Asian Invasion: Kung-Fu Fighting

Looking back at my 2025 Asian films that I’ve seen (including some stinkers), here are some films worth mentioning. See also Kung Fu.

In a strange naming convention that I first noticed in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played With Fire, Girl Who Kicked the Hornet Nest, Girl in the Spider’s Web, Woman in the Window, The Girl in the Woods, The Girl in the Book, The Girl in the Fog, Girl on the Train, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Woman in the Window, The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, Woman in the Yard … we now have Woman With the Knife.

The Old Woman With the Knife is the story of a grandmother assassin. She is getting sloppy in her old age, and maybe it’s time for her to retire… but in this line of work, it’s never that easy, right? There is a new hotshot assassin working at grandma’s place. He’s quickly working up the ranks, and later you find out why he’s so keen on being number one.

I like movie. I was rooting for the grandmother, who has every disadvantage … yet somehow, through years of experience, she’s able to outlast all the other killers.

My only problem with this film was when it became a Die Hard movie, at the end of the film. Suddenly grandma is scaling an abandoned building, taking out 100 guys, jumping off a building with a rope and hitting targets from 20 miles away – it was just unbelievable! I guess the filmmakers wanted a big action piece … but I felt it could have been done a little better, with less bodies. Still, like I said, I did enjoy the movie, it was a fun ride… and I’m glad to see grandma still has it.

Detective Kien: The Headless Horror (Thám Tử Kiên: Kỳ Án Không Đầu) is the latest adaption of Hong Thai’s novel The Lake of Vengeance. The period horror/thriller film was directed by Victor Vu, and is a weird spinoff of Vu’s previous film, The Last Wife (2023).

From what I can remember, Detective Kien is trying to solve who murdered this woman’s daughter in this remote village by a lake. Working with the mother, and through some dumb investigation (like holding a contest to look for the person with the hand-scar), he finds the killer. That’s the thing, Detective Kien is an idiot, he got the wrong person.

Even when the fake-out is revealed, I’ve already long came to that conclusion myself. The audience should not be smarter than the main character, and that’s why I didn’t like Kien.

The big throw-down at the end, where Kien has to fight the villain. It turns out the bad guy has some amazing fighting skills (where did that come from???)… but naturally Kien is victorious and end of the story…. Except there’s more. At this late stage in the movie, there’s actually another mystery that Kien just realized (like he had forgotten all about it until the end of the movie).

Like I said, I didn’t like the story, but I thought scenery was beautiful. It was shot in a remote mountainous area of Vietnam, and it just looks isolated and natural. Also, I know it’s the movies, but everyone looks so young and beautiful. Even the mother, she looks like she’s barely in college. I couldn’t believe she gave birth (and who is like a full-grown woman at the time of her “death”).

Even though I didn’t enjoy the movie, I’m not the target audience. In Vietnam, it sold over half a million tickets and made $9M alone. Worldwide it made nearly $10M, become the second-highest Vietnamese film (behind Red Rain (Mùa Đỏ) a historic war film).

This South Korean film came out on Netflix in September 2024, but I was busy with moving, so I hadn’t had the time to mention this film… but it’s a pretty good, feel-good, comedy/action film about a young video game enthusiasts who witness and stopped a guy from beating up an officer. He is rewarded for saving the officer for what seems like a small private ankle monitor company. The guy in charge offers our hero Lee a job as a Martial Arts Officer. They’re more like probation officer, because they’re monitoring convicts. At first, he’s hesitant to join because he just wants a job that’s “fun”… but then on his first outing, he takes down a guy a taser. He’s treating this like a video game, and that’s exactly the tone of the film.

As we later learn about Lee’s tight group of video game friends, they all want to chip in and help take out bad guys. Lee really enjoys his job, mostly the joy it brings in helping people and he wants more of it. Perfect timing, because his boss got promoted to working a more dangerous division… and Lee joins him by his side. It is at this mid-point in the film that you can see the main plot of the film: they have to work this child predator case.

Once the officers are ambushed and stakes are on the line, the film takes a darker tone from the light and comedy approach in the first half of the film. After all, the film is dealing with sex offenders and rapists. Although, I will admit sometime the plot didn’t make sense to me. Like why aren’t these Martial Arts officers have guns or anything. I also didn’t really buy that his tight group of video game friends were really awesome at crime-fighting… all by learning it on YouTube, yeah right! Haha it’s cool, I don’t mind it.

It’s a fun little film, I think you’ll have a good time if you do not take it too seriously.

Read more Movies, Kung Fu, and Shaw Brothers.

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