Wu plays Bond, a troubled student whose only solace is his father's (Gordon Liu) kickboxing gym. Bond wants to get into the "Star Runner" tournament, both to fight the current champion, Tank (Andy On), and to impress his pretty new teacher, Kim (played by Korean star Kim Huyn Joo). After pops refuses to sponsor him in the tournament, Bond turns to a disgraced fighter named Bullshit Bill to give him the training he needs to take on Tank.

Well, sure, the plot's nothing much, except perhaps for the creepiness factor that a love story is built around a teacher and a student. But then, these sorts of movies don't necessarily need a heavy (or even coherent) story. Star Runner's big problem is that it tries to take itself way too seriously, and its' starring actors are simply not up to the task of holding up the picture via their performances.

While its' not the worst acting this reviewer has ever seen -- that particular "honor" currently goes to "American Idol" reject William Hung in Where is Mama's Boy? -- both Vaness Wu and Kim Huyn Joo are in dire need of help if they ever want to be taken seriously as actors. There are times it seems like the two are reading off of cue cards ala the Michael Wong school of acting.

The film-makers try to give the matters more weight with appearances by veteran stars like Ti Lung and David Chiang. But with so many un-necessary sub-plots and slow-moving exposition scenes already being thrown at the viewer, the luster of their roles becomes dim, as it becomes more of an obvious cameo rather than a real role.

However, there are a few elements which save Star Runner from becoming a total B-movie heap. The movie does look very nice. Even though the movie obviously didn't have much of a budget to work with, the set design is well-done and the film is shot and edited together very well.

The fights (which were directed by Chin Kar-Lok, who also has a small role in the movie) as you might expect the best part of the movie. In fact, they almost totally save it. That is, until the final confrontation between Bond and Tank.

A note to film-makers: when you're staging a climatic final fight, do not have the combatants look deep into each other's eyes in slow motion while a ballad plays. It, just like a lot of other things in Star Runner, is just not right.

Review: On the drawing board, Star Runner looks promising. An impressive array of notable past and present kung fu movie stars fill out a cast supporting newcomers Vaness Wu and Kim Hyun-joo in an indie-flavored film with semi-real martial arts and a romance that challenges cultural and student-teacher boundaries. Writer/director Daniel Lee scores points for the attempt to craft a well-rounded film, but fails to make the grade when it comes to execution. The story is formulaic, the characters are distant, action is cut to ribbons by awful editing, and the film ends up a gushy, feel-good retread that wastes considerable talent and potential. But it still contains a bit of nifty training and three Shaw Brothers legends all in one film which makes it at least worth glancing at.

Pop star Vaness Wu in his first film is alarmingly similar to the unremarkable likes of other recent discoveries like Edison Chen and Daniel Wu who all need more acting lessons and substance. Vaness is about as emotive as a lump of cold oatmeal. As a kickboxer named Bond Cheng, he's emotionally detached, spends his days training slavishly or talking to his grandfather (David Chiang) who's been in a coma for two years, and sleeping through his school classes. In other words, he's a real charmer, or so the new Korean-language teacher thinks. Early on, Kim Mei-chiu (Kim Hyun-joo) is conveniently accosted by unruly youths after leaving school and it's Bond to the rescue. Despite talk among faculty and the efforts of Kim's homely male roommate to court her, love blossoms between Kim and Bond. Meanwhile, there's drama at the gym. A big, mixed-martial arts competition is coming up and Bond's kickboxing coach (Gordon Liu) makes a late decision to replace him as the fighter to take on the current champion. Bond angrily walks out and hooks up with a former fighter (Max Mok) who pairs him with masters of Wing Chun (Ti Lung) and Hung Kuen in order to prepare him for the competition. When a fair-weather former love of Kim's shows up, Bond must endure the possibility of life without her as he takes on Tank in the finals.

