The Rebel

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre action Starring Johnny Tri Nguyen, Ngo Thanh Van (Veronica Ngo), Dustin Nguyen Directed by Charlie Nguyen Publisher The Weinstein Company

The Rebel is one of those special action movies where the plot isn’t merely an excuse for the action, a bones for the rest of the body, but rather the plot and the action complement each other. The yin and the yang work harmoniously together to weave a pretty decent film by the end of it all.

The film takes place in back in the 1920’s French-occupied Vietnam at a time of rebellion. The French occupants are busy oppressing the natives of the country, and Le Van Cuong (played by journeying stuntman Johnny Tri Nguyen: Spiderman, Spiderman 2, The Protector) is a special agent charged with keeping the rebels in their place along with Sy (Dustin
Nguyen), who you can just tell screwed up somewhere inside, what with his dark, brooding glare and all. But after meeting Vo Thanh Thuy (Vietnamese pop star Veronica Ngo), daughter of the rebel leader, after a bloody battle, Le Van Cuong rethinks his position and ends up joining the rebellion. Sy, along with an increasing French-trained Vietnamese militia, chases after them, hoping to locate Vo Thanh Thuy’s father in the process.

The action is far from shallow – I constantly found myself rewinding the film just to watch moves over and over and over again. Surprisingly, the action never gets cheesy. Extras are not overused to a fault (see the ninja attack scene in The Last Samural), and the locales actually play significant parts in the action, rather than just having another beautiful location for the scenes to take place in. Speaking of beauty, what I took most pleasure in were shots of relatively simple nature that you don’t often see in action-heavy movies: a gecko sitting on a wall, the crackling of a fire, bamboo rustling in the wind, water rippling from an oar. This is not, in any way, shape, or form, a dulled-down action flick.

If anything, the only dull part of the film is the lead. Though Johnny Tri Nguyen is an amazing martial artist, pulling off moves you won’t see Jet Li or Jackie Chan do in movies any time soon, his acting is pretty bland. He keeps the same facial expression throughout the movie – sad, nervous, angry, it’s all the same. You have to read the subtitles or the other actors’ faces just to figure out what emotion it is he’s feeling. Fortunately for Tri Nguyen, his supporting cast is far better than one would expect. Veronica Ngo is a beautiful pop star that can act, as well as kick and punch, which leads one to wonder what the problem is with American singers/actors that just can’t seem to pull it off. She is perfectly convincing in her role.

But the real jewel in The Rebel is Dustin Nguyen  as Sy. Protagonists in action films have a tendency to be dumbed down to money-hungry dullards these days, but Sy is nothing of the sort – though a perfectly good coldblooded killer almost completely impervious to dangerous objects (including knives), he is a deeply tormented man which comes through via one scene in particular that quite literally packs a punch…in a wall.

But that just goes to show you how surprising films can be. Not only was it a surprised to find that the movie wasn’t a dull action film, but the best character/actor in the film was the villain. I’m used to wanting to put a knife in my eye when it comes to watching martial arts action flicks – watching someone else get a knife in their eye in a good movie is infinitely better.

Special features include "around" half-hour long interviews with Johnny Nguyen, Veronica Ngo, and Dustin Nguyen, a martial arts demonstration by Johnny Nguyen, a brief deleted scene, and a making-of featurette.