The Viral Factor

Sorry, but I cannot agree with all the rave reviews offered on this site. Here we have a Chinese Jason-Bourne-like character, who is on the trail of, and also abetting and saving a terrorist; a plot that involves possible use of biological weapons, corrupt agents, deadly gunfire and his mama. In short, it's something of a mess, but lots of gun-play, fistfights, and explosions will keep some folks happy.

I was inclined to leave this film early, but I find movies with Jay Zhou (or Chou as it's spelled here) amusing. Mr. Zhou has all the thespian skills of a turnip. He has his sullen face, his angry face, his sad face....in his last several films he does little talking. His shtick is to stare into the distance one way or another, and he plays this to a tee here. He can't act! Will someone please tell his paymaster! In this film a small portion of the dialog is in English, but I doubt anyone will understand Mr. Zhou's thick accent. Good thing there's subtitles! Suffice it to say, in this story the world will be doomed unless Jay Zhou succeeds.

In many scenes, the cops don't just seem helpless to stop the terrorists, they are helpless. The bad guys are near super-human, incredibly resourceful, and it's child's play for them to either gun down or escape from an army of machine-gun toting police. Several scenes definitely strain credulity; the action is not realistic, but clearly is comic-book fare.

An odd addition to the plot was the attempt to introduce sentimentality regarding one of the terrorists. This is a man who kills people, does kill many on screen, and somehow the director wants to show us his "human" side, (in this case with the introduction of a daughter that is little more than a prop in the movie), to induce pity or sympathy for him. Sorry, this guy is a killer (killers don't make good fathers, so the daughter is better off if he's not around), and he should die! John Woo did better at this sort of thing, because his Killer killed other criminals, but in this movie innocent people die. The director has connections and money, and Jay Zhou, but he has much to learn!