Shot on a whopping budget of USD 17 million, “THE VIRAL FACTOR” has to be one stupendous production.
It does not fail.
No expenses are spared in terms of foreign exotic locales as the story kicks off in Jordan, meanders temporarily to China, ultimately breaking at the Malaysian shores where the principal tale unfolds – leading to one adrenaline pumping meltdown.
With this multicultural potpourri, what we witness will be an awe-inspiring feast for the eyes and the ears.
Stay braced.
Hong Kong renowned action director DANTE LAM helms the colossal project with Asian A-listers: JAY CHOU and NICHOLAS TSE.
The two actors star as an unlikely pair of siblings on opposite sides of the law. It’s an implosive human drama albeit emotive crime story, laced with unforgettable gritty characters. So hang on for the ride of your life.
Crafted as an electrifying action thriller with nerve-racking tension, DANTE LAM promises you value-for-money.
This Hong Kong film director is as good as his words.
JAY CHOU plays Jon, a dedicated International Disease Commission (IDC) operative who is responsible for leading this dangerous mission: he is escorting a scientist from Jordan to the Netherlands to develop an antidote for the dangerous viral factor – a biological weapon derived from mutating the small pox virus that poses a threat to the world.
Naturally there’s to be a “mole” within the Organisation, and he is in the form of traitorous colleague Sean (ANDY ON) who eventually abducts the scientist after a violent shoot-out leaving a bullet lodged in Jon’s brain which needs to be extracted if he were to live.
His fiancee cum fellow agent Rita, however, is brutally slain.
Jon is given a few more months of his life, unless he gets the bullet dislodged, and he chooses to spend the remaining months with his mother.
Jon’s mother discloses a two-decade old family secret: that she had dumped Jon’s gambling father and an elder brother when he was barely a kid. They are both, currently residing in Kuala Lumpur.
She implores Jon to get them back.
Two estranged brothers.
One is a law enforcer, the other’s a hardened ruthless criminal.
NICHOLAS TSE is Yang – an embittered hard-core criminal who leads a life dancing the hide-and-seek game witih the law. He is a single dad and lives a seedy existence with his young daughter and a crippled gambling father who had since lost the use of one leg to shield him from harm’s way.
Life for him is bleak as he soon finds himself embroiled within a corrupt world that threatens to engulf him. His life is in peril when he strips the facade concealing the stark motive of his triad boss who hires him to kill a female scientist.
The pace is set as terse, tense and edgy.
Now, throw in a deadly virus concoction that’s looming to destroy mankind if ever it’s unleashed in this world.
That’s the premise of the story, so it’s a relentless race against time to recover an antidote.
Everything in place, we’ve got the essential ingredients of Hong Kong Director DANTE LAM’s latest mind-blowing and explosively violent offering “THE VIRAL FACTOR” shot in the Middle East, China and Malaysia.
(Part 2 of 3)
What’s in Store when you watch this PULSE-POUNDING ACTION THRILLER:
- ACTION is King, the cat-and-mouse chases are fast and furious.
You’ll cling to the edge of your seat as you watch ferocious pursuits among the police, the baddie and the underworld triads as they tear down the alley ways, the crowded streets, in the LRT foyer, in the train, aboard a freighter, in the helicopter, go on counting and there’ll be more.
- Be bedazzled
by the fiery blasts from genuine military weaponry and army tanks in Jordan and in Kuala Lumpur you will be amazed by vehicles hurtling down from roof tops, cars crashing into monsoon drains and busy shopping centers. And of course, the never-ending explosions.
- Tear jerking scenes are secondary and emotions are kept to a minimum, as with all DANTE LAM’s actioners.
- NICHOLAS TSE shines in his role as a lawless hoodlum.
At film’s end, when he fires at his opponents, watch his steely expressions. You witness a gamut of rage, pain, angst and frustration all rolled into one menacing, glazed stare.
An award-winning moment?
Perhaps.
Only time will tell.
(Part 3 of 3)
THE PRESS CONFERENCE
“Akimbo? This ONE’S for the CAMERA!”
