Invisible Tattoo (2022)

Little action and bad comedy

I've been a fan of Vincent Zhao for some time and supported his work even through the rubbish with the hopes that one day he will do something that’s worthy. Sadly Invisible Tattoo is not that project. I've sat through some duds such as God Of War and Wudang in which I enjoyed a bit. Then there were Unity of Heroes, Warriors of the Nation and Counterattack which seems like master pieces compared to this. Don’t be fooled by the trailers which presented itself as an action film there’s barely any notable action here.

Chang returning to a broken marriage, his wife's death and his relationship with his daughter could have been the crux of the story but it is skimmed over. Lan hates Chang but they bond so quickly it makes everything that played before pointless. It is mentioned that Chang is a member of the Kylin Tattoo School it means nothing to the overall story, at times there were hints that the tattoo aspect had some greater meaning but in the end it was all needless and it was just one an absurd excuse for our villain to visit our protagonist. Then we have his close friends, one a duel pistol wielding sharpshooter named Ying Yang and another is a fat friend named Lan Lung. Both contribute nothing to the overall story its so forced into the film. One scene sees Chang defusing a problem for Lan Lung in a gambling den but Chang quickly resolves the matter with the gamblers and making friends with them and then they are shot by Ying Yang, it made the whole scene seem pointless and it felt like it was to establish this conflict between Chang and Ying Yang but it never amounts to anything.

Worse of all is the inclusion of a foreign circus performer named Xi Xianghong. The film maker spends a good amount of time establishing her and making her a love interest to Chang but then for her to disappear from the story, then showing up pointlessly once again at the end. Then we have the much publicised inclusion of actor and parkour expert David Belle who has no purpose, he appears midway through with nothing to do just to disappear again and then reappearing during the final act. He does like one or two parkour moves and that's it. Playing the daughter is Chinese child actress Wang Shengdi but the grown up version is played by Eurasian actress Shanti Lu which is jarring and considering how little they resemble each other. Zhao has no chemistry with his daughter in this film and its awkward seeing them bond.

The film is so schizophrenic, as mentioned there are so many random elements introduced and so many pointless characters added to the film which in turn results in an uneven film.

The film really doesn't know what it wants to be but it's definitely not an action film. It wants to be this western, art house, drama, action and comedy film but none of it works. Comedy appears so regularly but none of it is funny.

Then we have the martial arts or the lack of it. There are brief snippets where we see people being taken out with like one or two strikes here and there but that’s it. There was one moment where it looked like it was going to turn into a decent fight scene with Chang acknowledging his opponent saying to him that he must be good at fighter, then they fight and it ends in like 20 seconds. Playing Asano the Japanese villain is veteran martial arts actor Kenya Sawada, whose fought Zhao before in Warriors of the Nation, in this film they do have a final showdown but it doesn’t last very long. The fight were snippets of quality to the fight but not enough to make it worth sitting through all the crap that came before.

The only thing I can commend the film for are the sets and wardrobe which are of a high quality. There's also moments of decent cinematography with some nice usage of shadows but some moments can be a tad over saturated or over colour corrected.

This is probably the worse of Vincent Zhao’s output and there is nothing worth watching here. Skip this film.

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