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After losing his sight in an explosion, a former swat officer must battle his way to the top of a human trafficking network in a fictional South East Asian nation in Chris Huo Suiqiang’s action drama, Blind War (盲战 máng zhàn). The film opens with an assault on justice, but the wounded cop must in effect turn vigilante to protect his daughter from a failure of the judicial process and pervasive misogyny in a culture in which women and girls can be sold at will while the corrupt police force do nothing.
In fact, the local cop Rama (Dou Dou) is played mostly for comic relief and is otherwise incredibly stupid, determined to nail blind former cop Dong (Andy On), whom he knows to be the father of a murdered girl from a neighbouring nation, as the king pin of the drug smuggling and people trafficking operation. Dong’s struggle runs concurrently with a succession drama in which Zha Kun (Qi Shenghan), son of drug dealer McQueen who was blown up in the dock in the opening courthouse sequence, seeks to cement his authority over the gang and get revenge on Cena (Yang Xing) for the death of father while she wants revenge on Dong for blowing up her husband.
Dong is in fact dismissed from the police force in disgrace due to public opinion which blames him for the deaths of his men who were killed by the gang when he decided to check out a funny noise in the courthouse though he was only supposed to be guarding McQueen’s post-trial extradition. Having lost both his sight and his status as police officer, he begins to lose his mind becoming violent and paranoid with looking after his teenage daughter Yati (Cheng Sihan) his only other outlet. When she’s taken by the people traffickers, he’ll stop at nothing to get her back though it has to be said is not particularly interested in the other women or stopping the gang and in the company of Cena who is using him for her own revenge plot becomes increasingly corrupted in his willingness to use violence.
Luckily, Dong was blessed with superior hearing to begin with and with the loss of his sight is largely able to navigate the world by ear alone, giving him an advantage over his opponents even if he can’t see them. The film sets him up with almost supernatural powers, at one point using a conveniently placed climbing rope to jump from one window to the apartment below. The fight scenes are often impressive and well choreographed, especially one tortuous sequence in which Dong is attached to Cena by chain and his position dictates whether or not she’s dunked in the water, and in terms of scale display impressive production values for a low budget streaming film.
Nevertheless, Dong is often eclipsed by the villainess, Cena whose tragic backstory makes her claim to vengeance just as valid as Dong’s as she battles to take down the gang that raped and controlled her after being sold by her father to a Thai warlord as a child. The local police seem to be much more interested in the drugs than the people trafficking, and Rama’s unintentionally ironic cries that Cena’s bumped off the only female officer they have, which is presumably why he had a crush on her, bares out the misogynistic attitudes in play in which female life is cheap and the only way to escape subjugation to oppress other women, like Dragon King (Qian Zhiyi), or to become crazed and cruel like Cena.
In any case, though it was never really in question, Dong’s fatherly devotion is eventually proved by his knowledge of his daughter which eventually enables him to save her, with the help of his loyal friend Yun (Wang Hanyang) who doesn’t really seem to mind that Dong went rogue and endangered his life while he’s been hanging around in the shadows the whole time in case anyone needs him. Perhaps in a concession to the censors, it’s clear that Dong is also paying for his transgressions though through his vigilante action is able to reclaim his position as a father and protector despite his career setbacks and the loss of his sight.
Blind War is available now in the US on Digital and Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 