“BEST WISHES for the YEAR of the DRAGON!”
Here’s HOPING that “THE VIRAL FACTOR” will reap healthy BOX-OFFICE RETURNS around the world!
”My PLAN to DIRECT a new film is in the pipeline.
It will be a lovey-dovey story, surely.
And this LUNAR NEW YEAR, I am aiming to spend time with my family and loved ones.”
It’s our JAY CHOU, Asian pop superstar starring in the Hollywood remake of “THE GREEN HORNET”.
Make no bones about it, but JAY Sir had been widely reported to have that teeny grasp of the English language.
Despite this obvious fact, he has beaten many notable actors on track to win the coveted role of KATO, once helmed by the late Kung Fu God BRUCE LEE.
KATO is the dream role that every Chinese action actor would want to lay hands on.
Whatever been said about JAY CHOU learning his lines phonetically, then he has more or less compensated for this flaw by “electrifying” the screen with his charm and wit.
He’s a bankable ASIAN A-lister.
STEPHEN CHOW, well-known Hong Kong actor/ producer was originally roped in to direct and play KATO, but opted out due to confounding “creative differences”.
It surely would have been interesting to see how STEPHEN CHOW renders this movie in his brand of comedic style that we love.
That is, if he had chosen to direct.
Alas, it was never meant to be.
Now, the story:
BRITT REID (SETH ROGEN) is a dead pan and laid-back party animal who lives a life of waste. When his father suddenly dies from a deadly bee sting (or perhaps, he has been murdered?), the family’s media empire becomes infested with ruthless heroin smugglers.
BRITT decides to form a collaborative alliance with KATO (JAY CHOU) his father’s trusted mechanic.
Together they spring to action to combat the bad guys by masquerading as villians. The most sinister of the baddies is the crime boss CHUDNOFSKY (CHRISTOPHER WALTZ), a Russian mobster who is uniting the criminal families of Los Angeles under his command.
This is the one his father was trying to expose.
It is KATO, his enthusiastic sidekick, who has the brawn and the brains and is a much better fighter.
He even develops a car outfitted with several gadgets and weapons, which they knighted as “The Black Beauty”.
The KATO character is a jack-of-all-trades genius, who combines awesome martial-arts skills with mechanical wizardry.
The pulse of the film is the relationship between the partner-protagonists. ROGEN and CHOU display a great chemistry together.
The casting of the JAY CHOU as KATO was initially, one of unease.
The American film makers were accused in the blogosphere of bypassing Asian-American hopefuls in a brazen attempt to capture the Asian markets.
The film’s producer, NEAL H. MORITZ told the press that he was concerned about JAY CHOU’s lack of fluency in English. At first.
By the time filming began, he had concluded that JAY CHOU’s struggles with the language made his character KATO more endearing.
For sure, SETH ROGEN looks sheepish in his black mask and costume.
And CAMERON DIAZ is just a “filler” for the movie, in a role of a shared lust object for our heroes to drool at.
You wouldn’t nullify GREEN HORNET as a total heart-stomping action thriller. Not when you have a comedian like SETH ROGEN.
More buzz than stings? Perhaps.
THE GREEN HORNET is a blockbuster that borders on part humor, part drama and was shot conventionally, then transferred to 3D.
This movie delivers about what you’d expect:
plenty of fights, car chases, explosions, shootouts and neat visual effects a la JAMES BOND.
Plus a first-rate 3D post rendering.
The humor is a hilarious fun-and-miss, more often than not.
Whilst in the West, everybody is debating whether SETH ROGEN should have played the lead, elsewhere in ASIA, all eyes are resting on JAY CHOU.
As KATO, JAY has displayed that he has the grit and mettle to play a superhero.
He’s superb.
With everything in place, the most serious challenge THE GREEN HORNET faces now is to recoup its $130 million budget, a sizable chunk of which resulted from a late decision to rework Kato-Vision in 3-D.
Can this goal be achieved?
Only time will tell with your help.
Go watch it for JAY CHOU’s sake.
At least he promises to take us on a fun-fun ride.
