What is it that we protect? The life and assets of our people?
With a title that literally translates to Japan Sinks, you'd be hardly surprised that the film eventually delivers on this title. The first of many adaptations of Sakyo Komatsu's original works, Submersion of Japan stands above most disaster movies by approaching an honestly terrifying situation with calm intelligence and asking many difficult questions along the way.Racked by earthquakes and volcanoes, Japan is slowly sinking into the sea. A race against time and tide begins as the scientists work together to salvage some fraction of the disappearing Japan.
Following an unsuccessful deal with Daiei, the film rights for the novel were sold to Toho, and those rights extended to the production of a television series, which would be filmed alongside the movie and shared some of the same cast as a result. A series I plan to get to one day if I can ever find working subtitles for. It would be the first big adaptation of the book with a film remake and parody both being released in 2006, two live-action television series and an anime to boot.
With a screenplay written by Shinobu Hashimoto, a frequent Kurosawa collaborator and substantial input from the original author, Submersion of Japan tells its story from a variety of differing viewpoints from a scientist to a submarine operator to the Prime Minster himself. Like the later released Prophecies of Nostradamus, it's not all doom and gloom despite the subject matter, there is some semblance of hope sprinkled throughout. It's not a film written from the perspective of the common citizen, more so the higher-ups in trying to organise impossible tasks.
It tackles many real-life issues that could we as a species could face in our lifetime, subjects such as the reaction of countries trying to accept a mass migration of an entire nation, the fears and anxieties of the nation's people being forced to leave their homeland behind and how it affects them etc. It's a very different type of disaster film that we are used to today, where in those disaster sequences usually play second fiddle to the story at hand.
This is my first exposure to director Shirô Moritani, and hopefully not the last, and he honestly delivers some utterly beautiful direction, especially for a film of this genre. With long sweeping landscape shots coupled with some brilliantly filmed scenes of characters simply talking, it's a pretty substantial film hardly letting up the intensity of the subject matter thanks in part to the commitment of its cast. The usual cast of Toho and Toei regulars make their appearances known, you may not remember all their names by the end but you'll for sure remember their characteristics. Be it the OG Kamen Rider actor Hiroshi Fujioka or others such as Tetsurō Tamba, Keiju Kobayashi and Shôgo Shimada, every single actor delivers an excellent performance.
Released the same year as the 13th entry in the Godzilla series, Godzilla vs. Megalon, it's very clear which one of the two benefits from an actual budget. When it comes down to it, Submersion of Japan puts that money front and centre allowing the creative roots of effects director Teruyoshi Nakano to absolutely shine. Coupled with extra input from eventual Return of Godzilla director, Koji Hashimoto, the film's disaster set pieces are truly a sight to behold, especially that of the Tokyo earthquake sequence which is horror incarnate. No wonder a lot of the footage would be used by later Toho SFX movies.
This is easily the best musical score I've heard from Masaru Sato, it's dark, brooding and equal parts intense, rarely letting up to drive home that feeling of hopelessness experienced by the characters. I've not been a massive fan of his works over the past few films I've seen he's contributed to, but at long last, I've found one of his contributions that I really like.
Overall, while I can see why people rate this one so highly, I find it way too invested in many of its long and very drawn-out situations of characters talking to give it anything higher than 4 stars. Nonetheless, it's still a glorious film from start to finish and should definitely be experienced by any fan of the tokusatsu or the disaster genre.
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A weapon that would never be used by a rational man
I've been looking forward to watching Virus for a long time, a bleak downward spiral of a film that's less focused on solving the crisis at hand but more focused on survival for the sake of it even though there's no real reason to anymore.A US military-engineered virus, released during a plane crash, kills almost the entire human population. The only survivors are scientists and military personnel in Antarctica, who desperately try to find a cure and save what is left of the human population from further destruction.
