Review of Blood Brothers (2008) by Chris W — 22 Aug 2008

Remaking a John Woo classic would never sound like a good idea, and while Blood Brothers, a remake of Bullet in the Head reset in 1930s Shanghai instead of 1960s Vietnam sounds likea decent idea on the page, on screen it's quite disappointing.

Blood Brothers is boring, awkwardly paced, poorly written, and horribly melodramatic. At times the music cues seem so well arranged, the next people are overly emotional with swirling music like something out of 1950s Hollywood.

Visuals are really the only area director Alexi Tan succeeds at as the film looks quite gorgeous and noirish at times. On the downside, is the US DVD even framed properly? It looks like a letterboxed fullscreen image, with cut-off faces and poor framing, which if those are the kinds of shots Tan wanted, this flick is even worse than it already is.