The Art of War (film)

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Movie
German title The Art of War - Do you know your enemies?
Original title The Art of War
Country of production USA , Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 111 (16)
113 (18) minutes
Age rating FSK 18 (DVD 16/18)
JMK 14
Rod
Director Christian Duguay
script Wayne Beach
Simon Barry
production Nicolas Clermont
Ron Yuan
music Normand Corbeil
camera Pierre Gill
cut Michel Arcand
occupation

The Art of War - Do you know your enemies? is an action - thriller from director Christian Duguay from the year 2000 with Wesley Snipes in the lead role. In 2008 the sequel The Art of War II: The betrayal appeared , in 2009 a third part under the title The Art of War III: The retribution .

action

Neil Shaw is an agent who conducts secret operations for the United Nations . A trade agreement with China sought by the UN Secretary General Douglas Thomas is in danger: dead Vietnamese refugees are discovered in a container and there are indications of activities by the triads . When the Chinese ambassador is killed, Shaw is suspected of being the culprit. The FBI arrests him, he is kidnapped by the Chinese from a prisoner transport and in turn is able to free himself from them.

Shaw is on the trail of a conspiracy that his colleague Jenna falls victim to. The interpreter Julia Fang, who witnessed the murder of the ambassador, helps him with this . The two are tracked down by the Chinese several times and can only barely escape death. Together they track down the Chinese entrepreneur David Chan as a possible client of the murder of the ambassador. When the latter is murdered, Shaw pursues the murderer on the same route as after the death of the ambassador. This time he can ask it; it's his colleague Bly. Shaw has to flee and rushes to Julia at the UN headquarters . There it comes to the final between Shaw and Bly.

Shaw's boss and UN employee Eleanor Hooks turns out to be the mastermind behind the attacks; she is shot by an Asian. Shaw ends up faking his own death and hiding in France in the company of Julia.

background

Filming took place from September 1, 1999 to November 13, 1999 in Vancouver , Montréal , Hong Kong and New York City . Production costs have been estimated to be between $ 40 million and $ 60 million. The film grossed around 40 million US dollars in cinemas worldwide, including around 30 million US dollars in the United States. In Germany around 535,000 cinema-goers were counted and around 4.9 million German marks were taken at the box office.

The cinema release in the USA and Canada was on August 25, 2000, in Germany on November 16, 2000.

The title of the film quotes the book title Die Kunst des Krieg (English: The Art of War ) by Sun Tze .

Two actors from the film have already been shown reading Sun Tze's book in other films, namely Michael Biehn in the 1991 film K2 - The Last Adventure and Wesley Snipes in the 1992 film Passenger 57 .

criticism

On Rotten Tomatoes , the film received an overall rating of 17%. Of 76 counted reviews, 13 were positive and 63 negative. The overall consensus was: " The Art of War is basically a chaotic re-use of hackneyed action movie clichés."

The lexicon of international films described The Art of War as "an action film that is as smooth as it is poor, which overcomes the boundaries of the genre and silts it up into superficiality and unbelievability."

Brigitte Steinmetz from Cinema said: “Action is like sex films: the better try to embed the most unusual positions in the most interesting plot. "The Art of War" tries hard, but Wesley Snipes does not get beyond the missionary position in the role of the UN spy Shaw. He shoots, slits and jumps like mad, only from the Kamasutra of martial arts this warrior shows too little. Why the agent is so secret that he is being hunted by terrorists and the FBI after the attack on the Chinese ambassador is soon no longer understood by the Chinese interpreter (Maria Matiko), who allies with Snipes on the run from everyone. And while Donald Sutherland is mercilessly under-challenged and talks to Anne Archer about US trade agreements, as if the dialogues came from the editorial team of the day, one is annoyed by the waste of talent that has been gathered. "

Christoph Huber from allesfilm.com criticized not only the latent racism of the script against Asians, but also the portrayal of the UN in the film: “With its secret task force and the flourishing corruption, it looks like something in between the criminal government troops and everything that Bill Gates likes assumed. Quite funny actually, but the longer the film runs, the clearer it becomes that the organization is only being pushed forward in order not to praise American policy of intervention too clearly. [...] Otherwise one likes to pretend innocent: There is even an elegant cut away from a murder that Wesley has to watch. He is then allowed to look very touched for a few seconds to melancholy mushy, take brutal revenge and feel justified by the flashback, in which the torture prelude (now including murder) can be really rolled out. […] Similar to Der Patriot , Art of War acts as if its protagonists were forced to violence by the bad world, when there is only one bloodthirsty script that expects as much money as possible from it and then does not even have the courage to do that to admit. "

Awards

Cinematographer Pierre Gill won by the Association of Canadian cameramen Canadian Society of Cinematographers the CSC Award 2,001th

Nicolas Clermont won the 2001 Golden Reel Award at the Canadian Genie Awards , which is given for revenue at the Canadian box office. The film was nominated for a prize in six other categories.

The film received three nominations for the 2001 Canadian Provincial Film Awards Prix ​​Jutra .

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating “particularly valuable”.

Sequels

In 2008 the sequel The Art of War II: The Treason was released , which was released directly on DVD and did not come into theaters. The director was Josef Rusnak , Wesley Snipes played the leading role.

In 2009 a third part appeared under the title The Art of War III: The Retribution . Like its predecessor, the film was produced directly for the DVD market. Gerry Lively directed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Art of War . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2008 (PDF; test number: 86 300-a DVD).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Art of War . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Internet Movie Database : Filming Locations
  4. ↑ Internet Movie Database : Budget and Box Office Results
  5. ↑ boxofficemojo.com
  6. ↑ Internet Movie Database : Start Dates
  7. ↑ Internet Movie Database : Background information
  8. ↑ The Art of War at Rotten Tomatoes (English)Template: Rotten Tomatoes / Maintenance / Various connoisseurs in Wikipedia and Wikidata
  9. ^ The Art of War. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ↑ Cinema.de: film review
  11. ↑ Review on allesfilm.com ( Memento from July 22, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  12. ↑ a b c Internet Movie Database : Nominations and Awards
  13. ↑ fbw-filmbeval.com