My Review of "Kill Zone (aka SPL)"

Kill Zone (aka SPL) came out in 2005. I remember watching this movie a long time ago and was mesmerized by the action sequences and the story. More than a decade later I only somewhat remember the action sequences but forgot the story altogether. It was time to revisit this film and see if it holds up to today's standards.

The movie starts off with a horrible car wreck. We see a group of people just bloodied up and struggling to live. Fortunately in that crash a police officer that goes by Chan was able to survive from the mess. Him and a little girl are the only survivors of this crash. Chan then goes on to raise this little girl by himself.

We then get pushed even further back into the past. It explains how they got into the crash in the first place. There's this guy Wong who is some sort of big kingpin of an organized crime ring. He basically runs the city at night. What Wong wants, Wong gets. There's no one that can touch him because he's very careful with his affairs. No matter what happens he always has a fall guy to take his place for his crimes.

Wong is the mastermind behind this horrific crash that has spun everyone's life around. Chan knows this and vows to enact revenge against Wong. Being a good cop means he has to have sufficient evidence to convict Wong and that will always be a major problem when it comes to Wong. Throughout his career Chan has tried and tried to get Wong convicted.

Years go by and still nothing. Chan is about ready to retire but he has never caught his white whale. In his last days on the police force a new officer is hired to replace Chan. He goes by the name of Ma Kwan. Ma Kwan is a by the books officer and he's starting to notice there's something fishy about Chan.

Chan may have become the good guy for so long that he has become a bad guy. He's not willing to stop at anything to get Wong. That's basically the tug of war that continues throughout the movie. There's this moral ambiguity that permeates throughout this movie. You can see the perspectives of both sides of the coin.

It's a pretty compelling story but the pacing of this movie is kind of all over the place. The timeline of the whole thing isn't really consistent as they're working on Chan's last 2 days and it can seem like a week had passed by. It is a bit slow and a little convoluted in the beginning but then it amps up into overdrive in the last half of the movie.

The great intensity of the situations where you know something is going to happen will have you at the edge of your seat the whole time. They're really tense and then when the actual fighting happens it is art flowing on your television.

A lot of the fighting can seem really over the top but you really feel some of those falls, cuts and bruises. Makeup isn't the best and the image quality are highly suspect. Still you have to give them props for what they had at the time they made this movie.

Overall, I think the last half of this movie stood the test of time. The first half of the movie was a bit of a mess. This movie is definitely a product of its time and you'll know what I mean with the style and art direction. What mattered is that I still had a great time with this movie. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. The fight scenes are legendary but that's not what makes a movie. It can keep me watching it though.