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Saat po long (2005) More at IMDbPro »

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47 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
Donnie Yen wasn't lying.., 17 September 2005

Author: ipkevin

.. when he called SPL the pinnacle of his martial arts choreography. It rocks. HARD. Not only are the fights are brutal, fast, and complex, but Donnie may have achieved the impossible: He made Brazillian ju-jitsu look exciting on film. Donnie's character repeatedly goes for takedowns, armbars, chokes, and all the moves that you might see in a UFC or Pride match (with Sammo countering attacks exactly how the big fighters do it in a real bout), while seamlessly combining them with the incredibly fast, complex punching and kicking exchanges you'd expect in a Hong Kong flick. Did I mention that the fights are bone-crunchingly brutal? There is a real nastiness to the punchups that should yield a great reaction from enthusiastic audiences. And then there is the spectacular Wu Jing vs Donnie Yen fight. It starts off very, very fast and complex, then at a certain point, the tempo changes and you suddenly realize that it's because they're just making it up ON THE SPOT and the damn thing becomes even more impressive. The long, unbroken takes should please fight purists, too.

The film itself also holds up. Director Wilson Yip really shows off his passion and skill in this film. It's an intense crime drama that doesn't have to pander to any teeny boppers, so he is free to finally let loose. The story is solid and Yip takes the opportunity to devise some great sequences. There's a scene that cuts between Donnie looking at photos of the policemen he's about to lead and footage of the same cops intensely doing their business that is pure cinema.. a scene that could have been plain on paper, but is made exciting purely through the director's vision - the way it's cut and scored and staged. In other words, there is a lot of obvious effort put into the drama. It isn't just some thrown together filler btwn fight scenes. This is a real film. Oh, and one comment about the audio: It's amazing. The music is superb and the sound effects are everything you could hope for in a kung fu film (ie, they accentuate every move and hit as you'd want them to). I hope the DVD has a great DD5.1 track and that you have the system to play it 'cause it'll make a big difference.

Complaints? I have only one: The fights should have been a little longer, but that's okay because they burn twice as bright as most.

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35 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
A lean, dark bastard of a movie, SPL a stunning return to Hong Kong noir, 5 October 2005

Author: Brian Thibodeau from Ontario, Canada

Set to retire due to a terminal brain tumor, detective Simon Yam knows there's only one way for him and his loyal squad to deal with triad kingpin Sammo Hung and his troops: force on force. But no matter how hard they press - and they press HARD - Sammo presses back harder, and usually after he walks free when it becomes apparent Simon and his boys have violated every police procedure and human right imaginable in an effort to secure an apprehension.

When a mentally deficient A/V geek arrives at the station with a video showing Sammo teeing off on the head of Simon's undercover operative and one of his henchman finalizing the deal with a bullet to the head, Simon and his crew first beat the henchman to within an inch of his life, sending him flying off a high-rise rooftop, and then hatch a plan to edit the tape and make Sammo appear to be the killer. Of course, there's always a backup tape, and the vicious crime kingpin again walks free, this time with a master plan to wipe out Simon's unit for good.

Into this raging carnival of payback is transferred Simon's replacement Donnie, a not-quite- by-the-book hot shot whose initial protestations to the group's dark pragmatism and exclusionary procedures are rescinded after he helplessly watches one of them get slit up a treat by Sammo's snickering, psychotic blade-for-hire Jacky Wu Jing (who's hardly the "newcomer" he's being touted as by both the opening credits and the internet gossip cycle). That these two will later settle up accounts in a ferocious bout of hand-to-hand combat in the alley leading to Sammo's club is a foregone conclusion: that the fight is one of the most beautifully constructed, relentlessly exhilarating setpieces of martial arts choreography in the history of Hong Kong cinema, one that practically INVENTS new ways of kicking ass, comes as a breath of minty freshness in this era of assembly line romances and computer-assisted Jackie Chan in silly helmets.

