Iceman: The Time Traveller

[hotsake]

It's sad when the first ten minutes is the best part of the movie and its a recap of the first film that I didn't really even like. The film looks cheap and unfinished and feels like it had the budget of TVB TV show episode. The martial arts action was hampered by bad editing, use of bad CGI and obvious stunt doubles. Donnie Yen looks embarrassed to be in this and I was sad to see him in such a shitty mess of a film. The lead was annoying and her hair looked like shit and was very distracting. After the first ten minutes the film jumps around a bit not making much sense only to end up pretty much disregarding most of the first film. Also there are way to many Chinese propaganda moments, now I'm not against propaganda if it makes sense to the movie but here it doesn't. Donnie Yen's character salutes the portrait of Mao, but why he wouldn't even know who that is. Then a little later there is a scene where the characters go back to 1927 for the sole purpose of doing some Japan bashing, literally that was the only reason as it has no bearing on the story and include actual war footage just to hammer the point home. After that the story picks up again, well kind of anyway, We finally get back to the right era but then we are treated to a 15-20 minute montage of Yen's character returning to his village followed by drinking, dancing, and teaching people rock, paper, scissors along with a healthy dose of the female lead getting jealous of Yen's home town crush before having them bond by her introducing all the female villagers to skin care products, chocolate, and perfume. The ending was entertaining even if it was really sloppy and I can't say I didn't enjoy watching Yasuaki Kurata & Donnie Yen fight.