Films centering around ring matches have the distinct disadvantage of generally having nothing new to offer that Rocky didn't provide back in 1976. Sure there's a wider variety of moves on display here, but it all comes down to the same scenario of two men beating the crap out of each other in a small square. Daniel Lee flubs the action half of the film, which is generally the only reason anyone reading this would bother to see it in the first place. Vaness has one street fight and it's awful. Vaness is no martial arts star, the choreography is sloppy and the editing is choppy. The film begins to redeem itself slightly when he begins some outdoor training with two martial arts masters. It's a pure joy to see Ti Lung back in action, if only for a short, non-speaking role. He displays his real Wing Chun skills in sparring with a wooden dummy and later with Vaness. The other master is Father Sun, played by an unidentified aged gent who displays some very slick Hung Kuen forms. It should probably be stated at this point that David Chiang and Gordon Liu, the film's other two SB alumni are only in supporting dramatic roles. David only appears either in a coma or in flashbacks.

The final thirty minutes is devoted to the martial arts competition and it's a thorough disappointment. The whole thing is shot like a manic montage with takes that get shorter and shorter, until literally every punch or kick is met with a new camera angle. It goes on and on and there's no sense of real tension or progress. It might as well be the nightly news running sports highlights, except that this is a lot more annoying. Chin Kar-lok directs the action and also appears in a supporting role as one of Vaness' former gym mates. The choreography is solid enough, but the way its edited and scripted ruins the flow. It's chaos, really.

The other half of the film is devoted to the romantic and dramatic elements that are all disposable. The story is too broad and loose with excessive, rambling diversions related to the former life of Vaness' grandfather, Alfred Cheung's wooing of Kim that tries to play for laughs and fails, Vaness's broken relationship with his coach, and the chilly relationship between Andy On and Ken Lo who plays his brother and coach. This last item is seemingly an afterthought to "humanize" the lead antagonist.

Daniel Lee plays around with too many different angles in the story and in the editing room. Star Runner is weak on just about every other level as well. It's like a rough cut or a first draft that is in desperate need of revision. Gordon Liu, David Chiang, and Ti Lung deserve better in their later years than to be marginalized in this mediocre martial arts film that plays lip service to the genre without having even a portion of the entertainment value of the trio's many great classics.

Bond Cheng (Vanness Wu) seems to be the typical dopey student, falling asleep in his first Korean language class with the lovely new Korean Chinese teacher Kim Mei Chiu (Kim Hyun-Joo). Not a good first impression with the new member of staff, but when he later fights off a gang of young hoodlums attempting to mug her, they warm to each other. After an incident with some forgotten boxing gloves Kim discovers why Bond is sleeping in her class, he's training extremely hard at a Thai Boxing gym under Master Lau (Gordon Liu!!!). A connection develops between them as they go through things together, Kim agrees to pose with Bond for his gym's boxercise advertisement pictures, and then when he realises one of the other teachers at his school is going to make a play for Kim's affections he 'rescues' her from his amorous advances. However later that night he gets into a fight with some westerners and a distraught Kim reveals to him why she left Korea to come teach in Hong Kong. She had been in a relationship with a married man and he'd always promised to her that one day he'd leave his wife for her, telling her to trust him. Kim had told herself that if she ever saw him and his wife together in public, that she would leave him and have nothing more to do with him (don't look at me, I didn't write it) and one day that very thing happened, and she left for Hong Kong as soon as she could. Bond and Kim grow closer, but the young man has other things to worry about, the upcoming Star Runner martial arts tournament. Each martial arts school can only enter two fighters each and when Bond is turned down in favour of his senior Hoi (Chin Kar Lok) and fellow student Chris he leaves the group. However, a disgraced former martial arts champion called Bill (Max Mok) offers him a second chance, offering him the chance to fight for his Fusion Tao gym and to combine his Thai boxing with kung fu. Bond must strive to master these techniques so that he can prove something to his former sifu and to take on the ultimate challenge, the powerful and feared Tank (Andy On). Things could be complicated further when someone else comes from Korea, looking for Kim...