The sequence is rivaled in short order when Donnie finally takes on the Big Man himself, virtually trashing Sammo's opulent nightclub in the process just moments after Simon's abortive last attempt to kill his archenemy buys him a series of gaping stab wounds and a Great Big Knife through his hand.

But the film isn't just about combat, phenomenal though it is; it's about consequences, and the dark decisions of the soul that, in Hong Kong movies at least, routinely resulted in cataclysm in film after film of the golden era of the 80's and 90's. The kind of movie that used to be worthy of the title Heroic Bloodshed, and a textbook exercise in escalating nihilism. No one escapes fate in SPL, not that they try very hard: combatants on both sides of the battle have tunnel vision and live only to see the other side pushing up the daisies, their own deaths often appearing as surprising to them as they are to us.

SPL feels like the movie its director, Wilson Yip, wanted to make in the mid-1990's, back when folks like Danny Lee knew the value of a hammer and a phone book in extracting confessions, so it doesn't surprise that the film is set in 1997 (a fact seemingly lost on the majority of the audience at the Toronto Film Festival where this debuted): how else to justify the "shoot-first-f***-the-questions" cocaine bust flashbacked as newly arrived Donnie quietly acquaints himself with the vacant desks of his new charges, or the sight of weary veteran Liu Kai-chi slapping around a mental retardate and trashing the poor boy's pad?

Not that the film is all bleakness. With the exception of Jacky's smirky, nutjob assassin, all the primary leads are given small vignettes that show they're firing on more than one cylinder: Simon becomes godfather to a little girl whose parents, witnesses to Sammo's dirty dealings, were killed by Jacky. Liu Kai-chi discovers the fate of his estranged father just moments before fate points his way; Donnie secretly plays video games with a mentally challenged ex-thief he clocked a little too hard; and Sammo interrupts several tense moments AND his climactic Donnie-brook to take calls from his wife, who after several failed pregnancies has finally given him a child, albeit one who will figure prominently in one of the most brutal twist endings of all time. There's more authentic characterization on display here than in any five Hong Kong action thrillers of the past few years (barring the gorgeously grim procedural of Johnny To) - not for nothing is the film set on Father's Day - a fact not lost on the likes of Yip and Yen, who must have known respective talents such as theirs, coupled with an Asian cinephile's dream cast, could only result in something truly memorable.

With little argument, this is Yip's most refined, tightly-wound effort to date, a lean, dark, unsparing bastard of a movie that melds the satiny luster of 2002, with which it shares art director Jeff Mak, with the sinewy, stripped-down plotting of BIO-ZOMBIE (minus the comedy, of course). Easily one of the best, if not THE best Hong Kong picture of 2005 so far, and I doubt the rest of the year will produce anything its equal.

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26 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
Resets the standard for modern day martial arts films, 14 October 2005

Author: martialbro5 from Toronto

When I found the film was having its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, I made it first priority to go see it. I saw it with a friend at an Industry screening in rush line. Donnie versus Sammo, can it get any better than that?

The story of the film, to make it simple, Simon Yam is the retiring determined bad-good cop, Donnie is the new good-good cop replacing him and Sammo is the mob boss. The film takes place during father's day and every character in the film is either a son or a father. Everyone is dealing with some form of father and son relationship; Sammo's character is expecting a child, Simon Yam has an adopted daughter of whose real parents were killed by men sent from Sammo, Donnie's character defies his father's wishes to become a policeman and so forth. The theme serves to add a emotional element that connects all the characters in the film. None of the characters are extreme good or extreme evil, everybody is shades of grey on different levels. There seems to be a very heavy Infernal Affairs influence here coupled with the bleak colours and dark settings. However, the film does not take itself as seriously as the IA trilogy. There are many moments of humor and it works well to break the tension of the film in the beginning to middle. The humor leaves at the middle to the finale at the end when things start to get serious; which helps engage the audience and assures them the film does not take itself any more seriously but to engage you for the duration of the movie to entertain you.

