Review: Vanguard

Vanguard (2020) is a Chinese action film, written and directed by Steven Tong. Vanguard is the code name for China’s daring, highly trained, special mission force. Its purpose, to defend human freedom against a ruthless terrorist organization, determined to rule the world. Qin Guoli (Jackson Lou) is an international type businessman who has engaged in some shady dealings with a shady, Middle Eastern organization. After ratting them out to Scotland Yard, Guoli finds himself inside Vanguard headquarters. There, he throws himself on the tender mercies of Vanguard CEO Tang Huating (Jackie Chan), begging him for help.

It seems that Guoli’s daughter Fareeda (Ruohan Xu), an international model, is now being targeted by the bad guys, in an attempt to get revenge on Guoli for grassing on them. Guoli tells Huating the without the help of Vanguard, Fareeda will pay the ultimate price for his transgressions. Huating assures Guoli that Vanguard can, and will help, and to chill out, because he and his crack squad of agents, Lun Ai (Zhang Kaixuan), Miya Muqi (Mi Ya), Shendiao (Zhengting Zhu), and Lei Zhenyu (Yang Yang), are on the case.

And that’s really all the setup one needs to have a pretty good idea of what kind of trip they are about to take, when they have their ticket torn for Vanguard. Honestly though, even those two meager paragraphs are more than anyone should need. I could probably distill them both down to only two words: Jackie and Chan, and anyone reading this would likely have known all they need to know in advance of watching Vanguard.

Y’know, that’s one of the cool things about genre films. They don’t necessarily require the same kind of deeper examination of whether they were good or not as most mainstream films do. This is because, by their very nature as genre films, they are designed to check some very specific boxes. Whether or not they are “good” or “not good” depends mostly on how many of these boxes have check marks in them, and how impressively they tick them off. So let’s dig in, shall we? Let’s start with the good this time.

Vanguard has a number of things going for it that make it an enjoyable watch. First of all, it stars Jackie Chan. While I wouldn’t rank Vanguard anywhere near the best of his films, that doesn’t really take away from the joy of watching the man do his thing. Jackie Chan is an icon, a genius, and a global treasure. I am by no means a dedicated enough junkie of martial arts films to be able to really break down their history and evolution for you. What I can tell you is that if Bruce Lee is the George Washington of martial arts films, Jackie Chan is Abraham Lincoln. Standing high atop the shoulders of the great Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, enabled by his legendary stunt team, reinvented the genre. Combining story, humor, and action in ways nobody had seen before, Chan changed the game. His stunts and fight choreography were astounding and entertaining in ways the genre hadn’t seen prior to his success.

To paraphrase a film I haven’t seen, you had me at Jackie Chan. There are few actors who, if their name is attached, I am already interested in seeing it. I don’t need to know what it’s about. Action films are a genre that are traditionally reliant on the name of their lead to get butts in seats. It’s nice to see Chan still plying his trade, even at his age, whatever that may be. He never does anything halfway, a fact that remains true, following the conclusion of Vanguard.

The story is somewhat of a generic action flick set in the Middle East. However, Vanguard includes a bunch of stuff that should delight fans of the over-the-top. The tech is bananas in this film. Goblin gliders, 1:1 scale Hot Wheels dipped in gold, cars that transform into boats, a whole bunch of other shit that transforms, etc. Everytime Vanguard starts to feel interchangeable with any other straight-to-DVD action flick, it pulls something out of its ass that reinvigorated my interest. At points, much like any given spy film, my lack of comprehension was threatening my ability to stay fully checked in. Next thing I know, the bad guys are siccing well-trained battle-hyenas on Jackie Chan and crew, and I no longer give a shit that I don’t know exactly who the main bad guy even is. Super fun tech.

The production design is a lot of fun too. The wardrobes of the various characters was to die for. Almost every scene featured one or more people dressed to the nines, in outfits that looked expensively wonderful, and wonderfully expensive. Jackson Lou strolls into almost every one of his scenes working his threads like an absolute pimp. And I mean that in a good way. Style and class, combined with just the right amount of daring flamboyance, and absolutely no fear in sporting an ensemble that is commensurate with the number of zeros in one’s bank account. That’s pimp AF. Add in the shitballs tech, some beautiful location shooting, and Vanguard has style to spare. It might not totally make up for some of the film’s deficiencies, but it sure helps them go down easier.