Is this film a bad teen romance movie with martial arts elements fighting to get out, or a martial arts movie lumbered with bad teen romance bits? It all depends on how you look at it, but considerable patience is required if dull teen romance stories aren't your bag. There is just too much plot for this film to work properly, and in the end Star Runner is left with a serious crisis of identity. Involved here are themes of loss and rejection, loneliness and the need for love and companionship, the difficulties and social problems caused by romance between teacher and student, falls from grace and the search for redemption, the loss of belief in traditional Chinese martial arts, and the realising of ones dreams. However even with a 105 minute running time the film couldn't possibly hope to give the time needed to all these ideas, and the results feel incredibly truncated. While it has been said that there are scenes missing from the Hong Kong DVD version such as a love scene between the two main characters, it is highly doubtful that the deleted footage would have plugged all the gaps. Sadly, there are moments where things become engaging and this occurs when the martial arts portions on the film kick in. When Bond starts training with Fusion Tao, all of a sudden the film goes up a notch and everything picks up - the filming, soundtrack, and cast look a little more enthusiastic all of a sudden. However the love story dominates the picture up until around the 45 minute mark and even then, it keeps intruding on our precious fight action! This wouldn't be so bad if the romance story wasn't so terribly dire. The core of the story is this: a pretty girl sees a pretty boy, and because they're both very pretty they fall for each other. We're lucky to even get a line of dialogue between them even expressing their attraction to each other, its all done with attempted meaningful looks that the cast sadly is not up to pulling off.

As if the weak plot wasn't bad enough, the cast is lead by a pair of pop stars that couldn't act dead if you shot them in the face. As far as Vanness Wu's acting goes he fits in well with other pop actors of recent years, running the gamut of emotions from 'moody' to 'very moody', he has the personality of a zip code in Kansas and will sadly probably go on to big things in Hong Kong cinema if the success of some of his predecessors are anything to go by. Kim Hyun-Joo is successful Korean pop singer also and her performance makes the Twins look like Gong Li and Maggie Cheung, she's like Shu Qi without the personality. Kim does all the usual things expected of an Asian actress in a film like this: she looks absolutely adorable, she pouts, she looks like she's on the verge of crying for half of the movie, but her performance is as shallow and pitiful as I've seen in recent Hong Kong movies and makes it difficult to believe that this same island produced so many films in the 80s and early 90s with women is strong action-oriented roles. The simpering Kim and stone-faced Wu have no chemistry whatsoever and any further development of their shallow relationship wouldn't have stood a chance in the hands of two such inexperienced performers. What might have been a charming love story loses momentum after five minutes as we grow tired of Kim's doe eyes and Wu's blank stare, and this is what carries the first half of the film and a good portion of the second! This will infuriate many who had hoped to see the supporting cast mix it up in the fight scenes which are in sadly short supply.

You're going to have to put up with it though, because the martial arts sequences here an absolute must-see! Chin Kar Lok's choreography is tremendous here, giving the fights a solid and realistic style with the exception of one very silly-looking spinning slam thing that Tank has in his arsenal. The film comes alive when its time to show some scrappin', the camera work becomes more animated, the soundtrack crashes with guitar riffs and driving beats and nifty visual effects are used. It's a completely different film, perhaps the film that Daniel Lee and crew actually wanted to make, and while much is still conveyed with gestures and facial expressions the drama is there and the whole thing just works, damnit! It must be conceded that despite his massive failings as an actor, Vaness Wu actually acquits himself well in the fight scenes. Aided by the excellent choreography and some frenetic camera work, he looks quite plausible as a martial artist, possibly some training in dance from his pop career helps him look athletic and limber. His training scenes also looked good including him training with a portly old Ti Lung in Wing Chun, one cannot deny that he did well for a first timer. More impressive still is Andy On who has made a good recovery after starring in the ghastly Black Mask 2. Here he is in amazing shape and looks every bit the cocky and extremely dangerous martial arts champion, his fight with Chin Kar Lok being a particular highlight and the final fight is excellent in its thrilling display of athleticism and heart from both characters. Sadly there are still shortcomings, the most glaring being there simply isn't enough of these scenes. Only three fights felt in any way complete and the others are edited highlight reels, the cast of fighters for the film is severely under-used. The fights are so compelling that it's a massive comedown when it goes back to the insipid romantic plot, that these technically excellent fights should be a subplot to such bad drama is infuriating. There are dramatic elements to the fights too including a whole subplot of the relationship between Tank and his brother that is only just hinted at and could have been much more interesting. It is also bizarre seeing so many martial arts stars that don't do anything. Ti Lung does a few Wing Chun forms, Gordon Liu just shouts a lot (though does get a great dramatic acting scene near the end) and Ken Lo, bodyguard to Jackie Chan and amazing superkicker in his own right, doesn't get to show any of his skills as Tank's brother and trainer. Another old-schooler, David Chiang, stars as Bond's grandfather but unfortunately he spends most of the film in a coma! Old-school fans are going to be thoroughly pissed off, which is a shame because when the fighting gets on screen it truly is some of the best committed to film for a good while.

