12 Hours 極地追擊

A semi cyberpunk film where everything is generic

Directed by Han Guanhua

Starring: Aarif Rahman Lee, Qu Jingjing, Clara Lee, Temur Mamisashvili, Mayela, Yuen Chang Yan (Cameo)

China, 2022

I was intrigued with a Chinese version cyberpunk film but I was quickly disappointed with what the film had to offer. The film quickly devolved into a generic evil corporation experimenting on poor people story.

Aarif Lee plays King Cheng whose daughter requires surgery and he needs a large sum of money that he doesn’t have so he goes to get a loan but beknown to him the loan company is a fraudulent company using their data to kidnap people. King soon wakes in an unknown location with some other individuals, they soon are attacked by some assassins and further along a beast. As people beginning dying off we soon find out that there’s an evil corporation controlling things in order to further there company. King along with Anna soon have to somehow escape and confront the face of this evil corporation lead by Gaela.

With 6 writers its baffling how generic the plot is. The villains ultimate plan is moronic and does not justify why she is doing what she is doing and the situations the protagonists are thrust into are never explained why its necessary. Lazy writing rears head when our protagonists can deduce anything just by briefly witnessing it. Like when they spot a monster and they quickly do some calculations and figure out what the creature is or how easy King can figure out how to escape his situation.

There’s little to no nuances to the story and filled with archetype characters, characters that are boring and have no layers to them. Aarif Lee’s King is your typical good man skilled in everything. Here Lee plays cool just fine but when he emotes pain and anger he over acts. Qu Jingjing as the love interest and the other skilled protagonist probably gives the best performance out of everyone, though she’s not required to do much but act badass and she sells it. As for everyone else the acting is pretty bad the host of survivors are all caricatures of characters and they over act to the extreme. You have a spoilt rich guy whose just snarky and selfish, a nerd whose pathetic and needy to our hero and then you have this squeaky and annoying blonde chick who just screams for protection all the time. Thankfully they are mostly killed off quite quick so we are not laboured with their performances. The worse is our main villain of the piece, Korean actress Clara Lee overplays her bad girl character to the extreme spewing horrible dialogue and constantly giving evil smiles. Accompanying Clara Lee in most of her scenes is this annoying tech guy who is just horrifically bad. Everything is made even worse when Lee and this guy have to exchange dialogue in poorly spoken and written English. There’s also a very pointless cameo from Yuen Chang Yan famed choreographer and brother of Yuen Woo Ping, he appears for about a minute or two and to never return.

The film is a bit of The Matrix, Hunger Games, Blade Runner and Squid Games but the world they created never feels fully realised. The opening felt like it could have been an interesting Chinese cyberpunk film but that’s quickly over, with the rest of the film takes place mostly in a forest and abandoned warehouse.

So with a generic story we should hope that the action can save the film but sadly that’s not the case. It’s not particularly bad but it’s just so bland matters made worse knowing that Han Guanhua whose an experienced choreographer whose part of the Jackie Chan stunt team, choregraphed the action here. Action is plentiful and varied but each set piece just doesn’t quite excite. Aarif Lee showed great skills in My Brother Bruce Lee and Kung Fu Yoga, here he again demonstrates some impressive moves flowing with the combinations convincingly and throwing some wire assisted kicks. Qu Jingjing also looks badass and throws herself into the action with ease. It’s just sad that the fights are so mundane, matters made worse how poorly edited it is, with so many cuts. There’s also some terrible editing where it will cut before the move is over and to an angle where the move is obscured. There’s a scene where our survivors are chased by a CGI beast, the chase itself is ok but the visual effects is terrible, when in motion the creature stutters a lot and often resembling something of a PS2 game. Nearer the end we have a fight scene where Aarif Lee and Qu Jingjing have to face off hordes of assassins as well as Jackie Chan stunt member Temur Mamisashvili and Mexican actress Mayela. The fight itself shows hints of creativity but it never evolves to anything great with some odd wire work here and there. Mayela gets to do more in terms off fighting but Temur doesn’t really get to show his skills other than some basic axe swinging.

It is hard to recommend this film, the plot is weak and the action bland, there are better films out there to pass your time.