This is a solid debut film for Yue Feng to show off his skills as a director, actor and action choreographer. He does have tremendous potential to be the next martial arts star, but I do wish he gets better scripts. While “The King of the Streets” is more or less a popcorn martial arts action film, I do look forward to seeing more of Yue Song in upcoming martial arts films in the near future.
TITLE: The King of the Streets
FILM RELEASE: 2012
DURATION: 147 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 16:9 Widescreen, Mandarin 5.1 DTS-HD MA, Subtitles: English
COMPANY: Well Go USA Entertainment
RATED: NR
Release Date: August 6, 2013
Directed by
Story by Shen Cheng
Produced by Yang Junping, Patrick Kong Lingchen
Cinematography by Liu Zhangmu, Li You
Action Directed by Yue Song
Starring:
Yue Song as Yue Feng
Li Yufei as Xiao Yi
Yang Junping as Li Shao
Hou Yu as Ahai
Chang Kai as A Kong
Guo Wexue as Father
Yue Feng (Yue Song) is a young thug with exceptional streetfighting abilities. He will stop at nothing to defeat all challengers – until, in an tragic accident, he kills a fellow competitor and is sent to prison. Eight years later, Yue Feng emerges a changed man. He no longer fights, and is looking for a new life of peace and fulfillment. But it’s brutal on the streets, and redemption doesn’t come easy. His brotherhood is destroyed, family members murdered, and a loved one humiliated – a deadly chain reaction that leaves him no choice but to unleash his power in the name of justice. KING OF THE STREETS, China’s first street-fighting movie, pits real-life martial artist Yue Song against more than 10 of the world’s top contenders in MMA, Jiu-jitsu, Jeet Kune Do, Sanda, and Muay Thai boxing.
For every martial arts talent wanting to make it big on the big screen, everyone has that first film. Jet Li had “The Shaolin Temple”, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung had “Big and Little Wong Tin Bar” and Donnie Yen had “Drunken Tai Chi”.
For martial arts choreographer and actor Yue Song, his first film would be “The King of the Streets”, a film that he wrote, choreographed, directed and starred in.
While Yue Song may not be known as an actor, nor may he be anywhere close to other well-known names in the martial arts film genre, Yue Song does make a magnificent impression through his latest film, “The King of the Streets” which wil be released on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.
“The King of the Streets” revolves around Yue Feng (portrayed by Yue Song), a person who grew up fighting and wanting to be the best street fighter there is.
That is until one day, when he fought a gang and something happened to him which landed him in prison for eight years.
Given a second chance at life like an eagle reborn, Yue tries to find jobs but finds it difficult because he just got out of prison. And no former friends wants to take him in to their home.
While looking for a job, he meets Xiao Yi (portrayed by Li Yufei), a young tough woman who tried to take on a group of guys herself, but found herself overpowered and wakes up in the arms of Yue.
While eventually finding a job working for a delivery company, he eventually runs into Xiao Yi who works at an orphanage.
As Yue begins to get closer with Xiao and also the children at the orphanage, he also finds out there is trouble when a gang leader named Lee who wants the land where the orphanage is built on, in order to built a casino.
But as the gang leader tries to send his people in to threaten the orphanage owner, Yue ends up beating them.
Now Lee tries to find the strongest fighters to take out Yue, including a close friend of Yue named Ahai.
But with Yue wanting to walk the street on the safe and narrow and not get into any trouble, will he be able to keep out of trouble?
VIDEO:
“The King of the Streets” is presented in 16:9 Widescreen. Picture quality is OK. I did notice some scenes that looked overexposed, some stock video that were used had some artifacts and banding. But the picture quality tends to differ as some scenes were purposely meant to be more warmer. There are a lot of “flashback” scenes that tend to use more browns and grays for flashbacks. But closeups do show great detail, some scenes can look vibrant and some scenes look very good with black levels that are nice and deep.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“The King of the Streets” is presented in Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Mandarin 2.0 Stereo. The film is primarily a front-channel driven soundtrack. I was hoping for a more immersive soundtrack considering the action,the dialogue, music and sound effects are crystal clear through the front and center channels.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“The King of the Streets” comes with a trailer.
EXTRAS:
“The King of the Streets” comes with a slipcover.
Every martial arts actor has their beginning and for Yue Song “The King of the Streets” is an indie martial arts film that features a lot of hardcore action reminiscent of older Jackie Chan and Jet Li films, but also as a film in which Yue Song has to wear the hat of director, action director and the main actor, there is going to be quite a number of quirks.
For the first film of martial arts actor Yue Song, I will give him my respect for directing and starring in his own film and the good news is that the film has many instances of Yue as the hero who can take on many men. He is a talented martial artist that I see potential of being this generation’s newest action star from Asia.
While the storyline is predictable, it’s also has problems with pacing and writing. For example, in one scene, a gang comes into the orphanage to threaten the owner at to sell his land. Yue was there to see it. But in another scene, he finds himself going to Xiao Yi wondering what has happened and she explains to him of what the gang is doing.
There is also pacing issues where we are introduced to characters who should make an impact on Yue Feng’s life but yet, these characters show up and then they disappear for the entire film.
While the story is coherent, it’s just out of place pacing that hurt the film a little.
But the ending for the film is not what I was expecting and felt it was unnecessarily added in order to not give a happy ending. It was an ending that felt out of place and I felt that Yue Song was trying to do too much for this film when the writing was not good enough to flow well and support any of its characters.
With that being said, this is a straight-up action film. Yue Song takes on more than 10 of the world’s top contenders in MMA, Jiu-jitsu, Jeet Kune Do, Sanda and Muay Thai boxing. The action is the most exciting part about the film as Yue is seen, taking on dozens upon dozens of people with steel pipes or weapons to kill. It was reminiscent of older Jet Li and Jackie Chan films.
In fact, right after the film, you get a similar Jackie Chan behind-the-scenes look of the making of the film and you see people getting injured while making the film. But you also see Yue Song engaged in some major preparation for the film for his workout.
As for the Blu-ray release, there was an experimentation with colors. From over-exposure, warm colors to experimental colors employed through the film if anything, “The King of the Streets” looked very good on Blu-ray. I did notice some banding and artifacts on stock video footage but other than that., the film does look good, while it’s lossless soundtrack was more center and front-channel driven. So, it’s not as immersive as I was hoping for it to be. And there are no special features but a theatrical trailer.
Overall, this is a solid debut film for Yue Feng to show off his skills as a director, actor and action choreographer. He does have tremendous potential to be the next martial arts star, but I do wish he gets better scripts. While “The King of the Streets” is more or less a popcorn martial arts action film, I do look forward to seeing more of Yue Song in upcoming martial arts films in the near future.
