Grady Hendrix on 2 Major Fight Sequences in SPL

-- The Two Major Martial Arts Scenes in SPL (Sha Po Lang) --

Below is what Grady Hendrix of Kaiju Shakedown says about SPL 《杀破狼》:

"I'm a third party (not involved in the production of SPL) and I loved it. It will not break out in the US -- its flavor is too local -- but it was a mature, dark movie that had some great action. More importantly, the action was totally unique. The fight between Wu Jing and Donnie Yen is like nothing I have ever seen before. To me, Xiong Xin-xin was the last fight choreographer who was really experimenting with action choreography in Hong Kong (in THE BLADE and TIME AND TIDE) but Donnie Yen has done something new with this fight in SPL. The filming of the scene if functional, at best (it was shot in one night), but the choreography itself is intense because they miss. I've never seen this in a movie, where blows don't connect. It really looks like two guys trying to beat each other to a pulp -- you can see them strike a blow, miss, improvise their reaction, stop to think about what to do next -- it feels very vicious and real.

"The Sammo Hung/Donnie Yen fight is good, but you can feel how traditional it is compared to the previous Wu Jing/Donnie Yen scene. These are really the only two action scenes in the movie, but you don't notice. A feeling of darkness and violence is in every frame."