578 Magnum is now available in on digital and VOD from Film Movement.
As I wrote this review, I took the liberty of trying to ascertain just what the title of writer and director Luong Dinh Dung’s new movie, 578 Magnum, meant. Draw your own conclusions as you may – after a few Google searches here and there, I can see how it might have made sense to the director, although it still comes off as more of a hint of how lazy the writing was that went into this action thriller.
Making his Western debut from a Vietnamese production in a lead role is actor Alexandre Nguyen who plays Hung, joined on screen by actress Thanh Thao in the role of his six-year old daughter, An. Hung shares a close relationship with his daughter while working as a container truck driver, and that relationship is sooner tested than preferred following the day he has to drop her off away at school with a promise to see her in ten days.
In the spirit of remaining as unspoilery as possible, all I’ll say is that it’s not even five minutes into 578 Magnum when things suddenly take a turn for the worse for out characters and the film pivots to a montage of action cuts for its opening credits from pending scenes in the movie. In short, the adorable An just went through something terribly traumatic, and it sends Hung on a one-man mission to teach An’s assailants a lesson, including the son of a crime boss with a penchant for kidnapping girls and a doll collection he likes to share with them.
Inevitably, things escalate for Hung who is suddenly thrust into one scuffle after another with all the odds stacked against him, including a harem of female bikers armed with weapons and color powder bombs. At this point it’s supposed to be just Hung giving these people as much hell as possible, but by the second leg of the film, our main baddies learn that the dogged Hung is ex-special forces. Nevertheless, Hung is coerced into an all out brawl at a container yard, and just when he’s supposedly on the verge of his demise, a dark horse appears.
That’s all in the first hour of 578 Magnum and by then, I was wondering just whose movie this was. I then remembered that in most Asian markets, modern action films of this kind require there to be some element of law enforcement shoehorned into the story, among other things to get certification from censors. For Luong’s latest though, while it is an issue, it’s not the biggest one.
578 Magnum is full of plot holes and forced segueing between scenes, and nuancing that make little sense of what we’re watching as we see Hung fight his way through hordes of thugs. Making matters worse is the amount of energy and interest that disspiates in trying to follow Hung, who for the most part has no personality whatsoever. His terse, quiet demeanor is anything but an attribute, namely when coming to the aid of a fellow beautiful trucker named Bao Vi, played by actress and model H’hen Hie, and the villains are all marginal placeholders waiting to be punching bags. Even the big bad in the movie, played by Clash actor Hoang Phuc, is relegated to meandering soliloquies about fatherhood before finally picking up a sword and trying to dice our hero.
The good news though is the bad guys – mostly – get what they deserve, and the big pay off is the action, courtesy of noted action director Oh Se-yeong (War, Junglee). To that end, seeing what Nguyen does on screen as a new face in the genre to root for in the Vietnamese spotlight is a welcome treat, coupled with notable performaces by some of the cast, including martial artist Tuan Hac and former wrestler Ha Van Hieu.
If action is your speed in moviegoing, I have no doubts that 578 Magnum will satiate your needs. Still, I’m rooting for Nguyen in hopes that he gets better scripts in more promising projects going forward, censors notwithstanding, of course.
Apart from the passable action scenes and screen appeal to some of its stars, there’s nothing impressive or promising about what Luong tries to accomplish with 578 Magnum, especially with the audacious cliffhanger it leaves off with before the end credits.