Virus, or as it's known in its uncut form Day of Resurrection, is probably one of the best efforts by the Japanese to break into the US market where the Japanese didn't have to make any form of compromises to their filmmaking in order to appease the US. Despite not making the impact wanted at the US box office due to it being given a limited release, Virus still holds a lot of impact even to this day and honestly, is generally terrifying after having witnessed the world go through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on the book by Sakyo Komatsu, yes the guy behind the likes of Submersion of Japan, ESPY and Tokyo Blackout, and one of the few of his original works that's even available in English to a degree. At the time of writing this review, I haven't read the original book but I do plan to down the line, Virus is very typical of Komatsu's works with his greater focus on humanity than the disaster. While Virus is mainly based on Komatsu's original text, the film's screenplay benefits from additions by Kōji Takada, the seemingly unknown and one-time writer Gregory Knapp and director Kinji Fukasaku. It's a fantastically written dive into humanity with Fukasaku's typical perfectionist stance giving all his characters life and to an extent the virus itself.
Speaking of Fukasaku, he doesn't compromise his directorial style when switching over to a language he doesn't fully understand as would be worrying with a film of this nature. For a man mostly known for directing yakuza movies and Battle Royale, Virus brings across all the melancholy and drama you'd expect from his films and made all the more beautiful thanks to utterly gorgeous cinematography from Daisaku Kimura. Fukasaku doesn't skimp on showing us the horrific nature of a pandemic of this magnitude, mass death and destruction on a global scale, skeletons littering uninhabited cities, riots breaking out worldwide and piles of corpses being incinerated that evoke uncomfortable reminders of days gone by. Being the biggest-budgeted Japanese film of its time, it has clearly put to full effect.
The full-star cast only adds to the gravitas of the film's excellence, featuring the likes of US actors such as Glenn Ford, Robert Vaughn, Henry Silva, Chuck Connors, George Kennedy and Bo Svenson. Considering they are under the direction of a man who doesn't even speak their native language, they all perform admirably. On the Japanese side of the cast, we have the likes of Masao Kusakari whose English can be admittedly wonky at times but the effort he puts in more than makes up for it, Isao Natsuyagi, Tsunehiko Watase, Kensaku Morita and even Toshiyuki Nagashima.
Further adding to this movie's list of strengths is the incredible musical score by Teo Macero and frequent anime composer Kentarō Haneda. Employing the efforts of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the score is simply wonderful, while it hasn't been strictly released in a large capacity there are albums floating around out there if you desire to listen to these pieces isolated like myself. The piece that opens the movie "Adieu Mon Amor" is beautiful but the entire score is worth a listen on its own.
While the film failed to take off even in Japan, make Kadokawa the Hollywood player they wanted to be or get Kinji Fukasaku the worldwide acclaim he deserved, in its full uncut version, Virus is a surprisingly powerful, criminally underrated and compelling end-of-the-world drama worthy of your attention if you like a bit more meat on the bones of a Hollywood disaster flick.
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At least we'll die together, they way it should be.
Magnitude 7.9 is another little-known Toho disaster film born from the same veins as the likes of Submersion of Japan and Tokyo Gulf Burns. I'm a bigger fan of the US title of the film, Deathquake, although the UK release titled Megaforce 7.9 does get a chuckle out of me, sounding like an extension of the Power Rangers series. Regardless, what Magnitude 7.9 does offer is what I've come to expect from these styles of films, lots of engaging character drama and stunning destruction.When Seismologist Hoichi predicts that there will be an earthquake in Tokyo of greater magnitude than the one in 1923, which his father predicted, he is ostracised by his co-workers, family and friends; eventually, he starts seeing another woman, who already has a boyfriend. Hoichi's wife wants to meet her before she will grant a divorce but when the earthquake he so predicted strikes, it becomes a true test of both character and will to survive.
This is seemingly the only big-budgeted film from director Kenjirô Ohmori outside of some drama he directed 7 years prior which I doubt anyone has heard of. It's a serviceable effort from the man, capturing what he needs and knowing what to use. There's a great use of lighting, shadows and angles throughout, Kenjirô offers enough that it keeps the viewer invested throughout the first half before taking a 180 and going balls to the wall in the second.
A lot of what makes these films worthwhile is being able to get engaged with all the human drama going on and thankfully due to the efforts of Kaneto Shindō, yes THAT Kaneto Shindō, it's a lovely look at what happens when a person's belief in something is pushed to the max and how it affects the people around them. There's still time to focus on both the higher-ups and the common folk, but not to the same extent that it was explored in the later Tokyo Blackout, however unlike that film which thrust the disaster pretty much from the outset, Magnitude 7.9 takes about 66-minutes to get to it's advertised disaster.
