Review | Film review: Bleeding Steel – globe-trotting Jackie Chan sci-fi action caper is utter nonsense
You can’t fault Hong Kong actor’s work ethic, but he should be more discerning; burdened with a nonsensical script and packed with risible English dialogue and even worse performances, this film feels like a lazy cash grab
0.5/5 stars
The recent prolific output of Hong Kong action legend Jackie Chan continues, as audiences in China flock to see his films in unprecedented numbers. The quality of Chan’s films has, however, varied wildly, and with this one he hits a new low in terms of the nonsensical garbage he is willing to put his name to.
Ostensibly an Australian-Chinese co-production, Bleeding Steel is a globetrotting sci-fi action caper that sees Chan play a former UN security officer who must rescue his estranged daughter from the clutches of a mutated super soldier and his army of space robots. And it gets worse.
Officer Lin (Chan) is grieving the apparent death of his daughter Xixi from leukaemia, while simultaneously licking his wounds after failing to protect a game-changing scientist. Thirteen years later, the publication of a sci-fi novel precisely detailing the biotech Lin’s charge was working on attracts a variety of interested parties to Sydney, leading to all manner of nefarious shenanigans.
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Chan finds himself partnered with Taiwanese pop star Show Luo (The Mermaid), whose shady thief is also looking for the tech. New Zealand-born Australian actor Callan Mulvey plays a vengeful test subject, whose mutated physique now resembles a Borg from Star Trek. Their investigations all lead to a young Chinese student called Nancy (cellist-turned actress Nana Ou-yang), who turns out to be Lin’s daughter.
