Contour (2006 Video) User Reviews

80s Hong Kong action resurrected

[AndreasHardcastle · 7/10 · 10 November 2008]

I usually can't watch indie movies that have this lifeless cinematography that TV documentaries have, it looks cheap, cold and boring. BUT... Contour went to the action in the first few minutes and there it delivered and kept me watching.

The acting in this movie is not for everyone. These guys are no Oscar-drama actors but they capture the fun and spirit of 80s Hong Kong flicks and the humor, as well in the acting as in the fight scenes, reminded me of earlier Jackie Chan movies. It's like a comic come to life and if you can forgive the horrible editing in the non-fight-scenes and like the cheesy humor you're going to have a great time watching the whole thing.

The fight scenes are just awesome. They use the complete environment around them and go at it with everything they can get their hands on or throw somebody into and they never take themselves too serious. Every actor uses a different fighting style and you see a lot of artistic falling, jumping and kicking out of every possible angle.

This was the first movie of The Stunt People I've seen but after writing this I'll order some more. I think in time this group could become a big name in martial arts movies and I can't wait to see what they will do when the budget becomes a little bit more serious.

I just witnessed

[elman · 10/10 · 20 September 2006]

THE SECOND COMING!

and it has Martial Arts in it and the Stuntpeople.

WoW!!

Where to start my review!

First this:

BEST Martal Arts movie since 'Drunken Master 2'!!}

The exciting eyeopening feeling I got, when I first witnessed Jackie doing tons of versatile excellently choreographed fights with big stunts and falls, was the same when I witnessed CONTOUR!

Stuntpeople really outdid themselves. This movie is highly ambitious without being bloated or pretentious. I really liked a lot of the humor especially when it was fight/stunt related. Situation comedy. (not all the dialog humor worked for me, but that's not really a problem, since the movie has tons and tons of action sequences)

The fights! Well, Like I mentioned , they're very versatile! They all have the thick pizza bottoms (from my theory about a good pizza as analogy to a great fight sequence) which results in; hardcore kick-boxing thickness. And they're flavored with excellent toppings. Like - Insane falls Outstanding fight flow WICKED camera-work (the one that follows the gun in the air is INSANE) Original ideas (the 'tied up' fight, the 'flying bats' fight)

The fights are all super fast and TOUGH, even the fights with girls (which usually, without offense, are the slower and nicer parts in MA movies; people tend to be more gentle toward girls, which is kinda natural of course ) So yeah, Tyler did a great job too! (although her fights can't hold up against the superior level of fights like Eric vs Dennis or Ed vs everyone or Eric vs Andy etc. etc.)

I really see Stuntpeople have developed their own unique style which also explains why I think Contour is one of the best all-time MA movies.

It has a background of 80ies Yuen Woo Ping choreography to it, with Sammo Hung kinda stunts and Janusz Kaminski kinda camera-work. That combined makes for this shattering cocktail of groundbreaking fight-scenes.

Forget Ong Bak! This is a movie where EVERYONE counts. I really think Stuntpeople is the best MA team at the moment, because it's very fair; it does not really pick one of the players as the best, it's team choreography! A thing that is sorely missing these days. As I see Eric Jacobus as main choreographer on the list I think this is his most important input in this style of Fight sequences. Everybody shines.

The bloopers where hardcore too.

The bad things: Well I don't really need to say bad things! I did not fast forward any part! It had so much style, good comedy, witty performances, changing hairstyles in single scenes, and GREAT enthusiasm in it.

You guys are beyond the Hollywood A list, they don't make action like this in Hollywood.

So once again, Props to the entire team Thank you for this good movie and what the future will hold for Stuntpeople.

Stuntmen First! Filmmakers.... A Distant Fourth? Fifth?

[NardacBlefscu · 16 December 2007]

When it comes to amateur martial arts flicks, this is easily top echelon and delivers a shameful thrashing to the craptakular "Dubbed & Dangerous" movies or the truly lousy "Left For Dead." Still, there's no hiding the fact the fact that these guys were more concerned about putting together fights than a decent movie. The film runs waaaaay too long (107m? Come on!), the acting, writing and comedy are dire, the editing is only good when people are kicking each other, and as good as the fight scenes are-- and make no mistake these guys have a tight game-- nothing can hide the fact that you've seen all these moves before, especially if you've been watching martial arts films for any period of time; things are further hampered by the fact that they couldn't afford any collateral damage outside of the occasional broken crate or blood effect so you have fight scenes that build up to not much really. Still, the film is worth watching at least once, just do it with friends and a keg of beer so you have something to do when nobody's fighting and the "Komedy and Laffs" bits stinks up your DVD player.

High School Drama Team

[moslerssjmu · 1/10 · 17 November 2007]

This movie is horrendous. Decent fight scenes or not, the acting is REALLY bad, like you can tell they're reading their lines from a card. With painful line delivery by everyone in the cast. Think watching a high school play and cringing at the obvious lack of smoothness in the actor's interactions (weird pauses between different character's lines, combined with hurried line delivery by others). If the movie were all action, this might be forgivable, but a lot of the movie includes plot set-up and Family Guy style, irreverent cut aways (Oh, wow, are they badly done). I'm assuming they were attempting to be funny with these, but it again came off as a bunch of high-schoolers/ college entry students goofing off for the afternoon trying to set up a funny Youtube clip.

Now to the fight scenes. They're not too bad, considering the level of quality seen everywhere else in the film. Nothing great either, certainly not anywhere near the same level as other posters have stated (Nothing like Drunken Master). The fights have an overly staged feel, with LOTS of cuts to different angles with blatantly different positions by those involved.

