Alice and Ken Qiang, brother and sister from Asia, willingly to
become immigrant in the U.S. Arrive at Seattle in an airless
container. The sister is so talented on painting and the brother is
good at fighting. They are starting a new life. A gallery owner,
Justus Sullivan, is interested with Alice's painting and provide
shelter for both of them.
The dream of starting a good life seems like a step away. When
the sister is focusing on her painting, Ken is living a hard life as
a fighter in the arena of gambling. But, the good dream is not easy
to achieve because Alice is forced to duplicate the classic painting
of Van Gogh. When detective Nick Thompson tracks them, whether they
want it or not, now they are involved in a dangerous criminal world!
The story-screenplay that Ken Zheng wrote is based on a true story
of the hard life of an immigrant. It is not clear where they come
from, but from the name and their oriental face, you can guess that
the Qiang's brother and sister are from one of the Asian countries.
The story seems too cheesy (though still needs 32 times revision
before the producers accept it!). The acting from all the casts
seems like performance from level two actors, maybe even level
three. To be honest this film should be included in the section of
action-drama of class B film. However, we still can feel the message
of how hard it is for the immigrant. They have to sacrifice their
lives to achieve their dreams and don't use shortcuts to achieve
success.
Don't expect the fighting scenes would be as good as Jean-Claude Van
Damme versus Bolo Yeung on Bloodsport (1988). Then what's good
about Brush With Danger? Is it on its director, Livi Zheng (26),
girl from Blitar, who became the first Indonesian in history to
direct and starred in a Hollywood production? Her struggle to get
into the Hollywood cinema is worth a note. This young talented
director has come to the line of international director and can be
an inspiration for young generations especially for Indonesian
people who lives outside the country. Or is it her simplicity that
made her succeeded? A lot of Indonesian famous directors, since the
era of Usmar Ismail, Wim Umboh, Teguh Karya, Sjuman Djaya, until
Garin Nugroho, and now Hanung Bramantyo have tried. Probably because
they have designed something so unique to turn it into Hollywood
films, but until now not even one of them have succeeded.
And for Indonesian actors starting to have great opportunity to go
to Hollywood, like Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Ray Sahetapy
(All of them are casts from The Raid:Redemption). So different from
Livi and her real life brother, Ken Zheng (registered as wushu
athlete in Jakarta province), who are actually both students
attending the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
The good news is, Livi has just finished her second film, still
starring Ken Zheng. This time he is going to play with top stars
like Tony Todd, Madeline Zima, dan Sean Patrick Flannery.
The release would be first in America on April 2016, then in
Indonesia. We can hope that Livi will direct Indonesian's film after
she's done with her college. *** YaWi
Point: 55
|
