Director: Wilson Yip
Notable Cast: Louis
Koo, Wu Yue, Tony Jaa, Chris Collins, Gordon Lam, Ken Lo, Jacky Choi Kit,
Stephy Tang Lai-Yan, Chan Hon-Na, Vittaya Pansingram
Also Known As: SPL: Paradox
Wilson Yip has become one of the more interesting creative
forces to arrive in the modern era from the Chinese film industry. Both as a
director and producer, he has had a hand in creating some of the most iconic
franchises in the last 20 years from China and his work with the iconic Donnie
Yen truly skyrocketed the talented actor and martial artist into stardom.
Yet, he doesn’t necessarily play things safe with his films. His latest,
released under the title Paradox in
English, is a ‘spin off’ of one of these franchises, the popular SPL films. While Paradox has yet to receive an official US release - for the record,
the SPL films were retitled as Kill Zone for the US release so it may
or may not acquire that title too, it’s a film that certainly should. It’s
perhaps the weakest of the three SPL films
thus far, but it’s still a film that dabbles in a lot of interesting dark
territory with some stellar performances and blisters its audience with
impressive action courtesy of the legendary Sammo Hung.