Alright well, you knew this was coming. Let’s talk about the bad. The thing that is easily the most detrimental to the success of Vanguard is its overuse of CGI. Over the last several years, I have had a little chuckle to myself whenever anyone mentioned one of these “live action” Disney remakes. Films like The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019), and The Jungle Book (Jon Favreau, 2016). For some reason there is this disconnect within people where they don’ realize that they are still watching cartoons. Like if 90% of the characters in The Jungle Book are computer generated, in what way is this live action?

Much like way too many scenes in the unfortunately still extant Fast and Furious series, Vanguard too features so much CGI that I was too often painfully aware that absolutely none of what I was seeing was “real”. Everything on the screen was animated in a lab. For some people this might not be an issue. Often times it isn’t for me either. Take Disney’s MCU for example. There were tons of times I was watching a scene that was largely animated, but it was at least done well enough that it didn’t take me out of the film.

When it comes to things happening on screen that they are capable of producing organically rather than digitally, yet they’ve gone the digital route anyways, I am frequently disappointed. Like, who cares if you crash a Ferrari into a Hummer, if both of the cars are fucking cartoons?! It isn’t even about being aware of something “not being real.” I’m fully aware that none of it is “real.” However, watching two cartoon cars crash into each other fails to generate the same sense of awe, spectacle, and tension as crashing two real cars into one another. Isn’t that the thrill of watching car chase films?

Would The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980) have been anywhere near as awe inspiring if all of those cop cars that crashed and were blown up were just cartoons? Isn’t a huge part of the fun watching these professionals actually wreck a shitload of cars inside a mall? Cuz like, when can you see that shit in real life and just enjoy it? Most car crashes in real life involve death, injury, misery, and lawyers. Nobody can enjoy that shit. But John Landis wants to spend ten million bucks to crash a bunch of cop cars into each other inside of a shopping mall? Sign me the fuck up.

In addition to the CGI being overused, the majority of it looks bad as well. Had any, and I mean ANY of the major set pieces been created somewhere in the real world instead of on someone’s hard drive, I might have enjoyed it more. But the longer the film continued, the cheaper the CGI looked, and the more they leaned on it. The story itself, save its charming idiosyncrasies, was fairly generic and interchangeable with tons of other action flicks with an international setting. How could one with this pedigree set one’s self apart from the rest of the herd? Amazing set pieces. Unfortunately, those contained within Vanguard, while being exciting in concept, are absolute duds in execution.

This made me stop to consider the battle between imagination and execution. I’m sure everybody feels a little differently about this, but here is the question. Is it better to have super creative ideas, but have them executed in a silly and dubious manner? Or is it better to reign in those creative eccentricities in favor of being more likely to execute something practically? I was slightly torn. I mean, there was a lot of imagination going on here, and I was loving it. However, by the time the movie ended, it damn near looked like an episode of the Adult Swim television series Decker (Eric Notarnicola, 2014-17). Nothing mattered anymore because the whole Goddamn thing had turned into a bad cartoon.

This might be perfectly satisfactory for some. I myself try to be as accepting as possible. After all, I’m always the kind of guy to not give a shit if a video game has shitty graphics, as long as it’s fun, y’know? If the movie has bad special effects, but the story and acting are all rad, I’m usually super forgiving. Unfortunately, as Vanguard is purely genre cinema, the story relied extra heavily on the set pieces, and the action on screen. IN this situation, the lackluster special effects harmed the film more than they might harm a different one.

My other main beef with Vanguard has to do with the stunts and the camerawork. I did not find out until the end credits rolled, that the JC Stunt Team was involved. Rather, I should say that I didn’t have it confirmed. I definitely had my suspicions immediately however, as the very first fight scene featured many hallmarks of the type of choreography that the JC Stunt Team is world-renowned for. Seeing this was at first quite pleasing. Like getting cocktails with an old friend. However, I soon became dismayed, as the fight choreography was maligned by too much camera movement, and some unconvincing CGI augmentation.

That was always the beauty of the fight scenes in any given Jackie Chan film. It wasn’t like the camera was stuck on a stick and never moved. However, the camera always allowed this beautiful, amazing, fight choreography to be on full display. Like watching a ballet. In Vanguard, much of the camerawork obscures the fight choreography. I can’t say if this was in pursuit of hiding the CGI, or if it was simply one of Tong’s stylistic choices, or some combination of the two.

