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| Won Bin in The Man From Nowhere, who didn't even make the cut, this list is so loaded with badasses |
The incredibly serious business that is the Badass World Cup continues, with a biggie. If we're going to be real about ownage cinema, there are two continents where the vast majority of the greatest classics are made: North America (which I'm saving for last, and not out of dick-waving patriotism or anything either, just cuz facts is facts, people), and Asia. To indulge in one of the soccer metaphors I've been trying to keep to a minimum throughout the group stage coverage, in the same way that Australia was the underrated, dope Netherlands, Asia is Brazil. Aw yeah. Style. Grace. Joga Bonito. Is it a coincidence that Pele and Bruce Lee were born the same year? Fuck. No. They're within days of being the same astrological sign.
But yeah, Asia has a vast history of massively awesome violent movies, with some of the raddest motherfuckers ever to take their shirts off. The movie industries of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Mumbai, and more recently Seoul are not fucking around. This is a continent where you could stock a team of eleven starters and seven reserves that would fuck the whole shit of any other in the world up, and still not need to field the winner or the first couple also-rans. The point I'm trying to make is that Asia knows ownage.
This leads into a very important point, because I need to have a convenient argument shutter-downer in case someone's pissed off that I “forgot” something: there's a reason I've been sticking with the central soccer metaphor in this particular Cup. Even though the notion that, on any given Sunday, any team is capable of beating any other team originated in American football, it's true in association football too. I mean, unless you're playing Barcelona, in which case you're fucked. But the point is, whatever worthy I may have “forgotten” could just have run up against an ill-timed own goal in a qualifying match. And that's the story I'm sticking to.
So, without any further ado, let us to the runners-up:
9—Bolo, Enter The Dragon, China
Just as easily could have gone to Bolo's work as the baddies in Bloodsport or Double Impact, whose names escape me for the simple reason that when this motherfucker walks on screen, his name is Bolo. Those muscles, my friends, are large. The malevolence is at once universal in scope and extremely localized in focus, which is a fancy way of saying that when he puts his foot in your ass, he does so with the force of all the stars in a galaxy. And that's you fucked. Even though this was an American movie, tribute must be paid.
Bolo in Enter The Dragon is one of the rare instances of an actor being so badass that the only way he could be sufficiently scary is by naming his character after himself. Sure, he gets eliminated for being a bad guy and for getting killed—by John Saxon, no less; that's some shameful shit—but dude. Fuck thou not about. He's Bolo. Genuflect.
8—Kuwabatake Sanjuro, Yojimbo, Japan
Dude, it's Toshiro Mifune starring in The Glass Key. No more need be said.
7—Sivaji, Sivaji, India
No list of Asian badassery would be complete without Rajinikanth. He's so fucking great that when cinemas showing his movies have technical difficulties, audiences denied the ability to behold ownage riot. That's not an exaggeration, and that's the kind of shit that gives you the right to bill yourself as Superstar, as Rajni does at the top of Sivaji (another instance of character being named after actor, that's Superstar's born name).
Why Sivaji? This is why:
I do hope we don't have any arguments after watching that clip, because that would just be foolish. This low finishing position should not be construed as a slight against himself, it should be a sign that you should be fucking excited about what's to come.
6—Oh Dae-su, Oldboy, South Korea
Another instance where words fail me. Behold:
Just don't say anything. Bask.
5—(tie) Rajveer Shekhawat, Wanted / Sanjay Singhania, Ghajini, both India
The thing about Khans is that you can't pick just one. Here we have Salman and Aamir, respectively (Ed. Note: I'm not being twatty about Shahrukh, it's just that his particular brand of being awesome doesn't involve a whole lot of ownage in conventional terms). These two fairly recent displays of asskickery by two of the world's biggest movie stars are radically different in tone, levels of levity, just about every measurable metric. So it's apples and oranges, or Salmans and Aamirs, basically, but they both need to be shouted out.
Salman in Wanted has several moments of staggering ownage. He's so awesome that when the bad guy is about to kill his dad (Vinod Khanna, no stranger to ownage his own self), Pops out Dennis Hoppers Dennis Hopper in True Romance, giving an operatic pre-death speech about how MY SON, SALMAN KHAN, IS GOING TO FUCK YOU UP. When you own so hard that you can own someone when you're not even in the room, you own. Then, factor in Salman's earth-shattering swag when he rolls up to the final fight, and the way the fucking camera vibrates right before the final brutal bad guy death (Salman is so awesome the goddamn camera is nervous), well, that's enough evidence.
