Toronto After Dark Film Festival: The Rebel

Rebel-Gun-FestSince I had been concentrating all my time on watching the horror films at the festival, I decided to switch it up a little and watch the martial arts film deemed to be the most expensive movie Vietnam has ever made called ‘The Rebel.’ The film takes place in the 1920’s when the French government occupied Vietnam. Le Van Cuong (played by the handsome and talented Johnny Nguyen) is an agent working for the French and grows a conscience one day when he kills a young teenage assassin. After that incident, he is confronted with another moral dilemma when he is supposed to torture a captured daughter of a rebel leader for information on where he is. It is then Le Van Cuong realizes to stop being a traitor to his country anymore and save the girl. Action, mayhem, romance, and me drooling over Johnny Nguyen ensues.

THE GOOD

Two words. Johnny Nguyen.(a.k.a. “The man actually behind the Spider-Man costume in the ‘Spider Man’ series) For me, this film could have been complete garbage, and I still would have came out of the theatre with a huge grin on my face, and eagerly anticipating when I was going to go on IMDB and look for any other films featuring this incredibly sexy and super talented man. He is the writer/producer/choreographer and star of this film, and he you can definitely see the passion he conveys on screen, for this is his dream project.

Another actor in this movie that deserves a shout out is Dustin Nguyen who plays Sy, the strong and seemingly invincible antagonist of the film. He played the role so cold and so viciously, but was able to also provide a little humor to Sy as well. Everytime he was onscreen, he stole the show, and his fighting skills are VERY impressive.

The fighting sequences were jam packed in this film, and most people were cheering when there was a great move displayed on screen. The ending however featured the best fighting sequences and blew my mind and were also quite impressive.

THE BAD

Throw in plenty of spinning cyclone moves for the men, and hypnotising smoldering looks from Johnny Nguyen for the women, and the audience is distracted from realizing that they’re in fact watching a mediocre film.

Except for the ending, the fight sequences in the movie were not very extraordinary and were not at all as mind-blowing as I thought they would be.

Additionally, the romance sub-plot in this film was quite laughable, because the two leads lacked any real chemistry whatsoever. (This is especially apparent in their dull and lackluster love scene together)

Although the most negative point for me in this film was the fact it expected its audience to be historical scholars. Most of the audience (myself included) did not know why the French were invading Vietnam, and because the film does not inform us why, it made many scenes very confusing and incomprehensible at times. A simple explanation during the opening credits would have easily fixed this problem.

OVERALL

‘The Rebel’ may not be breaking new ground when it comes to martial arts films, but it was filled with a lot of passion and hard work, and it looked great. (It would have even looked better if we were lucky enough to see it on the 35 mm print that was unfortunately stuck at customs at the time.) Although, it wasn’t absent of major flaws, it still was far more superior than recent mainstream martial arts films. Looking foward to the next Johnny Nguyen picture! ;) I give this film a rating of 6.5 out 10

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12 thoughts on “Toronto After Dark Film Festival: The Rebel

  1. Damn, this reviewer does not know what the hell she is talking about. “Fight scene not extraordinary” my ass, the fight scene were hella good. And yes, I have seen this movie, and it is pretty good. DOn’t listen to this third-rate reviewer. Go and watch the movie and see for yourself.

  2. It’s possible. He was at TAD for about 30 seconds. Never there all week. It was weird as he’s a movie fan and “major supporter” to not see him at the festival all week…so maybe.

  3. LOL ok so let m e put it this way…..the french invading vietnam was a major part of vietnamese history……and the movie is vietnamese..so…..ya there you have it.

  4. On the historical end (“Most of the audience (myself included) did not know why the French were invading Vietnam, and because the film does not inform us why, it made many scenes very confusing and incomprehensible at times.”)

    You can bet your ass that the average Viet audience member does, and this movie was made for that audience…even with its large budget, American Crossover appeal was certainly not the intent for making this picture. It was domestic + the surrounding asian market. None of those countries are fans of colonialism and the messages in there would likely play well to the more base parts of those folks (in the same way stuff like Collateral Damage or Die Hard 2 plays in the US market)

  5. The jarring thing that struck me about THE REBEL the fascist opinion constantly put forward by the movie. Anyone of “mixed” culture/blood must die. All the baddies are of mixed french/vietnamese blood. The good guys are ‘pure viet’ – anyone else was a bystander, gun fodder or irrelevant. I don’t know if that was intentional by Nguyen and his writing team, but it was pretty ‘in-yer-face’ and kinda off-putting for a martial arts action picture – for me anyway. (hey, not that hundreds of American action pics are fascist/racist in this way, they are. But seeing it so bald-faced in this flick sullied things a tad for me.

    (On the other hand, the Train-sequence at the end from start to finish was bloody fucking fantastic on a technical level)

  6. well the events of the french in vietnam was one of the escalations that led to america thinking it would just run over the vc in the vietnam war…the french occupied it for a fair amount of time. thus would explain why a good amount of veitnamese cuisine incorporates french qualities….somewhat like the british did to india =)

  7. I think 6.5 or 7 is about right. However, I DID like the chemistry between the two leads. Not nec. the romance part, but I liked the idea of not knowing for sure if he had really had a changeof hear or was just a mole for the French.

    As for the historical scholar thing, i agree with you to a point. I didn’t know about it either; but I just went with it. Ok, the French are in Vietnam. That’s all you really need to know, so not so much of a negative for me.

    Not sure why bigsampson (above) would be learning about 1920’s Vietnam and the French invasion in his American history class, but hey – congratualtions on being such a well informed citizen.

    A couple of those neck breaking kicks in the film were wicked cool. I too look forward to more Nguyen

  8. “Although the most negative point for me in this film was the fact it expected its audience to be historical scholars.”

    hey cool rview but bieng a historic scholar? ….
    i mean the french taking control over vietnam was actually a big part of world history…hmmmm….ya i learned about this in my sophmore clas of AMERICAN history .

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