going to use my kicks and elbows to reduce your skull to a coarse pink mush." Explosive and torque-heavy, this style is less about precise blocks and strikes and more about breaking your arm in half and then kicking your head into low Earth orbit.
Yet all this power barely dents Dustin Nguyen, Johnny Nguyen's partner-turned-nemesis. The dude's skin can stop steel blades, adding a small but curious supernatural element to what's otherwise a pretty realistic action movie.
The upside to dealing with a guy who's almost invincible: when you finally figure out how to kill him, it's invariably rad as hell.
Sweet as this is, the movie isn't without flaws--its plot isn't terribly original, it sometimes veers towards melodrama, and while its characters' relations to their parents are interesting, it feels as though director Charlie Nguyen doesn't always have a firm grip on their meaning.
But it would be worth it for the little-known fighting style alone. With solid drama and some menacing villains to back that up, The Rebel offers a new look at an established genre.