Speaking of the destruction, there is about 20 minutes worth of equally gorgeous and utterly horrifying set pieces courtesy of the king that is Teruyoshi Nakano. While it's not his best work it does bring to life so many situations that would not be the best-case scenario to be caught in, especially that of riding an underground train at the time of the earthquake striking or landing in a 747 as the earthquake tears apart the runway. Of course, there are a couple of reused sequences from the likes of both Submersion of Japan and the banned Prophecies of Nostradamus but even then they are reduced to only a few shots so they don't make themselves that known unless you know to look for them.
While I praised the character work earlier, what Magnitude 7.9 fails to capture is any form of attachment to a lot of our everyday protagonists. The acting isn't bad, again serviceable but you'd be expecting Toho to try and rope in a few more familiar faces than what we got. The likes of both Hiroshi Katsuno and Yoshio Inaba are welcome presences as are Eiji Okada and Toshiyuki Nagashima and all deliver sound performances but nothing that really stands out that much in the grand scheme of this genre. There are a lot of cute father and son moments that really touched my heart with them seemingly reconnecting over the father's ousting and their little embraces really got the tears going at points.
The only other major critique I have is with the music composed by Toshiaki Tsushima. It's not a bad score but the music placement is all over the place, cutting out when there would be music and overwhelming the visuals when there shouldn't be any. It all feels a bit mistimed and mismatched. It's not one I'll desperately seek out to listen to again.
Overall, I'd find it hard to recommend Magnitude 7.9 to someone who wasn't that invested in exploring the realms of Japanese disaster films, it's a perfectly fine movie don't get me wrong, but a lot of the elements in certain areas have been done better by others. It's worth it all for the destruction sequences alone though.
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You don't know how to forgive yourself
Chances are most of you reading this have never heard of this film before today. It's odd being only the second person on here to review it equally so but I shall do my very best to convey my thoughts to you all. Fear. A primal instinct we as humans all share. Fear of the unknown, fear of the unexplained, fear of anything different to the norm and Tokyo Blackout exploits those fears to the max.A dome-shaped electromagnetic cloud suddenly covers Tokyo. The city becomes totally blocked and isolated from the rest of the world. With the temperature inside the cloud slowly increasing, the Soviet Pacific fleet getting closer and the U.S. forcing Japan to form a new government to help stabilise the situation. Scientists and research workers outside Tokyo must race against time to find out how to get through the cloud, rescue the 2 million lives and the country's fate all before the residents of Tokyo boil alive.
Equal parts Cold War thriller and natural disaster piece, it's another product of the insane imagination of Sakyo Komatsu—the same mind who brought us the likes of Japan Sinks and ESPY. Tokyo Blackout asks the difficult questions about the prospect of never seeing an entire capital city again, how the country would respond, how would its people react and what on earth can we do to possibly return to a sense of normality.
The multitude of plotlines keeps the viewer invested in one way or another. Be it the political outcry from the higher-ups trying to retain some form of order while the government has become unreachable, the ever-mysterious threat of the cloud baffling the scientists at every turn, or the more down-to-earth everyman stories of people simply missing their families and trying everything they can to return to them.
There's a lot here for everyone and anyone and I loved every second of it. Especially a beautiful little personal moment of calm stillness as two friends share a drink over the prospects of never seeing their families again, one barely holding her drink and the other downing it in one, two very different upbringings yet extremely touching as they both recognise each other's faults and guilts through the simple act of sharing a drink.
Directed by Toshio Masuda, a name known to me for a multitude of reasons, be it Tora! Tora! Tora!, Space Battleship Yamato or Prophecies of Nostradamus. You know he's going to deliver a visually striking film and while Tokyo Blackout is one of his more understated pieces it still carries with it some incredible imagery and excellent visual storytelling across the film's 2-hour runtime.
