‘Weekend in Taipei’ Review
Stars: Sung Kang, Lun-Mei Gwei, Luke Evans, Wyatt Yang | Written by George Huang, Luc Besson | Directed by George Huang
The poster for Weekend in Taipei bills it as “From the creator of Taken and The Transporter”. That’s another way of saying Luc Besson, who co-wrote both of those hits with Robert Mark Kamen, co-wrote this film’s script. However, his co-writer this time is the film’s director George Huang, who seems like an odd choice having not directed since he helmed several episodes of American Heiress in 2007. His last credit as a writer was the faux sequel Hard Target 2 in 2016.
In Taipei, mob boss Kwang (Sung Kang; Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) is going on trial. At the same time that he’s proclaiming his innocence to the gathered reporters, his wife Joey (Lun-Mei Gwei; Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, Women in Taipei) is buying a new Ferrari. After a suitably fast test drive through the streets of Taipei, of course.
In Minneapolis, Agent John Lawlor (Luke Evans; No One Lives, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) is about to have six months of undercover work ruined when his partner’s cover is blown. He does manage to get a drug bust out of it, but he can’t make the connection between the drugs and his ultimate target, Kwang. As a reward, he’s forced to take some vacation.
Even if the film wasn’t called Weekend in Taipei, you could probably guess that’s where Lawlor is going to take his vacation. And he arrives just in time, Joey’s teenage son Raymond (Wyatt Yang) has just stolen Kwang’s ledger, ironically because the seafood operations he uses to hide his smuggling are responsible for the deaths of thousands of dolphins.
The only way the script could be any more cliché is for Lawlor and Joey to have history, and for him to actually be Raymond’s father. And as a matter of fact they do, and he is. The script for Weekend in Taipei might as well have been an AI-generated action film template, it’s so generic. In and of itself, that’s not too bad in a film like this, as long as the action scenes deliver.
Unfortunately, it’s obvious from the start that’s not going to be the case here. The scenes of the Ferrari racing around are nice, but since it’s a test drive not a chase there’s no tension. On the other hand, Lawlor’s fight in the restaurant is the kind of wild brawl that Jackie Chan has been doing for decades. Lots of enemies, lots of kitchen implements pressed into service, seen it lots of times before. The film’s one scene that isn’t a cliché is an inspired, if odd, homage to Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Joey looking like Audrey Hepburn as Moon River plays on the soundtrack. It’s eye catching but serves no real purpose either.
It’s all staged competently enough, but there’s nothing new or innovative about any of the fights or car chases. And when you fill your film with actors from the Fast and Furious franchise and mention The Transporter on the poster, you really need to deliver some top-end chase scenes to live up to the memories you evoke. Those in Weekend in Taipei are about what you would expect in a DTV action film.
And, despite the presence of Besson and the film getting theatrical play across the globe, that’s what Weekend in Taipei really is. A competently made straight-to-streaming action film that you might rent on a weekend when there aren’t any new releases. It won’t bore you, but it won’t excite you either.
** 2/5
Weekend in Taipei has already been released in several countries. In the US, Ketchup Entertainment will release it on November 8th.
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