Summary
The Dark Soul is an action thriller without the fight to break down any new walls for the genre.
The Dark Soul is a thriller from director Bey Logan (Snowblade) starring Kevin Brewerton (The Fifth Element), Meng Lo (Ip Man franchise), Bianca Stam (Chasing the Dragon) and Lang-Xing Ye, following a mysterious American searching for a missing person.
The Dark Soul follows an American, Chandler (Brewerton), traveling around as Asian city (we don’t learn which one) in search of a missing person, with only a drawing to show the man he is searching for. Dickson Le (Ye) becomes his guide and partner around the city, showing him the criminal world and the everyday world, with each location potentially offering up answers to the mystery Chandler is trying to piece together.
The Dark Soul uses a story which could be broken down to be the basic outline of any Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal movie. This does have a target audience though which comes from the relaxing action film that you turn on in the middle of the night and enjoy. The story does provide us a mystery and does give us clues which unlock the next stage of the truth, which keeps us interested. When it gets to certain moments of the truth, we get ideas we haven’t seen before. We do however lack the true sinister nature of a villain in the film; we have them, but they feel disposable for the most part, which doesn’t make it feel like Chandler is fighting for anything he hasn’t fought for before.
The Dark Soul has performances from Kevin Brewerton, a kickboxing champion that could easily be compared to the actors known for action films that show off their skills in combat, if you think of the Jean-Claude Van Damme films, this is the level we get from Kevin. Lang-Xing Ye does bring moments of comic relief and does have better delivery on the one-liners being dealt out in the film; he makes moments feel much more relaxed with the way he acts, speaks and reacts. Meng Lo is the biggest star in the film, though as shown in the opening credits, it is only a cameo performance, though it is also one of the best scenes in the film.
The Dark Soul is an action thriller that has some of the most routine fight sequences you will ever see. It has moments where you can see the enemies waiting for their cue to attack. The settings in the film disappoint too, just an ‘Asian City’. There is one moment that turned to special effects, which could be one of the worse attempts you will ever see.
Overall The Dark Soul is a by-the-book action film that you could easily enjoy watching late-night on television, we do get a new name in action with Kevin Brewerton that could easily play both sides of the battle.
