“Wind Blast” Theatrical Poster
Director Gao Qun-Shu
Cast: Duan Yi-Hong, Ni Da-Hong, Jacky Wu Jing, Zhang Li, Francis Ng Chun-Yu, Yu Nan, Xia Yu, Charlie Yeung, He Tiehong, Wang Shuang-Bao, Chi Qiang
Running Time: 114 min.
By Paul Bramhall
If any movie is representative of Chinese mainstream cinema being at a crossroads, then the case for Wind Blast being it is a strong one. Made in 2010, it was a time when China’s rapid economic development saw hundreds of cinemas being opened around the country, and the likes of both Hong Kong and Hollywood came to realise the box office potential a population of over a billion could bring. At the same time, while censorship was a given in Mainland cinema, it was still a world away from the path that would be set in 2014, when President Xi Jinping famously urged the film industry to make “patriotism the main theme of literary and artistic creation”. It was a statement that ushered in the era of ‘main melody’ movies, kick started the following year with Wolf Warrior, the sophomore directorial feature of Beijing native Wu Jing, a production that unashamedly branded itself as jingoistic propaganda to the tune of box office success.
Wu Jing had spent the majority of the mid-1990’s to late-2000’s in Hong Kong being branded as the next big kung fu star. While he worked with some of the best, including Yuen Woo-Ping, Lau Kar-Leung, and Donnie Yen, he never really stuck as leading man material despite his best efforts. In 2010 he released a statement revealing that he was tired of the celebrity culture that working in Hong Kong came with, and wished to head back to his homeland. Wind Blast was the first movie he’d work on having returned to the Mainland, and giving little indication to the stardom that would await him just 5 years later, here he’s unceremoniously cast in a supporting role (which may explain why he continued to dabble in Hong Kong productions through to the mid-2010’s).
Instead, leading man duties go to Duan Yi-Hong (The Message, Extraordinary Mission), who plays one of a quartet of cops on the tail of an assassin following a hit in Hong Kong (which we see very briefly in the opening scene). Played by Xia Yu (Mojin: The Lost Legend, Birth of the Dragon), his struggling boxer took on the job to provide for his pregnant girlfriend, however his decision to take a photo of who ordered the hit has him hightail it to the Gobi Desert, where’s he pursued both by the cops and a pair of hired assassins. Director Gao Qun-Shu (The Tokyo Trial, Old Fish) casts the 4 cops giving each of them a skill which defines their character – Yi-Hong is the all-rounder with a propensity to break into Tom Cruise style sprints at any given moment, Ni Da-Hong (The Trough, Cliff Walkers) is a sharpshooter, Zhang Li (A Battle of Wits, The Taking of Tiger Mountain) is the muscle, and Wu Jing is an expert driver.
So let’s address the elephant in the room, as hard to believe as it may sound, this movie hasn’t cast Wu Jing for his martial arts talent. He does get into a couple of brief skirmishes, one which is hardly worth a mention, and the second against one of the assassins, played by Yu Nan (Expendables 2, Silent Witness), who he must have enjoyed working with enough to cast her as his love interest in Wolf Warrior. Another interesting element of Wind Blast as a Mainland production made in 2010 is its integration of Hong Kong talent into the cast. Yu Nan’s partner is a world-weary assassin played by HK legend Francis Ng (Exiled, A War Named Desire), who brings his typical charisma to the role, and Xia Yu’s pregnant girlfriend is played by Charlie Yeung (New Police Story, Seven Swords).
Behind the camera as well the Hong Kong presence can be felt, with director Qun-Shu’s decision to bring in a HK action choreographer in the form of Jackie Chan Stunt Team member Nicky Li (Invisible Target, Bad Blood). With the weight on its shoulders of being a new kind of Mainland action blockbuster, the decision to bring Li onboard is an understandable one, even if sometimes his stylistic choices feel like they contradict the dusty western style environment that the story takes place in. Qun-Shu wanted to refrain from using CGI as much as possible (and after one brief glimpse of a CGI goat, I’m glad he did), and as a result even the large-scale action sequences are done for real, eschewing the usual CGI vehicles and explosions that would become commonplace in Mainland action cinema just a couple of years later.
An ambush that takes place at night while the cops are protecting the assassin and his girlfriend is particularly effective, using the openness of the terrain they’re camped out in to create a genuine sense of tension, and also allows for a little dose of flashlight-fu. The highlight though goes to a vehicular chase sequence involving a dump truck, a jeep, and a couple of horses all in pursuit of each other, which works in some impressive stunt work and plenty of destruction. On the flip side anyone who’s seen any of Li’s previous work with Wu Jing will know he’s fond of wirework, and here is no different. Set against the mostly grounded action sequences, seeing Wu Jing suddenly scale a wall like a spider, or flip in a way which defies gravity, doesn’t quite fit with Wind Blast’s overall aesthetic. The wirework is minimal, however it’s there just enough to take the audience out of the movie whenever it crops up, which is a shame.
Where Wind Blast falls hard is in its handling of the more dramatic elements of the plot, which are executed with an almost unforgivable clumsiness. In one scene Wu Jing is driving erratically, which leads to Yi-Hong demanding him to stop. The subsequent out-of-character histrionic yelling that Jing breaks into about how his cop brother died literally comes out of nowhere, has no relation to the plot whatsoever, and is never mentioned again once the scene wraps. Plus, Wu Jing is no Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in the acting stakes. Worse still is Charlie Yeung’s role, which must surely be one of the most thankless of the decade. Reduced to playing a pitiful damsel in distress, her pregnancy is handled in what feels like exceptionally poor taste. In one scene she explains that her previous partner forced her to have an abortion every year she got pregnant, and in another scene Yu yells at her that if he dies, she must also have an abortion.
Such heavy topics deserve a sense of nuance if they’re going to be handled onscreen, however here the conversations feel like oddly placed filler, as ultimately whether Yeung’s character is pregnant or not has very little bearing on the overall plot. Editing such scenes out would also have benefitted Wind Blast’s runtime, as at close to 2 hours it could easily have 20 – 25 minutes trimmed off and would be a much more tightly paced ride as a result. I mean, did we really need a sex scene if the bodies of those partaking in it have to be blurred out? Instead, when things aren’t being blown up or we don’t have 500 horses stampeding across the screen (of which I’ll simply say it was a weird finale), Qun-Shu’s ability to keep the dramatic elements just as engaging as the action set pieces is lacking.
Thankfully the finale proves to be an entertaining one, with everyone converging on a virtually abandoned town ahead of the wind blast of the title moving in. There’s a satisfying number of explosions as Di-Hong and Francis Ng run around an empty jail building armed with sticks of dynamite, all culminating in a High Noon style stand-off in the street which ends on an amusingly abrupt note. Interestingly Qun-Shu stated at the time of Wind Blast’s release that there would definitely be a sequel. Whether the answer to why we never got one is because of the Mainland cinematic landscape changing so quickly that productions like Wind Blast were no longer viable, or if it was simply because the final product wasn’t as good as he thinks it is, is likely one we’ll never know.
Overall Wind Blast is an amicable attempt at a Mainland China blockbuster, made at a time when (usually literal) flag waving and every character needing to express their deep love of country weren’t prerequisites to a productions success. Is it a good action movie? Perhaps the best answer is, while it has good action, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good movie.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10
