Vixen (2018) [Film Review]

Vixen; or, Return to Nakatomi Plaza

     Sir, she's Chinese. She's alone and she's a woman. Seriously, how much trouble do you think she's going to be?

Vixen is a 2018 action film directed by Ross W. Clarkson and written by Bey Logan. Are you in the mood for a kung-fu action flick with a female lead? Let’s take a closer at the film:

Release Info

Directed by: Ross W. Clarkson Starring: Lie-rin Chen, Luc Bendazza, Bryan Larkin

Language: Mandarin, English Original Title: Vixen Runtime: 90 min

 

Synopsis

Sunny Lee (Lie-ri Chen) is a Chinese police officer who attends a top secret, international Weapons Expo conference. When she leaves the panel and goes to the bathroom, a group of terrorists, led by a mysterious man called Benza (Luc Bendazza), take over the building and take all the attendees hostage. Lee manages to contact her ex-boyfriend, an Interpol agent, via cell-phone, but he is unable to get any help. Lee has to act on her own to take down the bad guys.

 

Diamonds Are Forever

From the first scene, this movie clearly follows the footsteps of the classic action movie Die Hard (1988). However, at times Vixen repeats certain plot points of Die Hard too closely, even to such an extent that it acknowledges its source material. In the scene when the ex-boyfriend tries to persuade a cop about the police situation, he responds: “So, you’re calling me from Binhai city, China with some cheap rip-off of Die Hard? Die Hard with a chick? Starring your girlfriend who is the only one free in there?”

 

Nevertheless, unlike Die Hard, Vixen is more focused on stealth. Although her femininity is repeatedly questioned by an American politician taken straight out of the 1980s TV shows, the main protagonist does not want to fight and she does not have a “saving the day” attitude. Most of the time, we see her sneaking around the ventilation shafts. She engages into a fight quite accidentally.

 

The screenplay is definitely not original, but Bey Logan managed to come up with some great one-liners and funny moments. The factor that keeps the story from falling apart is the commanding presence of a stunt woman turned actress Lie-ri Chen. She really has that classic vibe of a Girl with a gun (Am I the only one who remembers In the Line of Duty movies?). Allegedly, actress Veronica Ngo herself was originally scheduled to play the leading role, but she had to be replaced because of an injury. I guess it’s for the best, because Chen could showcase her action skills, whereas Ngo moved on to do the critically acclaimed Furie (2019).

 

While watching the film for the first time, I was under the impression that some of the actors had difficulties speaking English dialogue, but I found out the information that, in fact, the sound was improperly recorded on the set, which resulted in studio redubbing. In addition, director Ross W. Clarkson claims that he was left out of the post-production process. In consequence, shoddy sound editing seems to be the only major flaw of Vixen.

 

Recommendations

I very much recommend Vixen. It is certainly one of the better Die Hard-esque movies (unlike *choking sounds* that The Rock flick from 2018). Vixen is not The Villainess (2017) type of entertainment, but it is still very much enjoyable.  We really need more action movies with Lie-ri Chen. My thanks go to TriCoast Studios for sharing the screener. They released the film under their DarkCoast label. See the trailer below:

Overall score: 7/10