Josh vs Stan: 2.75/5
Church Fight: 4/5
Josh/Ken vs Muggers: 3/5
Tomas vs Thugs: 2.5/5
Josh/Ken vs Marty: 3.25/5
Rehab House Fight: 3.25/5
Josh vs Rich: 4/5
Ken vs Vic: 3.75/5
David vs Sam: 4/5
Josh/Ken vs Kyle: 3.5/5
I really dug this movie. It's as good an 80's Hong Kong tribute film as you'll find.
Let's start with the obvious. The fight choreography and execution are on point. The thing I love about these indy martial arts films is their clear devotion to making great fight scenes. Watching Dennis fight Manny is a dream fight for me. They're two of my favorite active screen fighters. I believe this is their first screen battle. And it's my favorite fight in the movie (Josh vs Rich, as scored above).
Fighting aside, this is a very enjoyable movie. Dennis and Ken's chemistry is great. I really liked Vlad as the noble overlooked stuntman. It's such a perfect hero for this type of film. I loved how Dennis, Ken and Vlad were clearly set up as the modern Jackie, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. Sari Sabella and Steve Yuen are quite funny. Jose Montesinos carries a lot of the emotional weight of the film. Sam Hargrave kills it as the villain. He's probably the most charismatic performance.
I do wish Shawn Bernal was in this more. He's awesome.
There's a lot of commentary going on in this movie about the entertainment industry. And how it's a bunch of malarkey. As someone in the business myself, I relate and find it awesome.
I remember Vlad talking about how the finale was where this movie was going to shine. It certainly did peak there, which is when a martial arts movie should. It was very reminiscent of the old 3 Dragon films where they would each have to take on a different bad guy. I dug that.
Now to some minor qualms I have with the movie. I don't think there are any Fight Of The Year contenders. Every fight in this movie is good (not counting the fight scenes in the movies within the movie, which I didn't grade) to great. But there's nothing I would call excellent. Now...excellent fights are hard to find. So I'm not bashing this movie at all, clearly. I think it just goes to show how hard it is to make an enduring classic fight scene. Dennis vs Manny comes the closest but I wish it had been longer.
Maybe part of my disappointment is me looking forward to watching this movie for 4 years. And maybe part of my disappointment is just that it's not Contour, which is the best indy martial arts film ever. Sure, this is a more complete and mature film than Contour, but the action never peaks as high as Contour does. That being said, Unlucky Stars has got to be my 2nd favorite indy martial arts film of all time.
There were also a couple of editing instances I didn't like. Hollywood style editing on hits rather than Hong Kong style. Again, this happens maybe 3 times in the entire film, so these are minor complaints.
I really liked how they built to the fights at the end. Manny and Roy's characters wanted a piece of Dennis and Ken from early on and you could tell. Really made it satisfying to see them throw down later.
The finale is also edited really well. The transitions between the showdowns are great. As far as martial arts film finales go you probably won't see a better one this year.
This is my favorite martial arts film since The Raid 2. Highly recommended.