The film is shot very stylishly. Combined with the duration of the film (the film clocks in to about 97 minutes), I can imagine the meanest western critic would say this film is pretentious, trading too much style for not enough storytelling in such a short time. (Yes I already see that coming, aren't I pretty?) I would d say that would be the wrong way to look at it, because he would be forgetting the fact that this a modern day kung fu film, which has always been a very hard genre to do. In the modern day setting, it basically means you're more grounded and limited by the realms of reality, which means no obvious wirework and more realistic choreography, which you need expert talent to pull off. When you're in ancient times, you can get away with stuff, not in modern day. The story lines for modern day martial arts films have not been very impressive either in the past. It's it's own ballgame in my opinion. Only recent one I can think of is Danny the Dog/Unleashed, an old example being Jackie Chan's Police Story series (and I don't count the unevenly New Police Story).

And now, the thing you've been waiting for,.... the action! Donnie Yen commented that this was the pinnacle of his career with SPL. When you see the film, you can see what he's talking about. You know that thing when you hear reading about kung fu movies sometimes when Bruce Lee moves too fast for the camera and they ask him to slow down so people can see what's going on? I don't think much of that was going on here in SPL. The fights were lightning fast and brutal. Every move was checkmate and everyone's going for the throat. The fights are not many, but they are cruelly intense. The fight with Wu Jing and Donnie Yen in the alleyway was spectacular, I think they were rolling camera and just going at it full speed. I guess it seemed natural to do a weapon fight (baton vs. a short Japanese knife) because Wu Jing has a more graceful swift strength as to Donnie's hard and solid's. The finale with Sammo and Donnie was my favorite. Sammo is a fifty-year old two hundred pound fat man and he moves like he never aged at all. He keeps up every second with Donnie. No one had to slow anything down for him, nor nothing was undercranked or wired. Wrestling seemed to be a very natural choice for this fight, given the circumstances; Donnie and Sammo are hard, solid strength types and it added a new visual element compared to Donnie's In The Line of Duty and Tiger Cage days. This fight was so intense it made me forget what the plot of the story was about, I forgot why Donnie was fighting Sammo plotwise and just purely experienced the cinematics of the fight. You'll see what I mean when you see the film.

Yes, SPL succeeds in what it does. With more martial arts films coming out internationally (such as Ong Bak), as Donnie has been quoted as saying repetitively, Hong Kong has deteriorated in its quality of kung fu film, despite the fact that Hong Kong choreography has now become international. SPL sets the standard again and reminds the world that we still have a few things up our sleeves and that this is the Hong Kong brand of action choreography. So yes, martial arts fans, you'll definitely dig it. It's on your must-see list for sure.

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22 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best Hong Kong action flicks in the last decade!, 17 March 2006

Author: Dangerous_Lee_Handsome from United States

What do you get when you pair two martial arts legends against each other, throw in a dark, gripping, sadistic story and a boat-load of action? Well, that's simple: you get one of the best Hong Kong action flicks of recent memory. "SPL" brings it all back home and it does in violent fashion. Donnie Yen leads a cast that also includes Sammo Hung, Simon Yam and Wu Jing. I loved everything about this movie. I thought all the actors were great. I thought the story was good. The action was just brilliant! Donnie Yen's fight choreography is some of the best work he's ever done (check out the alley fight scene against Wu Jing). He mixes traditional kung fu with a little UFC grappling which I thought was pretty cool. Seeing Donnie and Sammo face off for the very first time was quite astonishing. Some of you may agree, some might not, but I think Donnie Yen is the most underrated action actors of them all. I love Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but they're like Van Damme and Seagal. They play the same character in every film. Donnie, on the other hand, is a much more versatile actor who's willing to play supporting roles or even villainous roles. It's really a shame that he can't get the Hollywood leading roles that often go to Jackie or Jet. But that could change soon. In the mean time, check this movie out! You'll love it.

