What to Watch
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This month’s picks include forlorn dads, Appalachian pulp and more.
By Robert Daniels
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During a hostage crisis gone wrong, the SWAT captain Dong Gu (Andy On) loses his eyesight and Cena (Yang Xing), a villainous murderess, sees her sadistic lover die. As she’s hauled off to prison, Cena promises revenge against Dong Gu and the criminal gang who betrayed her. Months later, when Dong Gu’s violinist daughter is kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring, he unwittingly teams with the disguised Cena, who’s recently escaped from prison, to retrieve her.
Yang and On are a fascinating pair: Yang plays a corrosive open wound of a woman, while On portrays an honorable man pushed by desperation to the brink of evil. Both actors move with incredible dexterity, their infiltration of the baddies’ mansion recalls “John Wick” in its smooth fluidity. Those open compositions, allowing the choreography to breathe, and the easeful editing, give the director Suiqiang Huo’s film an unforgettable pulse.
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A character in the “Lupin III” manga series, Jigen Daisuke (Tetsuji Tamayama), the hero of the Japanese director Hajime Hashimoto’s same-titled film, arrives in Japan to find the celebrated gunsmith Chiharu Yaguchito (Mitsuko Kusabue) to fix his trusted combat magnum. Chiharu, however, doesn’t work on guns anymore. She’s a watchmaker. Jigen is befuddled until a girl named Oto appears with a damaged timepiece that Chiharu gave to a prostitute years ago who was seeking a gun for protection. To help Oto, Jigen confronts Adel (Yoko Maki), a deadly wheelchair user, and her shape-shifting henchman (Masatoshi Nagase).
As Jigen, Tamayama fully embraces the character’s dashing all-black fashion and graceful movements. He and the camera glide with uncommon agility. While Tamayama is breathtaking, Maki has an electric scene of her own, when in her wheelchair she drifts and slides around a room, shooting a bevy of assassins with pinpoint precision. The action is so sharp in “Jigen Daisuke” that by the end, even the villain is left smiling.
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