THE REBEL (Vietnam, 2006)
Directed by: Charlie Nguyen
Starring: Johnny Tri Nguyen, Ngo Thanh Van, Dustin Nguyen
“It’s a great date movie, too. But first and foremost, “The Rebel” is a top-notch action flick and it delivers a steady supply of beautifully choreographed fight scenes, each one succeeding the last in chaotic enormity until we reach the ball-busting finale. So badass, it hurts…but it hurts so good.”
                                                                                               - Film Threat

THE REBEL is an old time, horses-galloping Republic serial cross-bred with political agitprop and given a dusting of the flying elbows, knees and fists of ONG BAK. Hong Kong’s old school Shaw Brothers skull crackers were often full of politics, depicting the war between the Han and Manchus in ancient China, and Bruce Lee set his most popular movie, FIST OF FURY, in Japanese-occupied, 1930’s Shanghai. THE REBEL follows that tradition of freedom-fighting-fu, set in 1920’s Vietnam when the country was a French colony. Vietnamese American stuntman and actor Johnny Tri Nguyen (he played the Green Goblin in the first two SPIDER-MAN films) is a member of Vietnam’s secret police, tasked with seeking out anti-colonial rebels and snapping their necks for his French masters. His boss is Sy, played by Dustin Nguyen (21 Jump Street), a sadistic, torture-loving martial artist whose skills have become almost supernatural. But as much as Sy does the white man’s bidding, at the end of the day he’s just another Vietnamese dog to his masters. When Johnny participates in the arrest and torture of a female freedom fighter (Vietnamese pop star Ngo Thanh Van) he finally cracks, unable to continue oppressing his fellow Vietnamese for the French government and he and the freedom fighter, Thuy, go on the run.

Budgeted at $3 million, THE REBEL is the most expensive flick ever shot in Vietnam, and the crew endured intense hardships, including injuries, a lack of experienced technicians and being supervised by political officers. The first raft of the script was written by star Johnny Tri Nguyen and his brother, the director, Charlie Nguyen, and they vowed that none of the main actors would use stunt doubles. They also spiced the action with Vietnamese fighting moves, including a nutty flying scissors kick that allows tiny fighters to take down opponents three times their size. The result is a flick where the action flows fast and furious, like a raging unstoppable river of butt-kicking.
Vietnam is the open wound of Asia, wracked by wars and revolutions for most of the 20th Century. Actor Dustin Nguyen’s family escaped Vietnam during the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the film’s editor, Ham Tran, who directed the refugee epic JOURNEY FROM THE FALL, was also a boat person, and this undercurrent of the country’s political and historical turmoil runs through the entire film. THE REBEL offers us breakneck neck breaking and is a fever dream of torture chambers, claustrophobic city streets, prison escapes, green, slow-flowing rivers and unrelenting knuckle busting. But the tragedy of the film is that no matter how hard they fight Vietnam’s not getting saved. The future holds war, massive slaughter, famine and reeducation camps. Which makes our heroes’ battles against overwhelming odds that much more quixotic. It’s no surprise that this muscular, skull cracking ode to Vietnamese freedom and the resiliency of the common folks in Vietnam has become that country’s biggest domestic box office hit of all time.