Metallic Attraction: Kungfu Cyborg (2009) User Reviews

too many half formed ideas prevent the good pieces from making this anything worth seeing

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 19 November 2009]

Jeffrey Lau misfire, sold to me as a Chienese Transformers. Not in this life time. Actually this is an action comedy romance about a robot that was placed into the charge of a police officer above reproach. He's to take the robot out and show it the world. In the process the robot falls in love with one of the female police officers.

This is a messy film that doesn't know what it wants to be. I'm used to Chinese films being all over the place, but this one really doesn't know. Is its a romance? is its a comedy? Wait this was sold as Transformers like film so there are a couple of Transformers like sequences. Whats the point? I don't know. As a collection of sequences the film really shines here and there, with some of the romantic bits quite good. Some of the action was quite good. The problem is that nothing meshes. Everything seems more like half formed ideas rather than anything complete. Its not bad so much as dull. There are a great many good ideas in there that keep you watching even as you get distracted by other things.

I can't really recommend this. Despite its best efforts it just doesn't work, besides the effects aren't all that good.

Lovely Tragic Romance - Review of "Metallic Attraction: Kungfu Cyborg"

[kampolam-75813 · 4/10 · 23 January 2023]

In response to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jeffrey Lau Chun-Wai directed "The Fantastic Water Babes" (2010), because Gillian Chung Yan-Tung was involved in the private photo incident, the ban has not been officially lifted. The film needs to be postponed. However, Fong Lik-Sun, the male protagonist of this film, immediately took over another film "Metallic Attraction: Kungfu Cyborg" (2009) by Jeffrey Lau, the film is reminiscent of "counterfeit" "Transformers" (2007) in publicity. The computer technology effects produced in Hong Kong and Mainland China are still far from Hollywood. Although the technical department of this film has made great efforts, compared with the alien effect of Jeffrey Lau's previous film "A Chinese Tall Story" (2005), this time it is progress and thrift. The film's box office in the Mainland was good, but in Hong Kong was quite bleak, with only more than 1.2 million HK dollars. The actor Fong Lik-Sun also publicly expressed his disappointment.

In fact, Fong Lik-Sun also said in an interview that the film is not like a promotion offensive, it is a "counterfeit" "Transformers", but a funny "A. I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001), which tells the story of the robot K-1 played by Fong Lik-Sun, falling into the emotional world of human beings, he fell in love with the policewoman So-mui played by Sun Li. In the ending scene, he showed love to So-mui's ear and "disappeared", which is a typical romantic tragedy of Jeffrey Lau. Although Jeffrey Lau has been teasing romantic tragedies in different package since the beginning of "A Chinese Odyssey" (1995), his attitude towards love is already very familiar to many audiences, but he still enjoys it, which encourages him to be obsessed with and confident in this topic. Interestingly, Jeffrey Lau chooses different themes each time to package the film into an interesting work. This time, the robot K-1 lived in a small village and followed Tsui Dai-Chun played by Hu Jun to handle the case. His extraordinary ability attracted So-mui's heart and made Tsui Dai-Chun and Kong, played by Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, who have a crush on So-mui, very jealous.

There is still no shortage of Jeffrey Lau's black humor and laughter in the film. Unfortunately, this has been a "trick" repeated by Jeffrey Lau over the past ten years. The packaging and the background of "counterfeit" "Transformers" are not "the cup of tea" for Hong Kong audiences. Perhaps Jeffrey Lau has to continue to develop his Mainland market to serve audiences who are still interested in his comedy style. This is not to belittle the tastes of Mainland audiences, but Jeffrey Lau's comedy style is already "outdated" to Hong Kong audiences, and since he's not raising the level of his comedy style, it's not surprising that audiences leave him. However, in the Mainland, his comedy style which represents Hong Kong films with an "imaginative style", is still attractive due to the huge market. If he continues to repeat, it will soon be abandoned by Mainland audiences who are familiar with Hong Kong Cinema, it is only time.

By Kam Po LAM (original in Chinese)

really hard to sit through

[dmuel · 1/10 · 18 September 2009]

Extremely low budget, silly film which shamelessly rips off Transformers. Story of cyborg that falls in love with loveless none-too-hot bureaucrat. The cyborg is trained to fight crime and has to kung fu it out with a baddie cyborg. These scenes are low-budget CGI and they look a lot like scenes you've seen in a cheap video game on your cell-phone. Sorry, but that's about as deep as the plot gets. This film was so bad and so boring, it was almost impossible to sit through. There are lots of low budget films that come out with interesting stories that make them enjoyable despite the lack of quality footage. This ain't one of them. Do yourself a favor and avoid at all costs.

Sci-Fi?

[yau-tong · 1/10 · 29 September 2009]

I watched this film Last Sunday. My friend said this is first sci-fi film in China. I think that is no good. i went to cinema with my friend.First, i don't like this film because sci-fi is Awful. Some Chinese guy said This is film is Pound of them. I disagree. Chinese is first use sci-fi, use very bad. they should Study in Hollywood and learn how to use the Sci-Fi. Next, his film is Comedy. But i can't Laugh. they have many " GAG" in the film, no funny and interested. I hate Alex Fong this guy. he is too ugly and bad for acting.i watch 110 min. it is too boring. it make me sleep. you should watch if you have sleep problems.

