![\"Project](\"http:\/\/www.allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/ProjectS-Jposter.jpg\" "\\"Project")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A group of mercenaries are hired to knock over a high-tech bank and only an odd trio of police officers can stop them.<\/p>\n
Hua is an efficient soldier, proud to serve her country and glad for what little she gets in return.\u00a0 Her conflict rests in her failure to understand the capitalist intentions of her boyfriend and reconcile it with her own humble ways.\u00a0 Yeoh manages to convey all this naturally and through some marvelous acting in a role that doesn’t actually demand such.<\/p>\n Most importantly, however, Hua is a complete bad-ass.\u00a0 Through weapons, martial arts skills, flexibility and sheer persistence, she is one tough babe with the body and will to back it up.<\/p>\n I’m guessing they added this character because they thought the movie needed a love triangle, because that seems to be his primary purpose in the film.\u00a0 Chau spends the movie being awkward around Yeoh and serves a few comedic moments throughout, but is ultimately largely forgotten by the end of the picture.\u00a0 His Inspector character is a bit of a doofus, generally either messing up parts of the investigation or showing close to zero skills in combat.<\/p>\n Which is why this character exists.\u00a0 Apparently he’s Li Kuang Ming’s brother-in-law and also his partner.\u00a0 He’s intense while on duty and extremely athletic.\u00a0 While his personality and character go largely unexplored in Project S<\/strong>, his fighting skills are exceptional.<\/p>\n He plays the evil gweilo for the movie, a white guy of unknown origin who designed the underground bank vault’s layout and is now seeking to knock it off.\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, he’s a backstabbing bastard who pretty much betrays everyone he hires to help him pull of the job.<\/p>\n Yu plays the team leader of the mercenary group hired by Davidson.\u00a0 His intent is not to become a career criminal, but to pull off one job that will enable him to become the man he thinks Yang Chien Hua deserves.\u00a0 His is a confused arc, and one that technically makes him a tragic anti-hero.\u00a0 Yu plays the role with perfection, the right amount of internal conflict over what he is doing and the sadness of knowing he may be disrespecting everything the woman he loves stands for.<\/p>\n Our team of mercs are viciously loyal to one another, but aside from the few pats on the back and whatnot, there ain’t much of a story to tell here.\u00a0 Michelle Yeoh, on the other hand, loves checking out other chicks, be it in magazines or airports.\u00a0 But more on that later.<\/p>\n Yeoh’s films are typically progressive in the way they portray women.\u00a0 Of the two women prominently displayed in Project S <\/strong>(Michelle Yeoh and Athena Chu, who plays Rongguang Yu’s sister), both show a certain amount authority or power over their male peers and a good amount of independence as well.<\/p>\n Lots and lots of people are shot to death or blown up in this one.\u00a0 One guy is even shot and then<\/em> blown up.\u00a0 But the thirty deaths I counted are a minimum.\u00a0 There were a couple scenes with people getting shot or shot at and I couldn’t tell if it was fatal or not.\u00a0 Strangely, in all this carnage Michelle Yeoh only shoots one person.\u00a0 She did it with style though.<\/p>\n While I think Yang’s final confrontation of Cheng is probably the film’s intended big moment, I’d say my own favorite would have to be the fight between Michelle Yeoh and some giant white guy apparently named “Big Yank.”<\/p>\n What I like about this battle is the David and Goliath-like visual it has.\u00a0 Yeoh is absolutely minuscule compared to this guy, unable to even hit him in the face until she jumps onto a table.\u00a0 It’s pretty much as close as the movie gets to matching the tone of the Police Story<\/strong> series which, while somewhat sad, allows this particular fight to be a memorable one.<\/p>\n While actually very scant as far as quotable dialog is concerned, I suppose I did find humor in Michelle Yeoh’s character continually poking fun at Emil Chau’s character.\u00a0 When he is sent to pick her up from the airport, he’s only given the description that she’s “beautiful.”\u00a0 He wanders about the airport, almost completely ignoring Yeoh and asking a beautiful woman in red if she is who he’s looking for, but eventually spots Yeoh.\u00a0 When asked why he didn’t notice her, Chau responds that he only had that scant bit of information to go on.\u00a0 Yeoh glances at the earlier woman in red and says, “You have good taste.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Later, when trying to look inconspicuous, Chau grabs a random magazine from a magazine rack, which turns out to be a Playboy.\u00a0 Much to Chau’s chagrin, Yeoh takes the magazine from him and repeats the line.<\/p>\n For the most part, I’d say Project S<\/strong> doesn’t quite suffice.\u00a0 It’s like they didn’t quite put enough thought into the concept before executing it.\u00a0 It feels a bit like a script for another movie was just submitted, changed but slightly to allow more focus on Michelle Yeoh instead of another character (in fact, there seems to be four main characters), and then shot without thinking too much about emphasizing what made Yeoh work as an action star in Police Story III<\/strong>.\u00a0 Many of the best fight scenes and stunts are performed by Rongguang Yu’s character.\u00a0 In fact, the movie could have very easily been about him.<\/p>\n The story follows Michelle Yeoh, a Chinese officer and counter-terrorism agent who is sent to Hong Kong to assist in a police operation.\u00a0 As it turns out, her former lover is one of the mercenaries\/criminals, a faction of former military men being hired to be the muscle in a high scale bank robbery.\u00a0 Her ex, portrayed by Rongguang Yu, is actually heading out most of the operations so he can return to mainland China a rich man, marry Yeoh, and take her with him to the United States.<\/p>\n Directed by Stanley Tong, who also directed Police Story III<\/strong><\/a>, IV<\/strong><\/a>, and Rumble In The Bronx<\/strong>.