Aamir spends less time, by percentage, owning bad guys in Ghajini, but he's no less fearsome, in a completely different way. After the bad guys brain him, he has Guy-Pearce-in-Memento-itis and has to carry around all kinds of reminders about who the baddies are and why they have to die, but when he finally gets down to it at the climax, looking like a malignant Tony Parker with incomplete Vulcan makeup on, he cold fucks motherfuckers up. All while growling and keening bestially. Fucking with this guy ain't no multiple-choice question, unless “no” and “fuck no” count as different answers.
Again, the order of these is even more arbitrary than it usually is, because holy god is there an array of ownage on display on this list.
4—Ip Man, Ip Man 1 & 2, China
Oh, Donnie Yen. You wear elegant righteousness so well. In the first Ip Man movie, Donnie employs the “if you own the first nine guys first, the tenth one is a snap” method of owning ten guys at once with his bare hands, which is a really efficient one. I guess it's part of the esoterica in Wing Chun, because he's the only cat I've ever seen who managed to pull that one off.
There isn't really much more to say about Ip Man except oh, Donnie Yen. There's something to be said for a really well-filmed martial arts movie where the leading man is a genuinely great actor and yet also just breathtakingly graceful in his disbursal of ownage.
3—Jaidev, Sholay, India
Amitabh Bachchan. See, the thing about Sholay is, if you haven't seen it you literally do not have the language to describe how awesome it is—even if you know what कितने आदमी थे means, you don't know what it means til you see Sholay—and if you have seen it, all you can really do is sit around saying कितने आदमी थे to other people who've seen it with smoke coming out your ears.
Sholay's so fuckin good Amitabh isn't even the one who says that and he's still the baddest motherfucker alive. He's the lone exception to the “if you die, you disqualify” clause in the Badass World Cup regulations, because he dies so awesomely and for the cause of protecting true love and with unparalleled drama. Also, any lists about badasses in Asia without Amitabh Bachchan on it is just incomplete.
2—Cheng Chao-An, The Big Boss, China
Gets the nod over all other Bruce roles because, when Bruce finds out the bad guy and his fuckface son killed Hsu Chien and the whole house full of cousins (including the fat guy and the kid), he goes apeshit and fucking fucks people up. Bruce unleashing holy hell was always a sight to behold, but he spared no expense here, knifing bad guys, just generally wrecking their entire shit.
Also, Bruce fucks around too much in Way of the Dragon (and you can take the whole “but he kills Chuck Norris” argument and cram it in your ass, the cult of Chuck Norris enables too much stupid right-wing horseshit to even work on an ironic level), and gets killed in Fist of Fury, and Enter The Dragon is an American movie, so it'd be The Big Boss by default even if Bruce didn't rule ass six ways from Sunday in that joint.
1—Chen Zhen, Fist of Legend, China
JET LI OVER BRUCE??? ARE YOU MAD??? Naw, I ain't mad, I'm in a good-ass mood. Also, this is like the eighth time on these very pages that I've proclaimed Jet's superiority in Fist Of Legend to Bruce, so it's getting less controversial. All's I'm saying is, the Fujita fight. That's why Jet's the first runner-up in the most crowded bracket in the whole sumbitchin' Cup. Fujita's like a foot taller than Jet. He's immune to pain. He has superhuman strength. And Jet won. That's all y'all need to know.
And now, the top two. Oh, that's right. Asia sends two to the elimination round. As will North America in the final group stage. Why? Because, that's why. And so the winners are . . . drumroll . . .
Tequila & Tony, Hard-Boiled, China
Sure, they have guns, and almost nobody else on the list does, and it'd be tempting to say a guy who fucks shit up with his bare hands—or, like Jet, who can decapitate a guy with his belt—is more badass because he doesn't need the help, but let me refute that:
In a nutshell, Hard-Boiled has the best gun fights to ever be filmed. Most of that is John Woo walking around swinging his dick like a watch chain, but the thing that makes it more than just craft is the fact that Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung (the one who's the best actor in the world, not the one who might have actually fucked Jane March on camera) are so awesome in this. I mean, Chow Yun-Fat's Tequila (take note and keep going) is a cop who's a jazz musician, for shit's sake. Tony Leung makes a paper crane every time he kills someone, and his houseboat (take note and keep going) is full of hundreds of the fuckers.
The climax involves our heroes teaming up to defeat a villain so evil he looks like a white guy even though he's Chinese (the legendary half-British all-awesome Anthony Wong) by killing hundreds of bad guys who've taken over a hospital. It is, bar none, the greatest action climax ever. And that is why Tequila and Tony, despite all of the above-mentioned worthies. Easily the most fun of all the group stages in in the Cup so far.
Next up—whenever the hell I get around to it—the final group stage . . . North Afuckingmerica. Boo ya.
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