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19 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
what HK marital arts cinema should be, 17 September 2005

Author: cowskickass from Canada

This movie rocks. Thats it, those are my feelings for this film summed up in a comprehensible sentence.

This is a surprisingly dark film, not all clean-cut heroes and villains story. its not a story about idealistic law enforcement, its about cops living in a very bad world, and doing whatever they need to do to get the job done.

Donnie Yen is in prime form here, its great to see him back in action and in such center-stage role. But Sammo Hung is THE MAN in this film, a perfect villain and total badass. watch it just for him.

The fights are all amazing.Its less artsy kungfu and a little more brutal streetfighting. Donnie Yen's choreography is at its best, everything looks painful and bloody. The battle between Sammo and Donnie has to be one of the best I've seen in a while.

Kill or kidnap whoever you need to see this flick. its worth it.

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17 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
thoughts on SPL, 20 September 2005

Author: GodEater from Canada

Definitely nihilistic and gritty Sha Po Lang is a good mix of cop drama and action film. I thought the direction was was quite nice although it seemed inconsistent, sometimes wandering into "art film" territory. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't know that it worked 100%. Overall I thought the movie was 'alright'. The plot was seriously stretched thin, you don't really get into the characters or care much for them; Audience members laughed at scenes that were supposed to be touching or sad but every criticism I could lay at the movies feet is fairly much washed away by the fight scenes.

Donnie yen did a spectacular job with the choreography and MMA fans will be glad to know there is an energetic mix of all types of fighting styles including Jiu Jitsu complete with take downs and arm-bars. One of the main fight sequences is the most spectacular upon first viewing and then more-so on reflection as you find out that Donnie Yen and Wu Jing had no rehearsal and no direction; simply, they were told to "go for it". To this point, the baton that yen wields in this fight scene was replaced three times as it was broken on Wu Jing's head while filming.

Sammo is fantastic and I still marvel at how he moves at his age. I've always been a fan of Donnie Yen and this is definitely a great fighting film for him. Wu Jing is a relative unknown but trained in the same opera company as Jacky Chan and Sammo Hung,being taught by Wo Ping. during the Q&A, Wu Jing said his next film will likely be a prequel to Sha Po Lang.

I took a photo of the stage assembly and thought I would include it here if anyone wants to see it. They were exceptional and patient at answering questions. even the slightly embarrassing ones.

http://virtuafighter.ca/downloads/SPL01.jpg

left to right: Translator for Wilson Yip, Wilson yip, Announcer guy, Sammo hung, Wu Jing, translator for Wu Jing.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
What a martial arts movie should look like, 27 November 2005
Author: Harry T. Yung (harry_tk_yung@yahoo.com) from Hong Kong

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Concurrent with the unveiling of a meticulously sculptured (by a top Chinese artist) statue of Bruce Lee in town, it is exciting to see screening of the best martial arts movie in recent memory.

SPL, or "Saat", "Po" and "Long" stands for the three most belligerent stars in Chinese astrology. These, as far as I can surmise from the story line, represent respectively the characters played by Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen and Simon Yam.

The gripping tension is expected. The first rate, real-stuff martial art is also expected. What is a little unexpected is an above-average story line, not particularly inspiring but certainly sufficient to carry the movie. But it's the action that is the main draw for this movie and in that department, out goes Simon Yam and in comes Wu Jing.

The two top martial art stars today are Donnie Yen and Jet Li. In some ways, Yen is even better because Li is at times too cool. Yen, on the other hand, has that fierce intensity in his eyes that none can match. Coming up fast is Wu Jing, Jet Li's "see dai" (younger brother in the martial art school) who came to the cinematic martial art world through the same route, by winning the national competition. Sammo Hung is a veteran martial art actor, but had his training through the Peking Opera acrobatic style school 9AS jackie Chan), rather than the "real thing" as Yen, Li and Wu did. Still, he can hold his own in front of a camera against these true experts.

