A multicultural band of acrobatic do-gooders take on gangsters of three great nations in this action-packed sequel to the French box-office smash Yamakasi. The Yamakasi are a team of crime fighters who can scale buildings and urban towers with the ease of a fly walking up the wall; after leaving their home base in Paris to set up operations in England, the men decide to set up a satellite facility
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After being quite disappointed by the first Yamakasi film, i didn't expect very much. But after watching Les Fils du vent i was literally blown away. First of all, forget about the story. It's an action movie, and not a drama, so a good story won't be that important after all. The director took a free running group from France and added some martial arts artists from Thailand(?). The outcome of the equation were some very impressive action scenes. I gave this movie 8/10 stars, because it fulfills everything i expect from an action movie. So if you like martial arts and/or those little free running clips from all over the net, you won't be disappointed by this movie.
Team Yamakazi get to display their amazing Free Running skills again in this their second feature film. Once again like the previous movie, the acrobatic abilities of these seemingly fearless individuals is guaranteed to leave ones mouth agape at the sheer spectacle on display here this truly is an awesome art form and one which proves to be a perfect bedfellow for the action movie genre.Added to the crazy physical shenanigans we are also treated to some highly stylish visuals throughout especially courtesy of the stunning scenery in Thailand and a number of instances of highly imaginative and impressive visual effects such as in one scene wherein our main protagonists are seen traversing continents in one fluid take. Great stuff!Unfortunately however, despite the above glowing accolades, beneath all the surface gloss, it has to be said that when all is said and done the film in question has very little actual substance within.One of the main problems here lay in the fact that there are simply too many sub stories running throughout. Each of our main characters has their own separate 'adventures' in addition to the encompassing plot. Personal voyages of self discovery, the blossoming of love, loneliness, personal ambition and home sickness all feature here which in a much longer film might have sat more easily. However at a mere 90 or so minutes the actual effect is one of disjointedness and one that in addition actually serves to detract from the main plot. Certainly there were those who criticised the first film for the same principle, but it was not nearly as pronounced there as it is here.On the other hand, perhaps it is redundant to judge the film on such principles. After all, as an action movie this delivers some absolutely incredible set pieces; Indeed for pure kinetic enjoyment only the works of the likes of Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa etc are going to provide the same sort of adrenaline fix.In the final analysis then I feel that it is best to judge this film on it's merits as opposed to its flaws and with this in mind I would certainly recommend it highly to fans of crazy stunts, martial arts and general urban mayhem.Overall: An entirely respectable 7 out of 10 (Just don't go trying the stunts at home!)
Now, I may have had my expectations too high because the file read Les Fils du Vent, Yamakasi 2. I liked Yamakasi, even if I don't usually watch sport movies. As sports go, Free Running is pretty cool and the story and acrobatics of Yamakasi were very nice.This movie lacks the story, the technical prowess and it's set in Bangkok, where just about everyone knows how to jump from buildings (in the movie, of course). To make the French athletes fight in the end and mix Free Running with martial arts seemed to me a very bad idea.I could have liked this movie, though, if it weren't for the end. It's a mindless brawl where no one has any purpose in what they do. To make things worse, after this scene that seemed to be the end comes another, which practically voids the one before.So if you are a movie lover or a Free Runner enthusiast, you will not be particularly pleased with this movie. And it has no other qualities.
Some minor spoilers included. This movie looked very good when i first saw the trailer of it, but unfortunately after watching it i was very disappointed. Although the movie has been shot beautifully, the way it's been put together spoils the experience. I don't know if it was because of the subtitles, but it was next to impossible to discover a storyline in this movie. I found out what the story was by reading the DVD cover, but this shouldn't be necessary. It felt like the back story was all very well known to the producers of the movie, but they didn't put enough into bringing this forward in the movie itself. Because of this near lack of story you don't really connect to the characters and feel like watching some scenes instead of a coherent movie. The stunts and acting performed by the actors is good, but you'd be better off watching Yamakasi instead, in which there's more of a story and the stunts are similar. A missed opportunity.