Two action-packed Chinese movies make their debut this week.
FILM REVIEWS:
THE FURIOUS (HK/China 2025) ***
Directed by Kenji Tanigaki
After the daughter of Wang Wei (Xie Miao) is kidnapped by a criminal network and he receives no help from the corrupt police, Wei sets out on a rampage to find her himself. His only ally is Navin (Joe Taslim) – a relentless journalist whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Fueled by a furious vengeance, the unlikely duo ruthlessly fights against the kidnappers in this explosive martial arts showdown.
Action movies make a lot of money. Examples being the John Wick franchise, the Bourne Identity franchise, the EQUALIZER series, just to mention a few. The key to all these is the choreographed action scenes and maybe a little plot. THE FURIOUS satisfies the plot criterion with a deaf-mute kung-fu expert father who trains his daughter before she is kidnapped in a human trafficking scheme involving top brass. The plot is only secondary to the film, but at least the film plays the plot as if it is all important, which is a good plan. The action sequences are excellent and better than the average Hollywood action flick. The introduction of an archer bad guy and a strong man bad guy helps, too. Just sit back and enjoy the violence!
Trailer:
OPERATION HADAL (China 2026) ***
Directed by Dante Lam
Operation Hadal or Operation Leviathan is a 2025 action war film. It is the follow-up to the 2018 film Operation Red Sea. Differing from the previous film's above-water action set-pieces, this film is about a nuclear submarine and features mainly underwater action.
In the near future, the Chinese Navy intercepts critical intelligence—an advanced super-submarine is secretly plotting a top-secret military operation against cities along China's southeastern coast. In response, China deploys its latest submarine, Longjing, to coordinate with the elite Jiaolong Squad in a high-stakes mission. The battlefield beneath the ocean is fraught with danger as the squad faces relentless traps, and the submarine engages in a series of intense confrontations with the enemy. As they manoeuvre through ambushes, they venture deep into the vast abyss filled with undersea volcanoes.
The bottom line of the story! Though set in a fictitious futuristic world, the story contains frightening parallels with what is occurring in the world today. In the film, it is the white caucasians agains the Chinese, who speak Mandarin. So, it is likely that China is under attack by the U.S. for world dominance. It is a scary game that puts entire countries at risk, in this case, the Chinese mainland, all for the sake of who can become number one, like kids playing King of the Castle. In this film, it is good to see the Chinese as the good guys and the Americans (not named Americans, but obviously so, from the accents) as the bad guys. Right now, the U.S. is claiming dominance over several countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Canada and Greenland. The oddest thing is that Americans do not realise what their President is doing, and that is making them the most hated country in the world, for their arrogance and dominance. One thing that is also for sure is that OPERATION HADAL, which costs about $150 million, puts a lot of Hollywood action blockbusters to shame.
Director Lam’s action set-pieces are very technical and involve both fighting above ground in enclosed spaces or underwater, often involving pyrotechnics, and hand-to-hand combat. The landing of troops on the oil platforms in the beginning action sequence is indeed impressive. But despite the action, the film suffers from weak character development and a weak plot and narrative.
The human Jailing team includes Meng Chuang, who leads the commandos. He is experienced but emotionally burdened by previous combat losses. Han Xiao is a younger commando eager to prove himself. At the same time, Zhao Qihang commands the submarine Longjing and becomes the calm strategic centre of the story. Nothing too impressive, as many military action films like this one spend time establishing camaraderie among the soldiers before placing them into increasingly impossible situations.
“Hadal” refers to the hadal zone — the deepest region of the ocean, usually depths below about 6,000 metres (20,000 feet), including ocean trenches such as the Mariana Trench.
The word comes from “Hades,” the Greek underworld, and in oceanography, the hadal zone is considered an extreme, dark, high-pressure environment.
On the international festival circuit, OPERATION HADAL won a special jury award, the Golden Deer, at the Changchun Film Festival, Xuan Huang won the Golden Lotus Award as Best Actor at the Macau International Movie Festival (where the film was also nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Director & Best Cinematography), and the film took home the Golden Angel Award for Outstanding Film as the Chinese American Film Festival (C.A.F.F.).
OPERATION HADAL debuts on Digital June 16 from Well Go USA Entertainment. It is the third entry (alongside Operation Mekong & Operation Red Sea) in award-winning filmmaker Dante Lam’s epic war series. OPERATION HADAL will also land on Blu-ray™ and DVD exclusively through Amazon® on September 29.
Trailer:
THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER (Canada 2026) **
Directed by Mark O’Brien
When a family matriarch falls seriously ill, relatives gather and discover their shared ancestral ties bind them in unexpected ways.
The story centres on Harriet Scaflen (Sheila McCarthy), an elderly woman who suffers a mysterious health crisis shortly after the death of her 95-year-old mother. Concerned for her welfare, Harriet's four estranged adult children return to the family home. As old resentments, family secrets, and long-buried grievances resurface, they begin to suspect that something far more sinister is happening. What initially appears to be a family drama gradually becomes a supernatural nightmare. The siblings discover that an evil force connected to their family's past has awakened within and can be watched on Shudder, the horror streaming service, on June 12th, Harriet. The entity seems determined to keep her alive while exacting revenge on her children, forcing the family to confront both their fractured relationships and a terrifying supernatural presence.
THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER is a Canadian movie shot on location in the town of Hamilton in Ontario. It is a pretty bad film overall, but not for want of trying. The film has the titular Sheila McCarthy, who rose to fame starring in the Canadian film by Patricia Rozema’s I HEARD THE MERMAIDS SINGING, and went on to do big Hollywood blockbusters like DIE HARD 2 and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. In this film, her performance is reduced to a series of screaming and more screaming.
As the synopsis of the film implies, the horror story involves a dysfunctional family that gets together when the grandmother dies, and the mother is hospitalized. The doctor tells the adult children that their mother is very healthy, though she has dementia. Obviously, something is not right here. There are also many wrong things with the family.
William (played by the director himself) has an affair with his sister's wife. Director O’Brien’s real-life wife, Georgina Reilly, plays one of his siblings. Another sibling snorts coke while another sister is involved religiously in something or other. The children finally conclude that the master is possessed, allowing McCarthy to scream even more, to be exorcized.
The film is all over the place and unintentionally hilarious at that. The film is a mix of dysfunctional family drama (such as family gatherings like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but this one, when the mother is hospitalized), possession and exorcism horror, all dumped together, so that anything can happen at any time. Skeletons come out of the closet as the siblings scream at each other. Added to the drama is the fact that the children were all bused by their father while their mother just watched on and never did anything, something the children can never forgive her for.
Despite the film being all over the place, one could debate that the film can be considered to be a religious and occult horror with family secrets, generational trauma, and possession-style supernatural elements.
THE VOICES OF OUR MOTHER opens and can be seen on Shudder, the horror streaming service, on June 12th.
