The Rebel

A-

Directed by Charlie Nguyen

Brilliantly paced and choreographed, "The Rebel" is the most pleasant surprise I have had at Fantasia this year and contains some of the most exciting and enjoyable action I have seen put to film since I watched the first three minutes of "Another Public Enemy" last night.

The film centers around Le Van Cuong, a foreign educated Vietnamese public servant who, while minding his own business one fine Saigon afternoon, gets stuck in the middle of a hit orchestrated by a peasant rebel group on a french public official of some sort who, judging by his white on white suit and shirt combo, was probably in Saigon to open up a new KFC. Badam-PISH!

Did I mention the action takes place in Colonial Vietnam during French rule? Because it does.

Although the french official targeted by the hit tragically takes one to the gut, Le Van Cuong and his evil colleague Sy manage to capture the beautiful Vo Than Thuy, daughter of the rebellion's leader and general eye candy. Sy tortures Vo Than Tuy for awhile until Le Van Cuong starts thinking with his groin rather than his brain and helps her escape. They eventually escape Saigon and hit the (dirt) highway together for a road trip of romance and complex fight sequences. Unfortunately for them they are tailed by Sy who believes that Thuy will lead him to her father's hideaway.

The very generic nature of "The Rebel" is not at all a drawback to the film since the plot is mostly there in order to set up awesome fight scenes which "The Rebel" delivers in spades. For the first forty and last thirty minutes of the film it seems that the movie is one, non-stop fight scene that skips from place to place. In the first half hour of the film, main characters fight in exotic settings such as:

1) A colonial mansion

2) A forced labor camp

3) An opium den

4) The harbor front

5) A Saigon jail

And that's just in the first thirty minutes! Charlie Nguyen obviously knows what the audience is there to see and does a commendable job of delivering it in bountiful proportions. Sure, he tosses in some romance here and there and some added bits of emotional intrigue, but this movie is all about the action and in this respect the film is basically flawless as the extremely well choreographed, riveting fight scenes follow each other at a blistering clip. "The Rebel" is 90 minutes of cinematic steroids and I truly pity the fool who doesn't feel like getting an injection.