Iceman 3D: Not well thawed out

Donnie Yen plays Ying,a general from ancient China who thaws out after being frozen for 400 years, and finds himself in present-day Hong Kong.

SINGAPORE: In “Iceman 3D”, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen plays Ying, a Ming dynasty general sent to retrieve the Golden Wheel of Time for the Chinese emperor, a mystical device that allows one to travel back in time.

He is stopped by his brothers-in-arms Niehu (Yu Kang) and Sao (Wang Baoqiang) as he made his way back across a snowy mountain with the device in tow, and is accused of conspiring against the throne with Japanese pirates.

Before he can be captured, a sudden avalanche buries him, Niehu and Sao under tons of snow.

Four hundred years later, the frozen trio are dug out from the snow by a businessman named Tang and transported to Hong Kong on the orders of a mysterious investor.

But a road accident causes the containers holding the three men to break.

Ying thaws out and encounters May (Eva Huang), a hostess at a club.

She helps him piece together what happened and he enlists her help to find the Golden Wheel of Time in order to return home to clear his name, with Niehu, Sao and the Hong Kong police hot on their heels.

Remakes generally aren’t as good as the original.

“Iceman 3D”, a remake of the 1989 film “The Iceman Cometh”, is no exception.

“The Iceman Cometh” managed to strike a fine balance between comedy, romance and action but “Iceman 3D" did not.

Quite frankly, “Iceman 3D” has a lot of superfluous bits that seem shoehorned into the film to give Ying more depth and make him stand out, like the scenes at a home for the elderly with May’s mother.

Those particular scenes appeared to be simply be there to make Ying look like a sensitive, all-round great guy, and make the Yen-Huang pairing feel less awkward.

Alas, the two just don’t have chemistry and their onscreen romance still falls flat.

Director Law Wing Cheong was perhaps a little too ambitious with “Iceman 3D”.

Aside from the romance between May and Ying, Law attempted to flesh out Ying’s relationship with his former buddies.

He also tried to inject a healthy amount of humour into the film, all while trying to keep the focus on Ying’s quest for the Golden Wheel of Time.

The fish-out-of-water antics of Ying, Niehu and Sao as they struggle to adapt to the modern world do bring on a few laughs.

However, some of the film’s gags required the viewer to have a good grasp of certain issues in China in order to understand them, while others were simply crass and juvenile.

Like most films starring Yen, it is up to the action sequences to save “Iceman 3D” from mediocrity.

But with so many things going on in the film, there is little time left over for action sequences.

A fight sequence in a bar that pits Ying against Sao was well done.

It had lightning fast blows, dramatic fight choreography and high-impact moves - but it was also way too short and unsatisfying.

The audience had to wait till the end of the film for a decent fight sequence involving Ying, Niehu and Sao on a bridge.

Even then, the battle was unsatisfying as Ying completely outclassed his two former comrades.

What’s worse, the film ended abruptly after the fight, and was followed by a small preview of the second part of “Iceman 3D” before the credits rolled.

With an ending like that, it is hard to feel excited about “Iceman 3D” part two, and makes one wonder if it should be put on ice.

2.5/5 stars.

“Iceman 3D” is now showing.