If there were only one reason to see this martial art movie, it would be the duel between Yen and Wu. Observe the complete lack of camera movement during a good part of this sequence. Nor is there any of the usual choreography you see and many Hollywood (and Hong Kong) action movies. The two simply combine their talent and years of training and show the audience what they are capable of under the ruthless scrutiny of a stationery camera. Martial arts filming does not get better than this.

By comparison, the grand finale bout between Yen and Hung, while the climax in terms of the story line, is a bit of an anti-climax in terms of martial art excellence, although it is still quite watchable. To add more for the enjoyment of the audience, Yen brings in Jujitsu for this sequence, the Japanese martial art style that many consider to be the predecessor of Judo.

A must-see for lovers of the martial art genre, SPL has been given a Categoty III violence rating locally, not without reasons.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Shoot Punch Lick and Other Good Bits, 22 November 2005

Author: Lee Alon

The concept of joss should be familiar to many followers of Hong Kong's antics. Used profusely in James Clavell novels (Tai Pan, Noble House et al), joss relates notions of life's fickle randomness, as events remain at the mercy of capricious gods. Whatever those will, happens. Joss. Looking for a reason may be nothing more than a solid waste of time.

Although no longer in vogue as a word, joss still holds sway over things HK. To wit, this spat of top-shelf action flicks that came out of nowhere following months and perhaps years of utter dreariness.

As if Dragon Squad wasn't good enough a couple weeks back, here comes SPL, or Saat Po Lang, which literally (should, if this reviewer's language skills are any good) mean "kill the bent wolf". That particular translation does make sense in light of the film's plot, as does the Film Board's decision to waltz with danger and place a category III rating on another movie not far behind Election on the release schedule. This dalliance has us totally in thrall, for HK's censors have historically proved themselves to be timid scaredy-cats with the utmost adverse reaction to anything remotely good. And while SPL may not be the next Natural Born Killers or Bad Lieutenant, it does earn its three I's with more aplomb than a few lesser projects, and contains more than enough gratuitous bloodshed to sate action pundits.

Just like Dragon Squad, so doesn't SPL shy away from all the things that have traditionally made HK an excellent source of frenetic action nutrients. However, while DS put itself in a somewhat-comedic, hyper-realistic version of the city, SPL takes place firmly in a Gothamite rendition of HK, brooding and awash with menace. Wilson Yip (Bullets Over Summer, White Dragon) and his posse provide just the right quotients of each ingredient, resulting in an atmosphere perfectly adjusted to its purpose. You can't avoid liking the HK seen here, with its Streets of Fire/Young and Dangerous-like roaming gangs, dark, desolate cityscapes and hapless police force.

What the cops are so prostate before is Wong Po, master criminal and ruthless sadist cum family man, done by a delectable Sammo Hung. Sammo's always been good as a villain, and this Kingpin-esquire meanie's no exception. Wong Po combines the usual crazed bad guy with a loving husband, and of course possesses relentless martial arts skills. These are deployed against the movie's main protagonists, the good-but-shadowy police types everybody loves so much. They're headed by Chung (Simon Yam AGAIN), who's got it in for Wong Po after a family of witnesses under his protection got wasted on the criminal's bequest.

But Chung's naturally about to retire in order to care for his goddaughter (sole survivor of said family), so the stage is set for new captain Inspector Ma, another fighting machine in the form of ever-likable Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey, Hero, Seven Swords) to come in and join the fray. Others include abrasive, skeptic cop Ah Wah (Liu Kai Chi, pretty much in every HK movie over the last few years) and a nameless, lunatic killer employed by Wong Po (martial arts expert Wu Jing).

