“Wind Blast”
Year: 2012
Director: Gao Qunshu
Stars: Yihong Duan, Zhang Li, Francis Ng Studio: Well-Go USA
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 118 Mins
Plot Synopsis:
“Wind Blast” follows killer Zhang Ning, who sneaks back into China after killing his target execution-style. Detective Leopard is summoned to crack the case. Aided by his former co-workers, he sets on a journey to find this person. But unknown to him, two deadly bounty hunters are also on Ning’s trail. They have been hired by a mastermind, who doesn’t want his face and identity to be revealed. This leads to all sorts of chaos that includes gunfights, car chases, martial-arts combat and explosions.
Film Review:
On the cover for the film “Wind Blast”, the tagline reads “A Kung Fu Western on Steroids”. That was truly the case with this film.
I enjoyed the film for the most part. Writer/director Gao Qunshu does a very good job with the way he handles his direction. The action scenes were very good here. I liked, the way that he carefully directed some of the film’s more climatic moments. Qunshu along with his action choreographer do a very good job making all of the film’s action work on screen. The two made sure that those scenes were action packed and had intensity to them. It makes for some very good moments, during the course of the film.
I also enjoyed the acting here. Qunshu does a very good job getting the performances out of his actors. I liked how, he was able to make the characters interesting through their performances. He does that, by making sure that the characters are appealing enough that you’re into the film. This film doesn’t have the best of screenplays in terms of storytelling, but making the characters look good on screen is enough considering that the action scenes were very good.
The screenplay written by Qunshu was mediocre at best. I liked, the way that Qunshu comes with some of the action sequences in the screenplay. There were some very creative sequences. He does a very good job boosting the story with those sequences while keeping you interested. The reason that this film moved at a slow pace was the way that the development of the story was slow. It started off quick, but died down slowly for almost half of the film. It starts to pick up, by the midway point of the film. It saved it from become a total disaster. It was enough to kill most of the character development, as I didn’t care about them. If the action scenes weren’t good here, then would been a very long film to watch.
Overall, there are too many positives to outweigh my grip with the film’s story. It was a tough film to sit through story wise, but the action is what makes it worth it through some of the film’s boring parts.
Blu-Ray Extras:
There’s just about an hour of material on the blu-ray. First on the Blu-Ray is the making of featurette. The featurette features interviews from the film’s director, producers and cast. Not a bad featurette, as it provides interesting stories about the film’s action scenes and its production.
The film’s behind the scenes featurette is the next extra on the disc. This was pretty much a look at what took place during filming. It felt very boring to watch. Not much information or on set interviews here, as it just captures the making of the film.
After that, the disc wraps up with the film’s original trailer.
Final Summary:
Even though this film has pacing problems, I still enjoyed this film. “Wind Blast” might have a mediocre story, but there are enough effective action sequences to make this enjoyable for me.
Review Rating: Three Stars
Extras Review: Two Stars
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