The visual effects from Teruyoshi Nakano are the quality you've come to expect from the ever-proficient man. Even in this upscaled copy, I'm watching, you can tell how much passion he puts into every shot. Granted there are some odd uses of front projection work that don't quite stand up to scrutiny nowadays but the rest of the film is absolutely stunning that it gets a pass. The shots of the US radar plane trying to navigate above the cloud as it's desperate to find out just what on earth it is are stunning, especially during the sequence of every engine slowly losing power and eventually St Elmo's fire is seen by its crew.
The cast all does a great job, there's no one who really stood out to me apart from the so-so English-speaking cast of the production who are laughable at points, nothing new for Japanese cinema at this point though. There are the usual bunch of Toho regulars you've come to expect from these films, Tetsurō Tamba, Tsunehiko Watase, Shinji Yamashita, Isao Natsuyagi and an early appearance from Ittoku Kishibe. Dennis Falt, that Soviet Sub Commander from The Return of Godzilla even makes a brief cameo role this time as a US pilot.
Perhaps Tokyo Blackout's other standout piece is the musical score by French composer Maurice Jarre, the same man who composed the music to Lawerance of Arabia. It's a very rousing and tragic score made all the more impressive by Jarre's limited use of synths lending itself to very easy listening if you can find a copy of the score.
Overall, Tokyo Blackout while being somewhat overly long in the dialogue department at points is a very unique and yet human story that needs way more appreciation than it has currently. Give it a watch when you can.
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Impressively goofy yet equally dark
A spiritual successor to Yuen Woo-ping's earlier triumph, Drunken Master, The Magnificent Butcher does take a while to get going but once it does, it doesn't let up. Its action is consistently wonderful, often the result of a misunderstanding due to Sammo Hung's character being too impatient to hear the whole story leading to a series of unfortunate events throughout. The combination of Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao is always a treat and here it's no different, but as a comedy film first, the tone is right down the middle, featuring everything from fart jokes and the Popeye theme to an incestuous rape which drastically changes the direction of its story, if a little clumsily. Regardless, what The Magnificent Butcher does offer is Woo-ping patterned precision and creativity when conducting a fight scene with the two different tones of the movie offering such visceral moments of martial arts excellence.Was this review helpful to you?
Solid if lacking
Just Heroes is far from John Woo's finest hour, but even then there's a lot to love about this minor classic, with Woo's trademarked heroic bloodshed coming out in full force during the finale. Commissioned by Tsui Hark to raise retirement money for a broke Chang Cheh, John Woo's main influence and tutor, Cheh then spent said money on making another film instead. Woo only directed about 60% of this and his style is plainly obvious when compared to the 40% helmed by Wu Ma. It's the kind of film that desperately needs another 20-30 minutes to let all its ideas flow, it feels rushed which doesn't surprise me given how quickly it was thrown together, the pedestrian script could have done with some tightening up. Despite this, Just Heroes boasts a funky musical score, some great performances from David Chiang, Danny Lee and a young Stephen Chow and is packed full of intrigue even in a routine-like mob world with elements that feel like they belong to a Takeshi Kitano yakuza thriller.Was this review helpful to you?
You can see why Woo was hired for Mission: Impossible
John Woo's penultimate film before his emigration to America and produced during his two masterpieces of Bullet in the Head and Hard Boiled, Once a Thief is certainly more laid back than the two films it's sandwiched between which leaves it in an odd position. It's a loving send-up of the 50s globe-trotting capers with Woo's signature explosive style of hi-octane action, a nice mix of a playful, romantic love triangle between childhood friends in a relentless pursuit of impossible dreams and exuberant slapstick comedy (the wheelchair dance is truly kino). It's the sort of film atypical of Hollywood at the time and no wonder he was chosen to helm the best instalment of the first three Mission Impossible films, just a shame he didn't bring Chow Yun-fat along for the ride.Was this review helpful to you?
Controversial Woo is Good Woo
Released during John Woo's so-called "Golden Period", Bullet in the Head is easily Woo's most personal and bluntest film that he himself financed single handily. While hits like The Killer solidified his bromantic style of filmmaking, Bullet turns it on its head. It's a disturbing masterpiece that he rewrote as a reaction to the June Fourth Incident and it doesn't pull any of its punches. Even opening the film to "I'm a Believer" doesn't prepare you for the sheer masterclass that is about to unfold. I really wish his original 3-hour cut would grace our screens one day, but even in its truncated form, Bullet in the Head is sheer perfection.Was this review helpful to you?
