Wolf Pack

狼群

China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 104 mins.

Director: Jiang Cong 蒋丛 [Michael Chiang].

Rating: 5/10.

Well-mounted but generic action fodder centred on a band of Chinese mercenaries in an Arab country.

STORY

Southern Egypt, autumn 2021. After having to give up on a patient, disillusioned charity doctor Ke Tong (Li Zhiting) boards a coach to Luxor. En route he’s approached by Linda Su (Jiang Luxia), head of insurance company ML Global’s Medical Emergency Assistance (MEA) department, to do a Job in Java, Indonesia, where 12 children are trapped at a volcano. Getting off the bus, Ke Tong is literally whisked away, with her, by helicopter, in which he meets her fellow team mates and is then drugged. He wakes up in the middle of nowhere in an Arab country, Cooley, where he and the group are arrested by the rebel group Taku Armed Forces and he is forced to operate on the younger brother of leader Taku Sr. (Isaac Fernandez). The group is then let go and Ke Tong discovers it is actually a band of six Chinese mercenaries calling themselves the Beiwei International Security & Defence Company. It’s led by Guan Zhiyang, aka Diaochan (Zhang Jin), and “Linda Su” is one of the mercenaries, nicknamed Monstrosity. Ke Tong unsuccessfully tries to escape and is then persuaded by Guan Zhiyang to stay with them for their next mission – to find a rebel and turn him over to the Cooley government. The mission fails and the group is forced to retreat, hiding out in a safe house in the capital to await further instructions. It turns out that Guan Zhiyang used to be a business partner of Ke Tong’s doctor father, Ke Yan, whose murderer Ke Tong has been hunting for years. The group’s client turns out to be Cooley’s Defence Ministry, which hires the group to defend a joint-venture gas pipeline – built by TKGB, a joint venture between the Cooley government and China – from rebels. The group’s job also includes protecting TKGB’s biggest shareholder, a Chinese woman called Qu Feng (Xue Jianing), who is visiting the country.

REVIEW

Well-mounted but essentially generic action fodder, centred on a band of Chinese mercenaries in a rebel-torn Arab country, Wolf Pack 狼群 is hobbled by unnecessarily complicated telling of a simple story and by attempts at character depth that don’t really come off. Slickly packaged but not exactly stuffed with action, it’s a laudable attempt at something more than just trashy entertainment that never quite rings the bell. Written and directed by Beijing-born, Xi’an and California-raised Jiang Cong 蒋丛 [Michael Chiang], 39, whose first theatrical feature was the okay breakdance drama Fearless 热血街头 (2012), it managed only a meh RMB29 million on Mainland release this autumn.

The film’s technical side is bolstered by several seasoned Hong Kong names: d.p. Huang Yongheng 黄永恒 [Horace Wong] (Reign of Assassins 剑雨, 2010; Cold Steel 遍地狼烟, 2011; KungFu Yoga 功夫瑜伽, 2017; Operation Red Sea 红海行动, 2018), editor Zhang Jiahui 张嘉辉 [Cheung Ka-fai] (The Wandering Earth 流浪地球, 2019), action director Dong Wei 董玮 (Operation Mekong 湄公河行动, 2016) and art director Zhong Zhipeng 钟志鹏 (Cold Steel), all of whom know their way round action material. But the man whose fingerprints are all over the film is Mainland distributor-turned-producer Lv Jianmin 吕建民, an investor in splashy action movies like the Wu Jing 吴京 blockbusters Wolf Warrior 战狼 (2015) and Wolf Warrior II 战狼II (2017), as well as gung-ho airforce picture Sky Hunter 空天猎 (2017), police drama The Big Shot “大”人物 (2019) and mountain spectacular Wings over Everest 冰峰暴 (2019). On Wolf Pack, Lv credits himself as presenter, chief creative producer 监制, planner and producer, but the result is simply a kind of budget Wolf Warrior.

The group of mercenaries who kidnap a charity doctor to help them out are a typically ornery bunch, with a charismatic, phlegmatic leader (Mainland-born martial artist Zhang Jin 张晋, 48, for once making a virtue of his iciness) and a token woman (Mainland martial-arts tomboy Jiang Luxia 蒋璐霞, 35, looking as butch as in Operation Red Sea, 2018). Jiang Cong’s script tries to give them moments that explore their generic characters, but they only slow the movie down. As the kidnapped doctor-with-personal-baggage, Hong Kong actor-singer Li Zhiting 李治廷 [Aarif Lee], 35, is – as in recent hostage drama Fireflies in the Sun 误杀II (2021) – a more forceful presence than usual, though he shouts his way through a role that seems hollow at its centre. In a nod to the film’s trashy genre roots, Jiang Luxia gets a brief babe-on-babe fight in the finale but is unfortunately never really let loose; and an extended action sequence midway is well staged without being notably waah! or very large scale.

The film was shot in autumn 2020 around Karamay city, Xinjiang province, and Huang’s widescreen camera makes the most of the desert landscapes. Scoring by He Huihui 和慧汇 (Whisper of Silent Body 秦明•生死语者, 2019) is big and heroic and does the job. Around 10% of the dialogue is in English, sometimes incomprehensible.

CREDITS

Presented by Spring Era (Pingtan) Film (CN).

Script: Jiang Cong [Michael Chiang]. Photography: Huang Yongheng [Horace Wong]. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai]. Music: He Huihui, Feng Shiye. Art direction: Zhong Zhipeng. Costumes: Zhang Huiwen. Sound: Chen Le, Liu Tao. Action: Dong Wei. Military advice: Wu Xinlei.

Cast: Zhang Jin (Guan Zhiyang/Diaochan), Li Zhiting [Aarif Lee] (Ke Tong), Jiang Luxia (Linda Su/Yaoguai/Monstrosity), Liu Zhiman [Mark Luu] (Huoqiu/Fireball), Ye Liu (Cangying/Fly), Zhang Yi (Saiyaren/Saiyan), Tang Guozhong (Danke/Bombshell), Gao Dongping (Su Lin), Xue Jianing (Qu Feng), Diego Dati (Aiqbayr), Yaseem (shepherd boy), Weilisi (Fei Ni), Weini (Snake Woman), Han Songning (Tailong), Chen Ran (MEA general manager), Keith Shillitoe (Abutangmu), Isaac Fernandez (Taku Sr.), Dev Raturi (Scarface), Walter Cuervo (Cooley army commander-in-chief),

Release: China, 9 Sep 2022.