In the ring, Phi (Peter Pham) is a tough as nails MMA fighter, and he needs money. There’s a procedure that can correct his wife’s vision (she’s going blind) and it doesn’t come cheap. At first I thought Foggy Mountain might be a metaphor for her problems, but instead, it’s something else. In this film’s case, it means that this fighter must either making a deal with the devil, Ba Rau (Kim Long Thach), a rather nasty crime lord, or seek help elsewhere. Thankfully he’s smart in not to accept, but it comes at a price, and thus begins a story of revenge as he searches for his lair located out in the boondoggles.
The concept is fairly standard, and after the setup to motivate Pham to search the rural countryside of Vietnam to hunt down this piece of work and his minions. The bits of action fans want to see are good. However, to get to that point means wading through a story that suffers from pacing issues.
I was not all that invested until the hero finds that this criminal is also running a slave trafficking operation. I wasn’t quite as initially invested at first, but once when directors Phan Anh and Ken Dinh up the ante, by involving the loss of innocence with the kids getting run over, shot at, and et cetera, the viewer in me wants to see these bad guys go down.
And when there’s a brute the size of a tree proves tough to take down, to see him finally go down is something to behold. Vong Akork (Simon Kook) manages to be like Andre the Giant, but I’m sure the comparisons don’t end there.
What works is that we’re seeing a different style of fighting. It’s rare to see a work that isn’t about karate or kung-fu. There’s an elegance to be found in both disciplines. Here, what’s presented looks more brutal, and less like a dancer on stage. The battles aren’t as bloody, and perhaps what’s been toned down was intentional for an international release. I’d love to see an extended cut, as what’s presented felt short and brisk. There were times it felt like I was watching a cage match, and as for Kim Long Thach, he certainly put everything into the role so that even I wanted to boo and hiss every time that smug face appeared on the screen.
Although what’s offered seems tame by Hollywood standards, Foggy Mountain deserves a watch for the themes it suggests. What’s offered is fairly standard: for somewhere in these backwoods lies hope, and for Phi to be the hero, there’s something he has to embrace if he’s to survive for another day.
3 Stars out of 5
Foggy Mountain Trailer
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