[FANTASIA 2018] ‘LÔI BÁO’ Review

Oh, to dream of being a superhero. Loi Bao is a Batman-esque creation of our author protagonist Tam (Cuong Seven), a rather unlikable man who becomes, somehow, even less likable after being given a terminal cancer diagnosis. Instead of spending time with his wife and son, he decides to become even more obsessed with completing his graphic novel. Enter his uncle, a farmer who is secretly a genius and working on head transplant surgical technology. After stumbling across a dead gangster’s body in the forest where Tam was just failing at attempted suicide, they decide “let’s give this a shot!” One head transplant and what feels like a week later, Tam is a brand new man, gifted with a cancer free body that even, somehow, possesses super strength! But that dead gangster? He has some acquaintances that have some unfinished business, and after they learn who Tam is, suddenly he and his family are in peril. Now he really IS a superhero! Can this real life Loi Bao save the day??

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Straight off the bat, this review comes with a caveat: the copy that I was provided with had really, really messed up audio. Dialogue, on a level of 10, was at an 11. So to protect my ear drums I had to lower the volume way down just to get the voices at a comfortable level. This in turn made everything else (foley, sound effects, music, etc.) so feint that it sounded like it was coming from a distance. Needless to say that for an action movie to have the guts ripped out, the sound, is a lousy experience. Not to mention that every fight scene, especially one at the end, had a lot of loud “HAH!” and “HOO-YA!” as two men fought with knives in a body of water with a silent current. Things became unintentionally funny…

…but they didn’t need much help. As you can probably tell from my opening paragraph, this movie is so, SO very dumb. Just silly. Like, suspend your belief beyond all rationale. I’ve found a lot to enjoy in the few previous Vietnamese movies I’ve seen, but there’s a major disconnect culturally that I’ve found doesn’t translate as easily as other Asian cinema does. This may be my issue. I can’t tell what is meant to be serious and what is simply meant to be cheesy melodrama, because they’re one in the same here. The child is especially tedious and grating. I found myself no longer caring about what was happening as it dragged on and on with scene after scene of emotion that I wasn’t

I was really excited for this after seeing the trailer last year. There’s some decent action in here that I wasn’t able to properly appreciate given the technical issues. That is (hopefully) not an indication of the final product. Choreography isn’t as polished as it could be, but looks good for the most part. I feel like director Victor Vu is well versed in cinema and very capable of putting something good together. Sadly, I don’t think this is it.

No news about distribution yet, so Fantasia 2018 (and possibly other festivals) are the way to catch this one for the time being!