Step Right Up Ballerina

We are fans of John Wick, at least enough to watch Ballerina (2025) (though not the TV Continental show). Besides, I like action films led by women enough to watch anyway, even if there weren't much crossover with the Wickiverse.

It starts with assassin David Castaneda and his daughter being attacked in their swanky house. While she hides, Gabriel Byrne holds a gun to Castanedas head to flush her out. She creates a distraction, and they break out. Castaneda is shot, but she gets away. She is soon picked up by Ian McShane, who takes her to the her family, the Rusk Roma, headed by Angelica Huston.

Huston puts the girl into ballerina school, as well as assassin school. and she grows up to be Ana de Armas. She goes on a few missions - assassinations and bodyguarding - and on one she notices a mark like the one the people who offed her father wore. Huston lets her know that these people are part of a rogue cult. They don't just kill for money, they do it for sport. And Byrne is their leader. But they have a truce with the Ruska Roma. Neither will interfere with each other's business. Like the truce at the Continental, this rule exists to be broken. 

She also meets up with an assassin for the cult who looks a lot like her (Catalina Sandino Moreno). 

Of course, it all ends up with Armas against the cult. She gets some help from Moreno (guess who she turns out to be) and even John Wick. But even if she wins, she has broken the truce and will be hunted by both the cult and the Ruska Roma.

Without the Wick connection, I would say this is only a fair female-lead action movie. De Armas is taught early on that to defeat male opponents, she must force them to confront her on her terms, not theirs. This seems to mean either a kick in the nuts, or her just going a little bit crazier then them. Which culminates by the end in an almost silly flamethrower fight. Other than that we don't really see what makes her a great fighter. And I don't think de Armas has the martial arts chops that Reeves has to pull it off.

As a Wick spinoff, we get a bit of Ian McShane and a last scene from Lance Reddick (RIP), as well as plenty of Huston. Even Keanu has more than a few cameos. Add these together, and we found it a decent watch. But I don't think the spin-off will spawn a franchise. 

Opium Yen

We enjoyed the last Donnie Yen/Yuen Woo-Ping we watched, so we figured we'd try Heroes Among Heroes (1993).

Here, Yen is a rich kid whose father had sent him to live with beggars to learn humility when his mother died. It wasn't that effective - he's pretty arrogant. He meets a cute Westernized woman, Fennie Yuen. Her uncle is the Manchu prince, so Yen falls in with him as well. Meanwhile, Yen's father, Ng Man-Tat, is ruthlessly henpecked by his departed wife's sister, Sheila Chan with grotesque buck teeth.

Yen gets in a fight with the Fire Lotus Gang, a female gang. He defeats them, but does a lot of damage (and gets beat up pretty badly). So the prince introduces him to opium. 

The main story line is how the Manchu collude with the British to bring opium to the masses. Yen starts out leading gangs against the traffickers, then becomes addicted to opium, and has to kick the habit and regain his self-respect. So he takes refuge with his beggar foster father. He teaches him drunken kung fu as a counter strategy against the Manchu and British.

This was not really my favorite part. The fights are only so-so, and the opium threat is handled with little finesse. Actually, my favorite part was Sheila Chan playing auntie. Although she treats him poorly, we come to realize that she wants Yen's father to love her. When he finally snaps at her treatment and hits her, he knocks her buck teeth back to normal size and makes her express her love. It's rather misogynistic, and very silly, but kind of fun. 

So, not these guys' best outing. Really, they should have cut some of the plot and added a lot more fights. 

Drunken Fun

I chose to put Drunken Tai Chi (1984) on partly because it's just 91 minutes long - all I had time for. Good choice.

Let's see if I can summarize the plot. A very young Donnie Yen is the favored son of a rich salt merchant. His brother has to do all the work (and martial arts training), while Yen is supposed to be training. Of course, he is still a strong fighter. When a bully starts trouble on a bicycle, Yen fights back, leading to some bike jousting. The bully responds by gathering a gang to ambush Yen and his brother with fireworks. Again, he is defeated.

To avenge him,  bullie's father hires a mute assassin to kill Yen and his family. Note that this is a comedy.

Homeless and on the run, he meets an old puppeteer (Yuen Cheung-Yan) and his fat wife (Lydia Shum), who take him under their wing. They will teach him a soft method to counter the assassin's hard style. 

I am not sure about all of this plot. I was mostly watching for the set pieces. Take the bicycle jousts, or puppet fights, or fat lady kung fu. It was interesting to see some non-lethal kung fu in some of them. In one, the Yen and the bully have a contest with a two-ended brush suspended from the ceiling. The objective is to paint the other guys face before he gets you. You can see how this would work with a knife instead of a brush. It's both non-lethal, but it lets Yen draw silly faces on the bully. 

The assassin is fun, too (although he is NOT non-lethal). He has a beloved little son, and he makes him a rocking horse by punching and smashing logs into lumber. The other kids make fun of him, but the boy steadfastly defends his feral father. 

This is directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, who also made Drunken Master, and was stunt coordinator for a ton of films, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I should have noted that before I started.