The Blacksheep Affair (1998)

My first inclination if you've found this movie page and are wondering whether to watch this movie is to say, "Run for your life!" or "Do not stop, do not pass go, put this directly into your NI list". But I will try to be slightly more objective than that because someone other than me may want to sit through this because they are a Shu Qi fan. Or perhaps a Vincent Zhao fan. Or you don't care how bad the acting and story are if you can watch some martial arts.

Let's start with the story. Vincent Zhao's character is banished to the fictional country of Lavernia (right next to Shirleenia) for saving a plane full of passengers from a high jacker. Ostensibly it's because he didn't follow orders, but I think it's because he emptied an entire magazine into the bad guy and still didn't kill him. Lavernia is a former part of the Soviet Union and there are people sent in chanting they want to return to the USSR. A Japanese cult leader is in town blowing things up and killing people left and right in his desire for a new world order. There's a boat load of Chinese refugees offshore that are starving to death. Oh, and the Minister of Defense is on the take and a gun runner and also in cahoots with the deadly cult leader. Throw into this mix, Shu Qi's character who fled China after being a witness to the violence and carnage in and around Tiananmen Square and is also Zhao's ex-girlfriend and you have one convoluted piece of work.

The propaganda is heavy handed in this film. Shu Qi's character is berated by Zhou's character and just about everybody else throughout the movie for leaving the homeland after witnessing people wounded and dying when the protesters were crushed.

Zhou is a good kicker, but his acting felt bland to me. Even at that it was much better than the rest of the male cast. Shu Qi didn't have much to do but play the pretty damsel in distress. Andrew Lin made the most of his crazed messianic villain. His character seemed especially impervious to bullets, especially after his initial capture when his rescuers sprayed the area with bullets attempting to take out his guards.

There were places in the movie so bad I was laughing but it was hard to keep it up as the ridiculousness of the scenes dragged on. Some of the fights were good, others relied heavily on wire-fu and defying the laws of gravity. I don't mind a little wire-fu outside of fantasy movies, but in a more reality-based story it seemed badly out of place.

The movie ended with an over-wrought climax that had me begging for the final credits. The most positive thing I can say is that the movie is mercifully only 90 minutes long.

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