Save for a few minor pseudo-surprises, SPL follows a normative mold as far as story goes, but succeeds mostly in terms of its superb pace and impressive mood-setting elements. The comic book characters fit their respective personalities, can take a whole lot of damage, and have this knack for seeming serious, like they're in a real crime story rather than fiction. Gunplay, hack 'n' slash and fighting have all found a spot for themselves herein, and none overpowers the other, so that's all good, too.

Likewise, Yip managed to add quizzical surrealism to the mix by telling us the movie takes place 1994-1997. Sure, the old colonial flag of HK is seen briefly, and cop badges read Royal Police, but beyond that, it's obviously the now, not ten years ago. Cars, clothes, and buildings are all contemporary. To some, this may be ridiculous. To others, it's a useful storytelling conceit, in synch with the story's overall fairy tale, fantasy mindset.

Additional assets in SPL's collection number generally strong supporting characters (Chung's crew and Wong Po's insane-clown head minion), a gorgeous soundtrack, and this perturbing ability to fuse components from action epics like Cobra and The Punisher with gangland hysteria a la Goodfellas or Scarface (just listen to the violins as they play in the background).

Perhaps nostalgia and time won't be as kind to SPL as they were to the films that inspired it, but one can't hide from acknowledging we have before us another substantial action entry in a year that, for ten months out of twelve, was nigh on arid in the adrenaline department, and that's not even mentioning the years preceding.

Archetypal tormented cops, obsessive villains, a city teeming with unrestrained violence and props so destructible they must have cost more than hiring Simon Yam and Sammo, who have been so prolific recently we have to wonder when they get any time off.

In short, and acronyms aside, go watch it.

Rating: * * * *

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
The best Hong Kong action movie in years, 17 April 2006

Author: TrevorAclea from London, England

SPL is definitely one to import from Asia, since the Weinsteins have picked up English-language rights, which means we can expect the film to be rescored by a cheap computer program, dubbed into English by failed children's' TV presenters and cut to buggery – which is pretty criminal considering this is the best Hong Kong actioner in years, featuring superb performances from Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam and some seriously vicious I'm-not-showing-off-I-really-want-to-kill-you fight scenes. The plot is fairly standard, with Yam's dying cop on the verge of retirement crossing the line to put away Hung's very unpleasant gang lord (there's NOTHING lovable about Sammo here), implicating his replacement Yen and dooming his men as everything goes seriously wrong, but it's the execution that raises it above the norm. Aside from the brutal and convincing fight scenes superbly staged by Yen, Wai-Sun Yip's direction of the film around them is particularly strong, managing to balance a stylish but not overpowering visual sense with a gravitas and grasp of character that gives the inevitable violence more weight.

That's not to say there aren't plot holes – in one scene Hung's wife is incapable of having children and in the next she's got a one-month old child, while no police force in the world would release a criminal when they have video footage of him playing golf with an undercover cop's head even if he doesn't deliver the coup de grace – but there are fewer than usual for the genre, and if you can make allowances the strengths far outweigh them.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
I believe we are starved for some good martial arts., 1 April 2006

Author: rivermanfire from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Sammo and Donnie are already tops to me but I think that the reviews are a little generous. I understand we don't have many options so we are really going through Kung Fu withdrawal. It's OK though I am still with you in spirit.

Of course, I wanted more fighting!!! Sammo movies always had endearing characters that grew on you. Sad to say, I barely got to know these characters. There were too many clichés that didn't work for me either. Funny, I was rooting for Sammo and his assassin the whole time. I guess I just didn't like the police characters in this film. They just didn't make me believe their cause. The little girl and a brain tumor were just too trite. Too much is taken for granted from the viewer as if the lines are clearly drawn without taking the time to let it sink in. Before I knew it, it was over. Felt like a tease.

I wouldn't complain if it had more fighting. Then I would be smiling with glee and the other complaints would be minor. Still, I would rather have seen it than not. Wireless fighting rules! I can still think of tons of approaches to making martial arts films that haven't been done yet.

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