Woo at his finest
Unquestionably the crowning jewel of John Woo's filmography, Hard Boiled is a film that doesn't have anything to prove and Woo's last hurrah to the industry that brought him lasting vitality as a filmmaker. Mayhem has never looked better. So many films owe their origins to this movie and Woo himself, his shootouts are a ballet; his firebombings are poetry. And while he lets the body count get away from him, he constantly fascinates, through a combination of chaos and an excruciating control over what we're allowed to see.Boasting some of the finest action sequences ever filmed and beautiful emotional resonance Hard Boiled is a powerful thriller that hits hard in more ways than one. It's the very definition of an action masterpiece; Heroic Bloodshed that only Woo could deliver, give him a gun, he's Superman. But give the man two and he's a God.
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Pretty fun Terminator knock off
Takashi Yamazaki's Returner is an absolutely bonkers riff on Sci-Fi staples like Men in Black and The Terminator, so much of it is borrowed it's almost like watching a tribute band perform the greatest hits. It's pretty much carried by its incredible cast of actors, brilliantly violent tendencies and brisk pacing that help you deal with the awful colour grading, hid the gaping plot holes and accept so-so VFX. Gonna be interesting to see what he does with the next Godzilla film in a year...Was this review helpful to you?
Wong Jing does John Woo
Mercenaries from Hong Kong is a Shaw Brothers venture into the territory seen in the likes of both The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Geese. With a visceral onslaught of sight gags, light-hearted banter and energetic synth score contrasting heavily with the never-ending action, bloody knife fights and some of the very grim elements; Wong Jing earns his director's paycheck, establishes his style from less-than-humble beginnings and gives us a flair for what would shape the later years of Hong Kong cinema.Was this review helpful to you?
Just as fun as the previous adventure
After viewing the pleasantly surprising Ironfinger I had to check out its sequel sooner rather than later. Golden Eyes, again a translator's joke of a title, plays itself slightly straighter than the previous adventure. I say slightly because there are still out-and-out ridiculous moments sprinkled through its runtime that rival that of its predecessor.A killer-for-hire gets mixed up in an intense battle for control over a gold smuggling route from Beirut to Tokyo, all the while trying to support a little girl in her quest for vengeance over the men who killed her dad.
Golden Eyes continues the mysterious international intrigue set up by the Bond series with the globe-trotting antics of its cast. I'd mentioned that this film does contain some ridiculous moments worthy of its predecessor and that is true. Be it the amazing use of ricocheting bullets to shoot guns at guns to fight assailants dressed as nuns pushing baby carriages with machine guns mounted on them or the poison gas chicken room service or the champagne bottle firing squad, Golden Eyes hardly lacks inventive ideas. But there's an equal mean streak going on here and the moment the two leading ladies get tortured with a cigarette lighter is admittedly a hard watch.
Jun Fukuda's direction is perfectly solid, I don't think it's nearly as diverse as the previous film but serves it's duty well. He directs the action sequences with such kinetic energy you can't help but be suckered in, helped by the short 80-minute runtime. The man knows how to direct engaging gunfights. The writing is a strange combination of returning talent Michio Tsuzuki, Ei Ogawa of the Bloodthirsty trilogy and Space Amoeba fame and even Jun Fukuda gets some semblance of duties when handling the writing.
Akira Takarada continues to be an effortlessly badass, with all his charm and sophistication carrying over. Ichirô Arishima's character Detective Tezuka is back only this time played by the equally reliable Makoto Satō who makes the character his own while still managing to carry over elements of Arishima's portrayal. Bibari Maeda and Tomomi Sawa both play great equivalent Bond girls with Maeda's Ruby acting as a constant foil for Takarada's Andy to overcome. Of course, it's equally wonderful to see Yoshio Tsuchiya as one of the bad guys and is very much the film's primary antagonist to overcome even if he does get overshadowed by Andrew Hughes' blind eccentric billionaire Mr Stonefeller and his dog Sinbad.