In sum, the only reason to watch this movie is if you were one of the guy's friends involved with this very, very cheap production. Which guy you may ask? Oh, the same guy who wrote, directed, produced AND stared in this Middle School masterpiece.

Humorous, irreverent, kicks major ass!

[Zabadoh · 9/10 · 6 September 2007]

Produced on a shoestring budget at anonymous locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Contour is a powerhouse of amateur martial artists giving their all for the silver screen.

The writing is great because it doesn't take itself seriously. Our dysfunctional heroes are pitted against a cartoony plot centered around the laughable fictional country of Uruvia.

Cinematography. It's really easy to overlook how important this is to a film like this, but the camera-work is superb, framing the fights perfectly.

Editing. As in all martial arts film, sharp scene cuts with split second timing is crucial, and there's spades of it here.

Kick Ass Martial Arts. Oh yeah, these guys are good! There is a well staged stick fight and a brilliant chain fight at the end of the movie.

Kudos to the guys who almost killed themselves making this film.

THANK YOU!

Tremendous Martial Arts Film - An Absolute Must See!

[rossboyask · 8/10 · 13 July 2008]

I caught this film at the Phantasmagoria film festival this weekend and it absolutely blew me away. Contour is easily one of the best martial arts films I've ever seen, and is hilarious to boot. There were a few bits that I felt were a touch out of place, and some of the characters grated a bit, but in terms of amusing characters and red hot action scenes there is very little out there to compete with this, especially not in recent times. The fights have to be seen to believed, including some very funny moments, and they build to a fantastic 3-way final showdown. If you love films like Drive, Drunken Master 2, Dragons Forever and Undisputed 2, then Contour is essential. Great outtake reel too guys, it shows how hard you worked and the sheer passion you have for what you do. Congratulations to everyone involved, you should be very proud indeed.

Wow ....Wow .....Wow....!!! Excellent Kick A@@ Hong Kong Action

[fabiane66 · 9/10 · 10 January 2010]

The first thing i should say is why is this movie have have a better rating than 6.5 really i mean i think Transformers 2 got that rating and there is no way that this movie should get a 6.5 rating. I know if you have read my other reviews you will see that i love action movies and hong kong action movies and this movie is one of the best American made martial art action movies ever made in America (did that make sense). If you know American action movies they may contain fights that are lame or some action scenes that my cousin who is 6 could do better fights. I mean really in recent years hong kong style action have gone down in Hollywood i mean don't you remember in the late 90's when a lot of hong kong guys like jackie chan and jet li or donnie yen came over to Hollywood and gave Hollywood a good boost in talent well that lasted for about a good 5 years or maybe 7 years know Hollywood has good to back to bad action movies or just bad movie making when it comes to action movies. Well in recent years a group of martial artist have formed a group based i believe out of San Franisco that are called Stunt people. If you watch there website or seen there shorts that they made than you are getting a taste for what is to come. Contour plot is simple it stars Eric Jacobs who plays a criminal who is really bad at stealing stuff but really good at kicking the stuff out of bad guys. Eric plays the main lead as his day job is to be a taxi cab person who drive people around town well he just happens to pick up a prince and his bodyguard who are in town. That is really is all the plot you need as most of the most consist of humour and action. I know some people have talked about the humor not being funny well i beg to differ i laughed a lot well i also have a weird sense of humour but the humor is a mixture of good jokes bad jokes and a lot of slapstick humor. But really the best thing about the movie the only thing you need to know about the movie is Action. My friend this movie delivers the best action stuff that America has produced in many years i mean that. Transformers 2 or Gi joe or anything released this year or this decade has delivered anything this good. The only American action movie that i can thing that has been close in recent years are Undisputed 2 or Drive but they are not even close to this great fun movie. I know another thing about the movie that has been written is that the acting is not good ....really people acting in a American martial art movie. I mean the acting is suitable for this type of movie i mean people this movie is not trying to be Rageing Bull or Departed it is trying to be a kick the stuff out people in how many ways there is. The action is this movie is so good that it even beats a lot of hong kong movies in years to. I mean really hong kong action movies have gone down in years heck it really has not been good since 1995 but why carp. I mean the only good action left in hong kong is Donnie yen or or ....well that is about it because jackie and jet have been taking it easy in the last couple of years so the only great thing left in hong kong is donnie yen. There is also Tony Jaa i have yet to see ong bak 2 but i have heard mixed things so i will see that is and i mean really Tony does it take 5 years or so to make a movie. But back to the Contour the movie mixed different martial arts which makes the fights even more exciting there is tradition kung fu and many other types of martial arts and the way the fights are filmed are excellent. I believe Hollywood should call these guy to see if they are willing to work for them. The stunt these guys pull off here are excellent i mean the people are really getting hit and they are really taking hard fall , mad props to these guy because i know those so called Hollywood stars would not be taking falls like this. In the end this movies deserves a higher score and should have a bigger fan base heck i bought my disc at Fry's so i don't know why more people are not talking about this movie. It is a straight fun low budget action fun( i mean low budget i believe someone said the movie cost less than $5000 which if that is the case this movie deserves even more attention). Contour is the real deal my friend . Contour gets a A- (A- =A+ for action)

Most fun I've had watching a film in ages!

[cg_regan · 10/10 · 14 July 2008]

Saw this at Phantasmagoria over the weekend and really enjoyed it. The action and is amazing, truly mind-blowing stuff. Given the budgetary constraints I'm surprised no one got killed! Add to that the characters are likable and there are some incredibly funny moments. The mix of action and humour really works, and it helped that the audience I saw it with was loving every minute too! It's not as polished as a lot of low budget action films and the structure is a bit off but it's a film with a lot of heart and that makes it impossible not to enjoy. Definitely one to see with a group of friends. I can't wait to see what these guys do next!