\u00a0 It’s surprising that much of the charm inherent in his collaborations with Jackie is absent here.\u00a0 Not nearly enough comedy to make this a light-hearted action romp, and yet not quite enough drama to be anything but, the movie instead lands at an uncomfortable middle area.\u00a0 While certainly serviceable at times with some inventive action sequences and a few vertigo-inducing stunts, much of the film is spent with the main characters awkwardly socializing or just aimlessly walking about, talking about clues in their case.\u00a0 That being said, I wouldn’t say to steer clear (though this is yet another example of a movie that needs to be seen in its original version) as when it gets going it really works.<\/p>\n An action sequence set in an abandoned building sets the tone quite well, and a streetside shootout between the police and our mercenary semi-leads is reminiscent of Heat<\/strong>, which was actually made two years later.\u00a0 Probably the most impressive bit is the climax of the film, taking place across the confines of an underground bank vault through to an empty subway tunnel system.\u00a0 There’s plenty of shooting and fighting for everyone to leave this experience happy.\u00a0 Add to that the scattered remnants of some of the score from various Hollywood movies (including some incidental music from Aliens<\/strong><\/a>), and you’ve got something that’s at least interesting if not fun.<\/p>\n Yeoh continues a career of playing strong, independent women, written with moral complexity and depth of character.\u00a0 Her character of Yang Chien Hua starts the film sure of wanting nothing but the humble life she already leads and grows to have real conflict between her duties to the State and the wishes of her former lover.\u00a0 It’s a bit surprising to see this sort of character\/story arc in a Chinese film at all, let alone what on the surface appears to be a simple Action movie.\u00a0 This is one of the things that always set Yeoh ahead of her peers when it came to the content of her films.\u00a0 Still, they do manage to nearly undermine all this by putting so much focus on the other characters.<\/p>\n As this is a spin-off of Jackie Chan’s successful Police Story<\/strong><\/a> franchise, we do get an extended cameo from Bill Tung and a short, comedic fight sequence from Chan himself.\u00a0 It’s not a bad scene, but I think that given the rest of the film’s overall tone it sort of feels out of place and might as well have been in a different movie.\u00a0 In fact, Michelle Yeoh isn’t anywhere near the place this sequence takes place, giving it the feel of another movie anyway.<\/p>\n So as far as recommending this to anyone goes, I’d say to check it out.\u00a0 The Supercop 2<\/strong> version is dubbed and goes from decent to horrible, but remains largely intact from it’s original source.\u00a0 You’re generally not missing out on much, but it’s worth tracking down the original, especially if you’re already a Michelle Yeoh fan.<\/p>\n Crime doesn’t pay, even if you think you’re doing it for the right reasons.<\/p>\n [THE CHALK-OUTLINE] Project S a.k.a Once A Cop a.k.a. Supercop 2 (1993): Breakdown by Kain424 A group of mercenaries are hired to knock over a high-tech bank and only an odd trio of police officers can stop them. [THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THEIR BADASSITUDE] THE HEROES: Michelle Yeoh is Yang Chien Hua Hua is … Read moreAMB: PROJECT S<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1056,1133,1190,1214,1594],"class_list":["post-9534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-michelle-yeoh","tag-once-a-cop","tag-police-story","tag-project-s","tag-supercop-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/new-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Yeoh\"](\"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/3-2.jpg\" "\\"Yeoh\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nMichelle Yeoh is Yang Chien Hua<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nEmil Chau<\/span> is Inspector Li Kuang Ming<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nFan Sui Wong is Kao Shao Lung<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
THE VILLAINS:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAlain Guernier<\/span> is Roger Davidson<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRongguang Yu is Feng Cheng<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
[THE SEX AND VIOLENCE]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO:<\/span><\/h3>\n
EXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY:<\/span><\/h3>\n
MURDER BY NUMBERS: [ 30+ ]<\/span><\/h3>\n
[THE BEST OF THE REST]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
EPIC MOMENT:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nBEST LINE:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n[THE EXECUTION]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n[THE MORAL OF THE STORY]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
[THE AOBG ACTION CHECKLIST]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h1>\n
[\u00a0 ] Athlete(s) Turned \u201cActor\u201d
\n[\u00a0 ] Clinging To The Outside Of A Moving Vehicle
\n[X] Crotch Attack
\n[X] Dialogue Telling Us How Bad-Ass The Main Character(s) Is\/Are
\n[\u00a0 ] Ending Featuring An Ambulance, A Blanket or A Towel
\n[X] Factory\/Warehouse\/Castle
\n[X] Giant Explosion(s)
\n[X] Heavy Artillery
\n[X] Improvised Weapon(s)
\n[X] Macho Mode(s) Of Transportation
\n[\u00a0 ] Main Character Sports Facial Accessory(s)
\n[X] Manly Embrace(s)
\n[X] Notorious Stunt-Man Sighting [Eric Tsang]
\n[X] Passage(s) Of Time Via Montage
\n[\u00a0 ] Politically Fueled Plot Point(s)
\n[X] Senseless Destruction Of Property
\n[X] Shoot Out(s) and\/or Sword Fight(s)
\n[X] Slow-Motion Finishing Move(s)\/Death(s)
\n[X] Stupid Authoritative Figure(s)
\n[\u00a0 ] Substance Usage and\/or Abuse
\n[\u00a0 ] Tis The Season
\n[X] Torture Sequence(s)
\n[X] Unnecessary Sequel [while technically a spin-off, there is still Police Story IV<\/a>]
\n[X] Vehicle Chase(s)
\n[\u00a0 ] Vigilante Justice<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n[TOTAL: 17 outta 25]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"