Baby
 Chet  rates it:    Community rates it: (no ratings yet)
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The cover for this film proclaimed that this is "the Boyz In The Hood" for Asian-Americans. While that statement may be racist on several levels, at least it gave me a somewhat vague idea of what to expect. However, from the opening minutes I film I realized this movie is not comparable in any way to "Boyz In The Hood". About the only similarity I could find is that both movies feature gunplay. Other then that, it's apples and oranges.

This movie stars a young punk simply known as Baby. As a youth he witnessed some grisly crimes by the local Asian-American street gang. The gang was scared that he might rat them out. Rather then live with the guilt of killing a young child, they took him under their wing. They raised him under the code of the streets and basically made him into a killer. When he finally hits puberty he commits his first murder. Unfortunately, it's his only murder as he is swiftly caught and sent to prison.

Upon hitting the grand ole age of 18, he is promptly released. He comes back into the world and finds he no longer has a place there. His girlfriend has moved on. His old gang members are either dead or in jail. And there's a brand new crime boss running things. His best friend has abandoned the life of crime, and has become an ordinary post high school student citizen. He does the only thing he knows to do, and goes to the new crime boss seeking work. Of course he finds it. And thus continues a tale of poor, down and out Asian Americans who turn to crime.

As a crime adventure, it's pretty bland. There's no over the top heart string moment that gets us rooting for Baby. For most of the film I found myself not caring weather or not he lives or dies. He wasn't a character you could really feel any emotion for. I thought his part was written very poorly, and we never really got an insight into why he turned to crime in every instance of his life.

I would defiantly call this an exploitive tale, as it takes a turn so far from reality you start thinking it's a cartoon. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain a lot of blood and gore. When it comes to B-movies, I expect a little more over the top aspects then this had to offer. This movie just didn't contain much fun. It had enormous potential, but fell flat on its face.

It was an ensemble film, featuring more of the better known Asian-American actors of our time. Most of them had at least a minor role in Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift. I would swear the casting director must have been headhunting straight from F&F's lot. Given that it is an ensemble cast, you would really expect that the acting would be good. To my dismay, the acting was horrible. It seemed as if most of the cast just phoned it in.

All in all this movie did have some decent action scenes. The gunplay was top notch. However nothing else was. All the pointless dialogue and annoying plot holes lead me to root for this to be over. There wasn't even any decent nudity to speak of. I probably would not recommend this movie to anyone, but to each his own right? For me this was a two canner at best. Enjoy the show kids.

Added:  Thursday, October 30, 2008

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