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DVD The Blood Bond
 Run time: 86 min Rating: 3.4 Genres: Action | Thriller Director: Michael Biehn, Antony Szeto Writers: Bey Logan, Nicholas Eriksson Stars: Michael Biehn, Phoenix Chou, Simon Yam |
| Storyline A world-renowned spiritual leader arrives in the Asian nation of Purma to give a teaching to the faithful. Accompanying him is a retinue of monks and attendants, including his personal bodyguard, Deva, a beautiful Eurasian girl with extraordinary physical prowess. As soon as Bagwun and his party reach their hotel, they are attacked by assassins from a rebel terrorist group. Wounded, Bagwun needs to undergo a life-saving operation within twelve hours. However, his blood type is so rare that only a few donors can be found who can reach the capital in time to help. Rebel leader Lompoc obtains the same information, and has his agents kill off the donors one-by-one. Deva gets information about a possible 7th donor in a remote village in the North, and she decides to brave the dangerous journey alone into the guerrilla-held badlands. There, she finds the last possible donor whose blood can save Bagwun: a drunken, embittered former Special Forces operative named John Tremayne. Written by Anonymous |
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| Plot Keywords: shootout, knife fight, machine gun, jungle combat, woman fighting a woman | |
| Details: Country: USA, China Release Date: 27 January 2011 (Hong Kong) |
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| Box Office Budget: $2,000,000 (estimated) |
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3 comments
Fans of films like Navy Seals (1990, Rambo 2-4, Men of War (1994) etc will probably enjoy this film, the rest not so much.
Story is simple, about Deva(Phoenix Chou) who is protector of a religious leader (who resembles Dalai Lama)Bagwun. Bagwun needs a blood donor and, well, there's were Michael Biehn comes in.
Very generic film, filled clichés and bad SFX but with fairly decent martial art scenes. The biggest surprise of the film is Phoenix Chou who according to internet sources used to be a model, but is definitely just as good as Michelle Yeoh, Chingmy Yau, Maggie Q etc.
Her acting is flawed at times, her inexperience shines through, but with the material given to her, she really is impressive. Together with Michael Biehn they make this very flawed movie work.
Oddly, Michael Biehn has distanced himself from this movie, and truth be told it's not very good, however, Biehn starred in more flawed films like Rampage (1987)and shouldn't be so ashamed of this film.
Overall, if you are looking cheaply made action thriller with a girl that knows how to kick ass, without high production values, directing, script, then this movie is for you.
If you take the overall acting in this (or the dubbing for that matter), you might call it something unpleasant. Same goes for the story or character development or any "surprises" along the way. If you on other hand single out, Michael Biehns acting we're on something completely different here. Unfortunately there is only one Biehn here and he's also occupied shooting this movie (the editing of some scenes isn't the best either).
So why still give it 4 points? Well the action scenes, which actually should be the major concern of this, are quite decent. Not going "loco" for them, but shot and edited nice, and apparently rehearsed quite good. I didn't look it up, but Biehn must have taken some help for shooting those scenes and it was a good thing he did. Simon Yam might have been a great asset to that (his acting abilities in English are not that good, though still above average). The main actress is very beautiful and she might be able to deliver better performances than the one on display here. But if you just solely judge her for this, you'd be excused if you only wanted to watch still pictures of her (she's believable in the action scenes though, the ones without guns, that is).
"The Blood Bond" suffers from poor production values, faulty sound design, some amateurish directing, and the obvious discomfort of certain cast members with the English language. Co-star and co-director Michael Biehn has stated that the film was taken out of his hands in the post-production stage, so it's not really clear who is to blame. The story isn't much to write home about either, except maybe for the somewhat unusual fact that the "rebels" in a fictional third-world country are the bad guys. But Biehn has maintained some of his cool factor as an actor. And newcomer Phoenix Valen, though a little wooden in her acting, is graceful and powerful, with a gorgeous face and a solidly muscular body. I hope she gets more breaks in the action genre, though it doesn't look that way at present. *1/2 out of 4.