Unfortunately, it came across like a shallow attempt by the old guard to remain relevant in today’s, handheld camera, jump cut happy, super-quick cuts loving world. Sort of like that song/video for Anybody Seen My Baby by The Rolling Stones. I’d rather just see you guys do what you do best, of your own volition, than do something that doesn’t seem right because your corporate overlords need you to generate more revenue for the shareholders. So I wasn’t a big fan of the way many of the fight scenes were shot.

Two other real quick beefs before I bottom-line this thing for you. First, and this is a small one, I was disappointed to see Jackie Chan, and the other good guys killing people with guns. I’m not opposed to violence. Quite the opposite. I love it! And I’m not saying it hasn’t happened before. However, it’s always been my understanding that Jackie Chan always believed that the good guys shouldn’t win with guns. That it’s bad guys that use guns, and the good guys always find another way. Now, I don’t see how that really would have been feasible based on this script. And I didn’t get too hung up on it. I was just a little bummed, and would have likely been more impressed with alternative methods of handling baddies, other than shooting them. Even if they are shooting at you.

The last one is also quite small, and requires a HUGE SPOILER WARNING, so be forewarned, I’M ABOUT TO SPOIL THE END OF THE FILM. So the end of this thing occurs in a shopping mall with a huge fish tank in the middle that contains sharks. Big sharks. The conclusion of the film includes the main bad guy getting shot, and falling into this giant fish tank with sharks. While in the fish tank with sharks, we not only see him being eyed by the sharks, but he is visibly bleeding into the water. Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thing I was thinking: meal time!

However, in what ended up being one of the largest piles of money ever to be left atop a Hollywood table, the sharks do NOT eat him!!!! In fact, he is just sort of forgotten, and we never really find out if he dies or what. Now, after all of the crazy things that happened in this film, when I thought they were gonna have the bad guy eaten alive, I was practically on my feet, cheering. When it DIDN’T happen, I got really upset. More upset than I probably should have. What a wasted opportunity. #ruinedorgasm #srslybummed

Although the conclusion of the film does feature what could be a pretty cool callback to Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985). If you liked Vanguard or would like to see it, and you aren’t familiar with Jackie Chan’s back catalog, do yourself a favor and check it out. The man was an absolute visionary.

Oh boy. Has this been a long one, or what? What can I say? My perspicacity knows no satiety. Or more accurately, my verbosity knows no satiety.

In the case of Vanguard vs. The People, here is my verdict. Vanguard is a film which is not very good if you are looking to consume a film that will impact you in any kind of emotional or intellectual way. There will be no tears shed, no issues impacting the world today considered, no emotional phone calls made to estranged relatives following a cinematically-inspired moment of deep introspection… No, there will be none of that.

However, if you are a genrephile; if you are one who loves a particular genre of film to the exclusion of many others, you might find much to like about Vanguard. If you are the type who will watch any and all action flicks, or kung fu flicks, or spy flicks, or military operation flicks, you might find yourself digging Vanguard. If you are a Jackie Chan diehard, you may find things to like about Vanguard.

It’s true, the film does suffer from a wafer-thin plot, an over-reliance on CGI, and bad CGI. However, it is also. a ton of fun. car chases, transformers, gunplay, explosions, terrorists, mackadocious wardrobes, bitchin’ cars, jet skis, Goblin Gliders, and most importantly, Jackie Chan, and some amazing fight choreography from the JC Stunt Team.

However, for the average filmgoer, Vanguard will likely seem too silly, and/or low budget to be taken seriously. Vanguard is like if Michael Bay fucked Andy Sidaris, and this is the baby they made. If you dig flicks like The Transporter (Louis Leterrier, Corey Yuen, 2002), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Justin Lin, 2006), Wanted (Timur Bekmambetov, 2008), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (John R. Leonetti, 1997) or X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood, 2009), then you might like Vanguard. However, if you are an ultra-discerning film snob, or an ultra-snobby genrephile, you’d probably better off without it. I had a lot of fun with it, but it definitely ain’t gonna be everyone’s cup of tea. Too dumb for most, not dumb enough for the rest.

P.S. Just to be clear, I have zero concrete evidence that The Rolling Stones were allowing the pursuit of cash to compromise their artistic integrity when they cut that track, and/or made the video for it. And if you dig it, I apologize. To me however, it just seemed like someone saw what had been happening with grunge, alternative rock, and nu-metal, and said to The Stones “we want something more like THAT.” In the spirit of healthy debate, here is The Rolling Stones and their official video for Anybody Seen My Baby. Take a look and judge for yourself.