The music by Masaru Satō continues his efforts from Ironfinger. Bringing back a few of his cues from the previous film but also enhancing a lot of them by adding more elements to them. The title song is also in English this time around and if anything is a bigger earworm than the last one, I definitely prefer it.
Overall, Golden Eyes may be seen as having diminishing returns when directly compared to Ironfinger, but what it lacks in contrast it makes up for in sheer fun, great acting and engaging action set pieces. The 100 Shot, 100 Killed series, unfortunately, ended here in what you can easily picture as turning into a multi-episode adventure.
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Japan meets 007
Ironfinger was such a pleasantly surprising film, the Japanese tend to have a good track record for Bondsplotation and this is no exception. I'd honestly say it's a much better film than most of the Connery outings and this one even stars a later Bond girl to boot. The title of this film is actually 100 Shot, 100 Killed, Ironfinger was more of a translator's joke to more closely associate it with the James Bond series that it's a parody of.After being mistaken for an Interpol agent, a man who was just supposed to go on vacation gets mixed up in a war between two gangs intent on winning the favour of a notorious arms dealer.
For those of you who read my Godzilla reviews know I'm not a fan of Jun Fukuda's work on the series, nor his Star Wars venture The War in Space, I am however a big fan of his other works, the man clearly has a talent for mad-cap action and Ironfinger is just another film I can add to his repertoire of great films. Funny, inventive and full of wit, it's hard not to love its madness.
The whole idiot accidentally becomes Hero trope is nothing new, I'll admit. But it's played off in a fantastic way befitting of Fukuda's manic and inventive directional techniques, combined with a superbly written screenplay by Kihachi Okamoto and Michio Tsuzuki that balances the playful tone with a much more menacing and serious threat looming overhead with a deadly gang war with a poor tourist caught in the middle.
It's got everything you could want from a Japanese take on James Bond, the action, the gadgets, the humour, the girls, the partial nudity, the seemingly indestructible henchman and a likeable lead to boot, all presented in a nice mad cap Japanese concoction that should satisfy the most die-hard of Bond fans.
Akira Takarada is cast against his usual type of more buttoned-down archetypes into one of a bumbling fool that effortlessly switches between speaking Japanese, French and English with such outstanding effort, it can't be easy. Mie Hama stars as the film's female lead, eventually going on to play Kissy Suzuki in You Only Live Twice, she gets way more to do here than she does in her later official Bond film. It's kinda sad when a knockoff does that better than the series it's knocking off. Other familiar faces include Ichirô Arishima, Susumu Kurobe, Chōtarō Tōgin and of course, Akihiko Hirata playing the film's villainous henchman.
The score by Masaru Satō is genuinely good fun, it combines his usual trappings with a fun dose of John Barry-esque motifs. There's even a killer theme song to boot although not quite on the same level as some Bond numbers, it's catchy enough to stick with you.
Overall, Ironfinger is another fab film from Jun Fukuda, up there with the likes of ESPY and The Secret of the Telegain in terms of sheer quality mixed with brilliant storytelling. I'd easily watch more of this sort of stuff from Fukuda and thankfully there's a sequel.
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One of John Woo's Magnum Opus'
Hong Kong Theatrical CutUnquestionably one of John Woo's magnum opuses, released at a time when Hong Kong was inundated with over-the-top action films, The Killer still endures to this day the prime example of the 'heroic bloodshed' subgenre that Woo excels at. With high-octane action set pieces, theatrical characterizations and an unrelenting sense of redemption, The Killer succeeded in everything it set out to do and then some, finally getting John Woo the attention he deserved in the West, for better or worse.
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The best street fighter movie
I'm not overly familiar with Tsukasa Hojo's original manga, but I have seen the original anime a long time ago. As adaptations of the source material go, Wong Jing's City Hunter isn't really the most faithful, it tones down a lot of Ryō's antics to fit with Jackie's style of humour and image but offers in its place a genuinely great movie that doesn't repeat a lot of the mistakes of American anime adaptations by trying to make it gritty, it's bat shit insane in the best way possible. It's also the best adaptation of Street Fighter this side of Future Cops, who doesn't wanna see Jackie Chan dressed as Chun-Li?Was this review helpful to you?
