The Brink
review by Bobby Blakey
Well Go USA continues to be the premiere distributor for Asian cinema. Their latest is The Brink starring Max Jin Zhang, Shawn Yue, Yue We and Janice Man. Zhang has been on a role lately with films like Escape Plan 3 and Master Z: Ip Man Legacy,. Could this be another great action flick to add to his resume or will it drown before finishing the fight?
The Brink follows a renegade cop is on a mission to bring a shady smuggler to justice by any means necessary. When his investigation leads to a Triad mob boss and global smuggling ring, his manhunt quickly turns from local misconduct into a violent international incident. A relentless barrage of high flying action and explosive fight sequences, in this breakneck thriller, once the fists start flying, they never stop - not even underwater. I was surprised I hadn’t heard much about this one since I had been following Zhang ever since I saw him in IP Man 3. The trailer racked up almost 5000 views on our YouTube page so I was eager to see what all the fuss was about and hoped it would deliver.
While it wasn’t the film I think I was expecting it still offers up tons of great action and ended up being pretty good. The story is pretty simple but this film is all about the action and never seems to let up from the moment the film kicks off. The kept the fights old school which I loved but still over the top and clever in some of their execution. One of the biggest fights offers up two fighters taking on a ton of people but the use of big flashlights as weapons while turned on added this cool element to the overall fight.
These days it is a challenge for movies like this to really step up the game to offer something that people haven’t seen before. I thought it had already done a good job with the action throughout, but they took it in another direction all together with putting the action underwater for a time. This isn’t just swimming around, this was using weapons, martial arts etc. Not all of it is overly exciting, but it is a cool and entertaining visual that I applaud in execution.
While not all of the action was intense as I had hoped it still deliveres everything you can want from the genre and more. Everyone here is great and Zhang just further showcases why he deserves to be the leading man. Grab your copy of The Brink when it hits digital, Blu-ray and DVD on August 20th from Well Go USA.