The Foggy Mountain

Foggy Mountain, a martial artist arts action thriller hailing from Vietnam, hits Digital this week from Well Go USA. It is one to watch.

Vietnam is not historically known for its Martial Arts movie industry, but that may be on the verge of changing. Foggy Mountain, a well made, low budget martial arts movie follows the very formidable Vietnamese martial arts action Fury films.

Its plot is a simple revenge thriller, an aged old martial arts movie troupe. The script is universal and solid. The setting, the "Foggy Mountains", of Vietnam lends itself to a dramatic backdrop for the film. It actually takes on the role of an ancillary character.

The Direction by Phan Anh is good. The cast is filled with little known actors, outside Vietnam, who do a good job creating compelling characters in highly watchable performances.

The fight choreography is very good. The filmmakers opted for realistic martial arts choreography and weapon choreography rather than flashy and "over the top" scenes. These are realistic, and part of the film's strength. They remind me of the fight sequences of South Korea's Revenger, a great film.

Peter Pham stars in this one, and he is a rising star. His martial arts curriculum vitae includes a plethora of styles including Taekwondo, JKD, Kung-fu, and more. He is a very gifted martial artist, and understands how to translate these skills to the silver screen in a way that is reminiscent of Iko Uwais, who we perceive as one of the top martial arts movie stars in the world today.

Pham not only succeeds in his execution of the fight sequences. He does a solid job in the dramatic undertones, which drive his revenge filled journey. The film clearly wants dimension to the story, and the characters, and Pham is part of making that work. With little dialogue we see him as an amateur fighter, a master, a family man, and dangerous foe. I see great things in Pham-both in and out of the Vietnamese martial arts film industry.

Foggy Mountain is a hidden gem and worth watching. I recommend it.

Also released under Dinh Mu Suong and The Foggy Mountain.

After the massive success of Hai Phuong a.k.a Furie at the box office and around the world I finally got my hope at the Vietnamese action movie scene back after many years of disappointment so when this movie The Foggy Mountain came out 1 year later I kinda hope it will continue the torch being pass down by Veronica Ngo to deliver us another banger action movie made in Vietnam again and my oh my it let me down once again. The movie despite the generic revenge for a loved one premise bore me to death with it annoying supporting characters, choppy editing fight scenes, and the worst of all a tone-deaf main character. The main actor can really pull out a fight especially when he facing Simon Kook the Muay Thai fighter from Ip Man 3 with Wing Chun which is the only thing you need to look forward to if you decide to watch this movie but other than that, every time there something dramatic about to happen his wooden acting always makes me want to punch his emotionless face for real. in the end, I guess because the mountain was so foggy it ends up lulled me to sleep instead of entertained me.

Right, well I haven't exactly watched a whole lot of Vietnamese martial arts movies, but I have to say that "Dinh Mu Suong" (aka "The Foggy Mountain") wasn't exactly a crowning achievement in Vietnamese action cinema.

So what went wrong here? Well, for starters, the script and storyline. It was essentially just a boring old vengeance movie. You know, the main character's loved one is brutally murdered, and the main character sets out to seek vengeance upon the main villain. Yeah, well, it does work out fair enough, but it was just a bit too over-used in other movies and generic.

And then there was the fact that the character gallery was about as appealing as watching grass grow. Sure, I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Dinh Mu Suong", but I wasn't impressed with what I saw. The actors and actresses had next to nothing to work with in terms of a proper script or even remotely interesting characters. The main bad guy was anything but coming off on the screen as a proper villain.

What did work for "Dinh Mu Suong" was the martial arts. There were some adequate enough fight scenes throughout the 86 minutes that the movie ran for. However, it just simply wasn't enough to make up for the shortcomings of a generic script and downright bad character gallery.

If you enjoy martial arts movies, then I wouldn't suggest you waste your time on "Dinh Mu Suong".

My rating of directors Phan Anh and Ken Dinh's 2020 movie "Dinh Mu Suong" lands on a three out of ten stars.