Actually, released back in 2017 in China it’s taken a while to reach worldwide and UK shores but I finally managed to watch Paradox. Ip Man director Wilson Yip who also directed Flashpoint, SPL: Kill Zone and Dragon Tiger Gate brings us another modern-day brutal martial arts flick full of bone breaking moves and hard as nail protagonists. No Donnie Yen this time, we have Louis Koo who also stared in Flashpoint as our main protagonist.
Paradox starts with a home video of our main hero Lee Chung Chi (Louis Koo) and his 6-year-old daughter Lee Wing Chi. Cut to present day and Lee is buying his daughter a bracelet for her birthday. He meets his now 16-year-old daughter played by Hanna Chan at a restaurant to give her his present. She quickly introduces him to her new boyfriend who she intends to marry and is now pregnant by. Lee really doesn’t look very happy. After this, it seems to jump about a bit showing various scenes from later on in the movie but everything comes together in the end. The next time we see his daughter she is now in Thailand visiting a friend. We find out later her cop dad reported her boyfriend for having relations with an underage girl and is carted off so she now hates her dad and runs off to Thailand.
She then gets kidnapped which prompts Lee to go all Liam Neeson in Taken and travel to Thailand to find his daughter. After heading to the police station he is helped by the movies other main protagonist cop, Chui Kit played by Yue Wu (Birth of the Dragon, Police Story: Lockdown) Of course this causes Lee to blame himself the whole time for her kidnapping as she was in Thailand because of him.
Tony Yaa also makes an appearance as another cop at the station. We see more of him later. The movie actually starts off kind of slow with your general investigation with the two heroes going around asking questions and trying to find out what happened.
Cut to the city’s current Mayor candidate about to appear at a press conference only to collapse and later diagnosed with heart failure. He needs a heart transplant asap. It seems the Mayor’s assistant will go to any length to secure a heart for the mayor.
The investigation leads the heroes to discover an illegal organ trafficking organisation which the mayor’s assistant has contacted for a heart for the mayor. I think we can guess where this is heading and which person’s heart matches what the mayor needs. Lee’s daughter. The organ trafficking outfit is being run by Sacha played by newcomer Chris Collins. So now it’s a race against time for Lee to find his daughter before her organs are harvested. He eventually finds out some corrupt policemen are also in on the action and it was actually a cop that originally took his daughter. Lee finds the cop responsible and brutally tortures him until he spills the beans.
Eventually, Tony Yaa’s character gets involved and this is when all the fighting ensues. The two heroes are kind of both working separately at this point with the mayor’s assistant threatening the chief of polices family, ordering him to get Kit and Lee to stand down in trying to find his daughter. Of course, they don’t listen and a climactic finale ensures with both heroes charging single handily into Sacha’s meat harvesting headquarters. By this point, the chief of police is under such pressure from the mayor’s assistant who now wants to cover his tracks so orders the entire organ trafficking organisation eliminated along with Lee and anyone else in the building.
As I said earlier it does start off a little slow and there’s not a crazy amount of fights but in typical Wilson Yip fashion, they are brutal in parts with many broken bones. Tony Yaa’s all too brief appearance adds to this as his fight scenes are always a pleasure to watch. One thing that Paradox has going for it is it’s not predictable at all and has many surprises along the way. Sometimes you’re left just thinking to yourself “so what is he gonna do now?” Not quite as good as Flashpoint and SPL: Killzone but still an enjoyable watch. Obviously, we still have Ip Man 4 to come from Yip and also martial arts horror Dragon Gate zombie Inn which sounds awesome from its title alone. Paradox is available to buy from Amazon and Amazon Prime.
Rating: 3/5 belts