Ultimately, this film is a grave disappointment and a terrible waste. One can only dream of some sort of special cut that sheds much of the painfully dull and poorly written romance and replaces it with the Star Runner tournament itself which was not only infinitely more entertaining, but seemed to feature far more effort on the part of the makers. Perhaps if the main cast members weren't attractive young pop stars, far more emphasis could have been put on the martial arts, though looking at Hong Kong's cinematic climate this film might not have been made at all without them. What we are left with is a film with some priceless golden moments, but they are buried under 50 tons of crap. Combat fans simply must see the fights , but its difficult to recommend the film as a whole. Get ready with the fast forward button.

PROBLEM #1 - THE ROMANTIC SUB-PLOTS:
So there's this kid, Bond, and he falls in love with his teacher, Kim, and vice versa... And it's supposedly this big scandal because, "Ooh, a teacher seeing a student, ooh!" Only, the teacher is probably even younger than the student, so who cares? Plus, the student is never in class; and when he is, he's asleep; and why is he even going to school (college?) anyway? He wants to be a professional fighter. So anyway, he's in love with his teacher, and also the teacher's male friend/roommate is in love with her, and also her cheating ex-husband claims to be in love with her...but who cares? All we want to see is Bond training and getting better and kicking ass in the fighting ring. Yet we're forced to sit through the most tedious and tiresome courtship of all time instead. If the filmmakers had completely ditched the entire romantic sub-plot, the film would have been much, much stronger.

PROBLEM #2 - THE ACTION DIRECTION:
For a film that's half action and half romance, if the romantic half sucks, the action half better be damn good. Unfortunately, that's not really the case here. All the fighting centers around the "Star Runner" tournament, which is a free-style fighting competition. Fighters are allowed to use any styles they want--even including dry humping on the floor like the real-life, pay-per-view free-style fights we've all seen on TV. (Thankfully, there's no dry humping in this film, but they get close a couple times.) So the fight scenes aren't your typical variety where there's a lot of room to move around, stuff to climb on and jump off of, props to hurl, etc. It's just two guys in a ring just beating the crap out of each other back and forth--sweat flying, faces puffing, eyes sealing, etc. So while it's dramatic, in the way that a boxing movie would be, it's not very exciting or creative. And the direction really hurts the film here, because it cuts every few frames, and it's mostly close-ups so you can't see exactly what's happening or in what sequence. If we wanted to see an American action film, we would have; but you're in Hong Kong, guys, we hold you to a higher standard in the fight direction department.

NON-PROBLEM #1 - OLD SCHOOL ASS-KICKERS:
Here's where the movie redeems itself, or at least approaches doing so. Gordon Liu plays a coach at Bond's training gym, which is a treat. He doesn't do any fighting, but it sure is nice to see him back up on the screen, even in a limited capacity. Then we have David Chiang, another Shaw Bros. master, in another very small but cool role. And finally, we have Ti Lung, as a wing chun master that teaches Bond a kung fu trick or two. Love it. How cool is it to see these guys in a modern movie? Hopefully this is a trend that will continue. Rounding out the ass-kicking portion of the cast are Chin Kar Lok and Max Mok, neither of whom would be considered "old school", but both of whom kick ass and don't seem to get enough play in films these days. Hong Kong filmmakers, if you're listening out there, set these guys free with a camera and a stunt crew some day without entangling them in lame comedy and romance sub-plots and you'll have a real winner on your hands.

So, in conclusion, this film was basically all about the cameos for us. The fight scenes didn't really do much for us, and the romantic story was indescribably irritating. If you're a fan of boxing films, Hong Kong romances, or just badly want to see some of your old school faves, give "Star Runner" a look. But if you hated "The Karate Kid" or can't stomach more than your yearly recommended dosage of sap in one sitting, you should probably just skip it.