REVIEW : Helios - 赤道 (2015)

The one thing that sets Helios apart from other Hong Kong action movies is how big it is. Spanning half of northeast Asia and boasting an impressive multinational cast, director duo Longman Leung and Sunny Luk return from their 2012 film Cold War with something extremely big and incredibly loud. Helios is nothing if not ambitious; some might even argue it’s overambitious.

The Koreans have built he world’s smallest nuclear weapon in the form of DC8 but all hell breaks loose when it is stolen be the infamous criminal, Helios (Chang Chen 张震) and his sidekick/assistant who is never given a name (Janice Man 文咏珊). Ji Jin-hee and Choi Si-won enters the game as two agents from South Korea tasked to retrieve the WMD that has been brought to Hong Kong. The two are joined by Counter Terrorism Response Unit inspectors Lee Yin-ming (Nick Cheung 张家辉) and Fan Ka-ming (Shawn Yue 余文乐) to track down and recover what was stolen. Physics professor Siu Chi-yan (Jacky Cheung 张学友) joins the ever growing team as a consultant.

And then there are also Chinese official Song An (Wang Xueqi 王学圻) and his assistant Yuan Xiaowen (Feng Wenjuan 冯文娟) who play the part of Great China, the wise big brother that swoops in and cleans the mess up, all with the greater good in their thoughts, even if their methods might not be everyone's favourite.

I hope I haven't lost you so far.

Eye-candies from Korea cast for very obvious reasons.

It’s hard to say who the main focus in this movie is since there are so many characters to juggle in the span of around two hours; it’s easy to say that the producers of this film have obviously bitten off much more than they could chew. The cast is huge with each name carrying a heavy bit of weight, filming locations are spread out in numerous countries, more twists and turns and plot points were added as the story progressed. The plot gets tangled up and it becomes convoluted very fast, and it doesn't help that there is almost zero character development since everyone's fighting for screen time. The big names are useless here as everyone plays stock characters with stock personalities that are as two-dimensional as characters get. You can easily replace the two Cheungs with someone of lighter credentials and it probably wouldn't change much.

Except losing the fame and attraction that comes with the big names.

Highly replaceable in terms of acting; not so much in terms of fame and popularity.

I’m not going to lie: I personally enjoyed Helios, even if it is loud and flashy. I think this is largely due to the well-choreographed fight scenes by Chin Ka-lok, especially the one between Nick Cheung and Janice Man. Girl can seriously kick some ass while Cheung fights back with the skills learned from his 2013 MMA film Unbeatable. The action sequences in the second half of the film is riveting once you learn to ignore and forgive the incredulity of everything—such as robbing a nuclear plant and smuggling the weapon into Hong Kong by commercial flight. Fighting in Helios, whether it be with fists or with guns, is rapid, it's brutal, and it can get very gory for a Hong Kong action movie.

For someone with no name and little to no dialogue, Janice Man(Left) is the perfect kick-ass sexy-hot babe who is not to be trifled with.

There's a little bit of everything in this movie: robbery, nuclear warfare, epic gunfights, political bickering, and the likes. Of course, no Hong Kong crime action film will be complete without some treachery, But I won't spoil that bit for you.

Helios probably won't win any points in the writing department, but it is highly entertaining. I will probably be anticipating the sequel promised by how the ending is set-up . As said in the epilogue, Helios is only the beginning.

As they say in Chinese: better to offend a villain than a woman. Things get even worse when that person is both.

I rate it : 8/10 stars

THE GOOD : It's pretty high on the entertainment factor; fight scenes are sleek and well-choreographed

THE BAD : Zero character development; things get real complicated real quick, quite unnecessarily might I add.

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...fancy a good, new Hong Kong film of the genre.
• ...want to watch Nick Cheung gets his ass kicked by a very pretty (read:hot) girl.
• ...are not going into JUST for the Korean actors -coughSiwoncough- Things will not end well for you emotionally. 

HELIOS - 赤道  (2015)

Genre : Action Crime

Runtime : 118 mins

Director : Longman Leung, Sunny Luk

Cast : Jacky Cheung, Nick Cheung, Choi Si-won, Ji Jin-hee et al.