i beg for you all to watch this. its so beautiful.
we often forget the people left behind, stuck and isolated.
and by that i mean we often forget the queer men and woman that are older. they are stuck in difficult situation as they were born in a time were being queer was even more difficult and so a lot of these older people filled the societal norm and expectation but that creates isolation, frustration and loneliness.seeing all those years go by must be extremely painful and exhausting for those who are unlucky. the world and its people take the lives off so many even if a lot of these people don't commit suicide because they take the life they want, they take what these people desire and villainized them.
this film is beautiful in its simplistic story and score.
the characters while generations older feel in some ways relatable in the fear of chosing the wrong path and being stuck in a way that you can't get out.
they are sympathetic, the leads are wholesome together and the film displays how much these people have silently suffered for all those years and still do.pls, watch this film.
Recently Reviewed
rewatching it to see how my opinion would change since the last time i watched it, my taste in film and how preceive certain aspects has changed.
imo atsv is still good but a lot of problems add up.
some characters are present but don't do a lick of importance like peter B. parker, margo kess, jessica drew are just there and thats sad especially for peter. he used to be very important in the first film and you don't need a lot of screen time to be important but i don't feel like he did all that much in the end.
pavitr and hobie feel much more characterized in their limited screentime.the film is far more of a mess then its predeccesor. where that film was tight in its narrative, this one is all over the place.
one half is given to the spot and one to the spider society.
i think the second half is a lot more engaging then its first.
don't get me wrong, i like seeing miles struggle with his relationships but also the spot is there and while he's a good villain, he dissapears from the second act entirely and at the point where he comes back at the end for a cliffhanger he loses half of his evil presence. also miles and his family stuff entirely dissapear in the second half despite being set up as plot point.obviously these plot points will be hopefully resolved in the next installement but i don't think that should excuse why its suddenly just buried. i mean yeah its one part of a two parter but it also should stand on its own and i think you can't just drop it out of nowhere.
his family stuff does somewhat connect to wanting to see gwen again but its not an indirect reason.jumping from focus is not inherently a bad thing but when the things are so big, it then and only then becomes a problem.
the film is still engaging and fun, miles and gwen are character i still think are fun to follow, they both are trapped in a film that can't make up its mind on what it does and just sets up a billion things that are gonna happen in the third film.i think the film inherently wants to explore the racism miles faces as a black person in both the film and in real life as the spider society is a sort of metaphorically being for that and on one hand its a decent metaphore but on the other hand, all of these people face in some way as much as he does. there are literal black people in the film and while racism inside of ones community isn't uncommon, it doesn't come over very well for its metaphore, its suppose to be about the superhero fandom and while i don't want to generalize but lets be honest the superhero fandom is 85% comprised of white males and those are the ones who mostly think miles is not spider man and so that entire metatextual metaphore becomes incoherent.
also, sure its a great film but no amount of good things is gonna distract me of nostalgia that is implanted and fan service in this.
spider people we've never seen in a film, thats fine but my limit is donald glover prowler and the sony spider man villain cinematic universe(godawful name lol)
its impossible to ignore how much of a stepping stone this is for woo in his eventually direction towards action and his style but he doesn't have a clear grasp of emotional storytelling here, i mean its not awful but the characters are just oke but there are also just to many for an 83 min film to handle. woo's direction is still good tho and the film is still entertaining.
obviously not as good as the first film but its still strong and at this point in chan's career he has mastered his style of martial arts, he knows how to edit, direct and choreograph everything which makes for some great and fluid action.
Better then the first film with its racism allegory yet far duller with its characters and jokes.
Its not funny at all, judy and nick feel so empty. Gary, the snake is more a plot device then a character which im kinda sick of saying for movies which so obviously have this problem.
The animation is good ig.
Jason bateman sounds bored asf.
ka-kui is a great protagonist, he's strong and knows what to do when he gets himself in a corner but he can also be incompetent, foolish and act like a baffoon but what matters is that he has heart.
i do think the film in retrospect struggles with its other characters, i do like some of them and the light commentary on corruption inside the police itself and the law. salina is a fine character, really she's more of a device for the plot, to be protected but i think brigitte lin gives her a smart and charismatic personality.
the action is top notch and an evolution of what jackie did in the drunken master.
old martial arts films are so cool and feel like something that is extinct now.
where as these films have punchy sound design and long takes, modern action films ingeneral just don't allow for these types of films to thrive anymore. at least not to my knowledge.
First of all, why do I give this one such a high rating and a movie like zootopia such a negative one?
They sound uncomparable except for the fact that in my zootopia review I hated the worldview the movie had on cops. There are good cops, that is true but the movie also wants to tackle racism and corruption within the system but forgets to completely ignore the cop side of thing.
Its a very poor view of those things, the movie sucks because of that.Hard boiled also revolves around cops but its not about racism, its not about corruption at least not like that.
