Review of The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014) by Fong K — 01 Jan 2018

A small band of scrappy soldiers are followed around in the snow by an orchestra playing nothing but patriotic music. Their mission (the soldiers, not the orchestra) is to take out a nest of bandits. One of the soldiers (who wears blue eye shadow throughout the movie) manages to infiltrate the stronghold and pose as a bandit himself.

This movie did not need to be 2 1/2 hours long. The pacing is on the slow side. When any action does happen it's full of slo mo and CGI blood. Are squibs that expensive?

The big bad boss, Hawk, is kept in the shadows for a good portion of the film. He should have remained in the shadows because when he was fully revealed I had a good laugh. He looks absolutely ridiculous. All the bandits do. They look like characters out of a manga.

Oddly this film has two dramatic endings with the same characters. It's like the film makers filmed both, couldn't make up their minds which one they liked best, and decided to use both.

If you liked other movies like Wolf Warrior and Operation Mekong, you'll probably like this as well. You'll also spot some familiar faces as actors from both these films are in this one as well.