Kung Fu Cyborg is not that bad but disappoints

[helmutty · 6/10 · 9 October 2009]

Warning: This is for those hard-core action or robot fans. If you are expecting this to be as explosive as Transformers, you are in for a rude shock. Kung Fu Cyoborg is actually a romance story with robots as its sub-plot. Now, with romance as its main plot, don't expect amazing and explosive action. Yeah, there are a few action scenes but they are not really fantastic, in fact, they disappoint. The rarely-appeared Wu Jing is the only one in the movie to use Kung Fu plus he barely use it, hence the title Kung Fu Cyborg.

The story: When it is production, people are saying that it would be the Chinese's Transformers. Indeed it is but it is obviously no match for Transformers. Transformers has a massive budget and Kung Fu Cyborg has a low budget. So there is a difference in the CGI robots. In Kung Fu Cyborg, you get cheap CGI robots fighting but at least they are entertaining. But when it comes to the story, it is where it is not good. The romance story tends to get a bit boring and the comedic scenes are not very amusing. There are no main action plot even there is no main villain. Action fans like me will be disappointed in lack of action. The romance plot starts a bit slow but the pace of second half of the movie seems to be faster.

Overall: It is not so bad but it is disappointing as it lacks of amazing action. When we hear the title, Kung Fu Cyborg, who does not think it will be fulled of action. On the whole, it may be disappointing but at least, some entertainment values are there. It is okay if you just leave your brain at home and not expect any amazing action scene.

Not so bad

[Ultra_Master · 6/10 · 1 April 2010]

Yes it seems low budget, yes it's a bit silly and yes it rips off Transformers but it's quite enjoyable after all. Don't expect a mind blowing script, instead leave your reality sense behind and see it as an enjoyable way to spend a boring 1 hour and 43 minutes on a rainy day without worrying about plot twists and profound ideas implemented on screen. See it as a parody, as it actually is, and watch some interesting action scenes (both funny to watch and with nice choreography). The Matrix parody scene was quite hilarious.

If you have already seen Kung Fu Hustle you know what to expect. It's the same style of parody only this time applied on technological world of the future. This is a kind of movie that either you like, either you dislike, there's no middle way. I believe it wasn't so bad as many would say and it actually made me laugh a few times. If you have nothing to do, get a copy of it and see it. You might actually like it.

Ultra_Master

Finally a funny HK movie for a long while!

[etact888 · 7/10 · 15 October 2009]

It's with very low expectation when I watched this movie, especially after seeing such lack lustre review on this title. But boy am I surprised that this movie really have some very funny moment that I laugh out loud and even rewind back a few time and still make me laugh!

If you think that I am a very ticklish person I have to tell you I haven't laugh in a movie for a very long time. The best these recent comedy movies I saw would only invoke at best few snicker at time. That include "On His Majesty's Secret Service" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1475330/) and the much overrated china hit "If You Are the One" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1330607/)

So the CGI isn't really top notch, but what's the big deal? I watch both transformer movies and I'm not impressed, not that the CGI is no good but nowsaday I think we are more or less numbed at seeing fanciful explosion and action scene.

Good comedy is hard to come by these days, and this movie come hitting by in the style of Steven chow joke really make my day.

Be forewarned though that it's best to listen to Cantonese audio for the best effect, in mandarin and the joke's a bit wash off, just looking at English subtitle then you might as well skip this movie or you will be berating this is a dumb and sleepy movie

Crossover Hong Kong - Chinese Movie

[ebiros2 · 24 November 2011]

I guess the movie is a collaboration between Hong Kong movie industry, and Chinese production company.

There seems to be an attempt by the mainland Chinese government to produce movies in Hong Kong lately. The flavor is more oriented towards the mainland Chinese public. This may be profitable for the Hong Kong movie makers as well with 1.5 billion potential audience, the market might be bigger than Europe and Americas combined. The visuals of this movie is definitely mainland China. It takes place in one of the province's police station. The year is 2048, and they have a cyborg cop that uses its talent in a funny way. The sense of humor is Hong Kong, but the color and cinematography is mainland China. I don't like the bluish tint on the color, and very 2 dimensional appearance of the scenes, but the story is definite improvement over many of the stuffy movies coming out of China. This genre is hit or miss. Recently I've watched a really bad Wong Jin movie that was oriented for the mainlanders. I'm hoping that the mainland influence isn't going to adversely affect the quality of Hong Kong movies, but would be the other way around.

This is a pretty good movie, with some cool depiction of the future. Action is over the top in some areas. The cyborg guy K1 is a rascal and that adds to the comedy of the story. People's motivation for their actions seems pretty pretentious. I guess lot of acting ability is needed when you are constantly under scrutiny.

I both worry about the future of Hong Kong movies, and have hopes for the mainland Chinese movies. Next 10 years will tell which way things will go.