The movie sweeps you into this grounded yet over the top world with simple but great characters.
Tequila is stubborn, he gets into a lot of trouble and he always just goes in without thinking but later on he's able to show that he is more then meets the eye and actual displays not intelligent smart but rather street smart. We also see in the beginning that he cares about his fellow men when a cop dies and has a funeral.Pang, his boss doesn't understand him and sometimes is understandable annoyed by tequila but he also is willing to sacrifice alan if he needs to but the movie later on in the third act has pang forcibly and unknowingly by the bad guys has to watch has some of his men are brutally murdered and later on he is willing to make all of his officers drop his gun for alan. Its simple but it works.
Alan is such a good character, we see with him the underbelly of the underworld and the violence that comes with it. He's clearly horrified multiple times but he has to do what is done to win over the trust of Johnny.
He has to kill many, many guys and that does impact him in the third act where he probably felt like he had to set things right and sacrifice himself for what he has done.Alan and tequila are somewhat of direct opposites of eachother.
While they can both be stubborn, alan is a lot more willing to take the commands of his superior, he still qeustions some of the choices but ultimately goes through with them while tequila in classic movie cop fashion does things in his own way which lands him in trouble most of the time.
I would say some characters like Johnny and Teresa feel undeveloped but I still like how Teresa doesn't argue with tequila despite hinting at a straining relationship. She keeps things proffesional and stays proffesional. Also its not like she and him only bicker, they do just have normal conversations together.now what about the action?
The action is elegant, these are not gun fights, these are dances, these soap operas and the way woo is able to use slow motion to way that he does is so magnificent.
I wanted to cry sometimes with good the action is. Its definitly fast paced but the camera is steady, the editing is sometimes fast but not to fast but it also can be slow and able to create suspense.
The sound design and things like gushing blood effects for these fights are so immaculate. Like one scene where someone kills another guy for being an alleged traitor feels theatrical in the best way possible, the camera moves so nice in that scene.
The action is also helped by the fact that the cinematography is excellent.
Shots feel precise but can also feel shaky when they need to be.
There are a lot of things like fade ins and outs and screen wipes that feel so much like they are from a by gone era which is half true but the film uses these in such a fun and cool way that I hope they are gonna be used more often. In 2025 fade ins and out were definitly used a lot in popular films like one battle after another and no other choice.
The film is a quick reminder of how action films should look and not like washed out hazards like every modern action flick.The performance are all perfect.
Chow Yun fat should get more recognition as much as Tony leung nowadays has after being in a blockbuster like shang chi and a movie like in the mood for love getting more and more popular.
Tony leung is also perfect, a lot of his facial expressions are great, same for chow Yun fat.
A lot of the dialogue is sharp but the performance strike a nice balance between Hollywood "realism" and Hong Kong theatricality.
John who's direction seems effortless in that area.
Maybe one of the coolest films i've ever seen.Its a cop movie yes and while my statements on some movies like zootopia contradicts the love I have for this movie, simply the difference here is that it doesn't swing higher for what it wants. It doesn't use random citizen as bodybags to not care about.
Movies like kingsman for example while not necessarily featuring cops, it does have a secret organization to save people but also toys with the lives of people. The church scene is a decent example where everybody is killed but there are no reprecussions.
Same with eggsy's driver in the first action scene. Just there to be killed and never being acknowledged.
i did enjoy it but more so at how awful it is.
it fundementally misunderstands the first film and unlike the first film it just plays it straight as both a comedy and superhero film.the first film worked in both those genre's because
A:it was cleverly subverting the superhero genre.
and B: a lot of the comedy came from those twists of the genre.
when you play one completely straight, the other one becomes less effective as well.
i love the first kick ass movie because it unironically just says that being a superhero actually sucks and you shouldn't do that, it tells a story a superhero film or comic book would do but make the main characters kinda morally grey or dubious.
kick ass 2 just says "superheroes are awesome dude"
I LOVE YOU HATSUNE MIKU!!!
TAKE MY FIRST BORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TAKE MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!!
TAKE MY EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
really the first half really fails to grip me, some of its editing and camera movements really bothered me as a whole, not to mention i wasn't moved by any of the characters. the second half has a lot more energy and actually inject some nuance into the story but the eventually twist of both of them having a horrible relationship feels so cliche and overdone.
the performances are great and while i did have some problems early on, the editing is decent and the cinematography is good.
i just think its narrative doesn't give me any to chew on, i wasn't moved a lot.
pretty much everything everyone has already said.
pretty good subversion of the rape revenge genre.it doesn't really have great characters but it didn't need to have an exploration of its character for us to emotionally connect with her.
the film doesn't pretend that its anything but a film about survival. its never shot or at least i never felt like the camera and jen felt violent but rather they just want to get out of there.
