ICEMAN 3D

Stars: Donnie Yen, Baoqiang Wang, Shengyi Huang, Yu Kang, Simon Yam and Hoi-Pang Lo.
Writer: Fung Lam.
Director: Wing-cheong Law.

Rating: 1.5/5

Despite the one-two warning klaxon that director Wing-cheong Law’s Iceman is both a remake and a first instalment, there must have been, at some point in the film’s long and troubled production history, the glint of a vast and involving action epic.

But the spark of inspiration that ignited this messy update of Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s 1989 cult hit is extinguished with barely a frame unspooled. Law’s lame-brained concoction aims to be, in equal parts, a martial-arts opus, low-brow crowd-pleaser and mystical history lesson; what emerges is an often incomprehensible mash-up that plays murky, amateurish and puerile.

The silliness kicks in from the opening scene, in which three cryogenically frozen warriors from the Ming dynasty – surely the greatest scientific find of the century – are being transported in what looks like a rental truck, driven by a sandwich-eating slob, with a single cop-car escort. When the truck hits a rock and a random plastic shopping bag becomes entangled in the undercarriage, the resulting crash frees the frozen soldiers.

Senior amongst the escapees is He-Ying (stunt superstar Donnie Yen, on double-duty as action director), who sets out amongst the modern nightlife of Hong Kong with an ancient artefact (more specifically, the petrified penis of the deity Shiva) that will kickstart an ancient time-travel device called the Golden Wheel of Life. He befriends drunken party girl Xiao Mei (a likable Huang Shengyi) and spends most of the film dodging idiot police officials and his thawed Ming warrior enemies, Sao (Baoqiang Wang) and Niehu (Yu Kang), who are out for revenge fuelled by what they believe was an act of betrayal 400-odd years ago (the flashback scenes, set amongst some stunning scenery and featuring a terrifically realised avalanche, are the film’s saving grace).

The misguided creativity of all involved hits rock-bottom with a SWAT team siege that finds He-Ying trapped in a lavatory; his method of escape, which begins with Yen smugly grinning straight to camera before faecal matter is sprayed over those gathered (in 3D, no less), proves an apt metaphor for the film as a whole. Ill-considered scatological humour proves a fallback option on several occasions, not least of which being the warrior’s odd skill of being able to pee like a water-cannon.

Worthless subplots abound (He-Ying’s saccharine-sweet connection with Xiao Mei’s ailing mother; some North Korean gangster violence that takes the film beyond the realm of family entertainment), none of which warrant what seems to be an interminable 105 minute running time. A largely CGI-rendered final reel confrontation atop the Tsing Ma bridge offers too much too late; a hurriedly-staged coda, designed to set-up Part 2 of the narrative (due in theatres Christmas 2014), merely serves to remind audiences of how anaemically unsatisfying Part 1 has been.