Po.Ju (2017) Reviews

• A remake that hits all the right notes.

  samzzz-694482017-08-18

  Peace Breaker is the Chinese remake of the critically acclaimed 2014 Koren smash hit A Hard Day, and follows the original's plot faithfully, so anyone interested may want to check that out, as I won't put any spoilers on the plot here. As a way of circumventing the rigid Chinese censorship, the entire story is set in Malaysia, a country with a large ethnic Chinese minority and where Chinese is among the official languages, instead of in mainland China. If anyone wonders, certain major story elements (police corruption, drug dealing, generally portraying a city as a fairly dark place) would make it difficult if they were set in a mainland city. Perhaps for the same censorship reason, a flawless positive mainland cop character is put in the film and is played by a handsome actor, but the character is unfortunately paper thin and uninteresting. Setting the story in HK would pose different problems, such as having everyone speaking in Cantonese which would be unappealing in the mainland market. Aaron Kwok and Qianyuan Wang both gave stellar performances. They are simply the bread and butter of the film, and I can't imagine this film without their notable acting. The supporting cast is actually the weakest part of the film, as the characters are both under-written (some with terrible Chinese TV opera level dialog) and uninspired. TV-presenter-turned-singer-turned-actress Liu Tao plays Aaron Kwok's wife, but her acting is no match of her on screen husband and this is painfully obvious in almost every scene they appear together in. The technical departments have done a good job, and the script obviously benefited from the brilliance of the original, and the localization added plenty of working humor into the story. Overall, this is a fairly solid remake. 7/10

• It was a remake, only the shape was taken, and the spirit was lost

  yoggwork2019-02-18

  It was a remake, only the shape was taken, and the spirit was lost. Except Wang Qianyuan, everyone else is a garbage show.

• Terrible reproduction from the original Korean thriller

  BasicLogic2018-04-05

  The reversion is a terribly scripted, poorly directed and laughable acted product. Aaron Kwok did a poor job to play the corrupt detective role from the very beginning, his acting was just horrible; rigid, exaggerated and pretentious. He is supposed to be an A-list actor and a star, but in this film, he only showed what he was short of. The locality had moved to the southeast Asia. Tryng to avoid hitting a dog then hit a human instead was the only watchable segment. Then the ridiculous unreasonable scenes started to come up one after another. Picking up the corpse and putting into his trunk was the most ridiculous scene that only conveniently served the following up ridiculous consequential scenarios and plots, unavoidably push this film into a very painful viewing. The screenplay was such a weak and moronic script, full of unnatural flaws and plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Terrible through and through, man.

• This is how you make a film!!

  alon-dar12018-06-11

  And this is how you tell a story! Not a boring moment in this movie, amazing performance by the villain, one of the best villains ever! half the film is made at a cost of nothing - and yet these parts are brilliant! So much to learn from this film for future film writers, directors and actors, some compare this to "Die hard" well, no comparison, if in DH you understand the lightness of the plot, and are sure that nothing will harm the hero, here, you are sure of nothing. Great!

• Decent

  Eiriksterminator2018-04-08

  Don't listen to the guy who claims this is terrible, it's an okay thriller. Just okay though. The Korean original, "A Hard Day", from 2014, is better. While the differences in the events that unfold in the two versions of the movie are minor, the differences in acting and directing are more palpable. The actor for the main character in the Korean version does a much better job, and even aside from that, the personality of the character he plays is different from that of the one in the Chinese version, and well, the way he is portrayed in the Korean version just seems a lot more fitting and realistic. Same with the directing too; Just as an example, in a scene in the Chinese version where cheerful music plays, and the main character drives off laughing, the Korean version of the same scene has him being stressed and panicked, and serious music playing. That isn't to say that there aren't plenty of serious scenes in the Chinese version as well, but it's just..I don't know, overall, it just feels a bit off somehow. This is a decent watch, but having watched both versions back-to-back, I say just go with Korean movie. It is definitely the better of the two. I would give this one a 6, and the Korean one a 7 or 8.