THE REBEL is the latest fantastic martial arts film to come from Dragon Dynasty. Le Van Cuong (Johnny Tri Nguyen) works for the French in French occupied Vietnam in the 1920s. He is trying to stop a rebel leader who wants to free Vietnam from French colonial rule (the same French who could be debated caused the Vietnam war to start decades later). Le Van Cuong begins to doubt his role when he captures the daughter of the rebel leader, Vo Thanh Thuy (Veronica Ngo). Soon he helps Vo escape and they are pursued by Sy (Dustin Tri Nguyen), someone that Cuong used to work with. Sy is unstoppable and dabbles in black magic to make sure nothing can hurt him. What follows throughout the film is a series of great martial arts and action sequences. THE REBEL does hold up in between action sequences. It doesn't drag in the way you're waiting for the next cool action scene to start. The climatic fighting is saving the best for last.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
DISC 1-
the only extra is an insightful commentary with Johnny Tri Nguyen, Veronica Ngo, Dustin Tri Nguyen, and Hong Kong Cinema expert Bey Logan. They mention a few deleted scenes not included in this DVD release.

DISC 2-
The extras start out with three 30 minute plus interviews with the stars of THE REBEL. They come across very well and teh interviews weren't boring to me.
EMPTY HAND, NOBLE HEART: interview with Johnny Tri Nguyen- Johnny talks about learning the family martial arts and other martial arts styles, how he got into film making and fell into being a stuntman/actor, and quite a bit of talk about THE REBEL (he wanted Dustin's character to be like The Terminator).
CRY FOR FREEDOM: interview with Veronica Ngo- Veronica starts out with her family moving to Norway before she moved back to Vietnam years later at 20 to model and act, then she reveals how she got involved into being part of THE REBEL (from her doubts to her stuntwoman quiting to her own on-set injuries and fear of heights).
THE DARK DESTROYER: interview with Dustin Tri Nguyen- Dustin says he started martial arts at 14, his acting career, and great insight into his character who dabbled into black magic.

The Behind-The-Scenes galleries features 12 production featurettes. Johnny Tri Nguyen offers a too-brief martial arts demonstration of moves featured in TEH REBEL. Also included is a useless deleted scene from THE REBEL's preview cut. Rounding out the extras is a Making Of featurette which focuses on the various locations they went to, production design, the drunk actor they had to deal with, an old lady who wanted to steal the spotlight, and dealing with the weather.

FINAL ANALYSIS: THE REBEL has great martial arts and the extras provide great detail into the making of the film and the main leads.

this DVD review is (c)10-24-2008 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com  

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