Poor Chairman Kwang.
First of all, it’s not easy to run a massive, multinational corporation. It’s even harder to use that sprawling business empire to hide a secret drug cartel. And let’s not forget the dolphins he kills every year: To decimate the dolphin populations on that level takes gumption. It takes dedication. If nothing else, he deserves credit for that.
Still, thanks to hard work, well-placed bribes and a bit of slaughter here and there, Kwang has led Kwang industries to the top of the corporate-and-criminal heap. He has a nice place in downtown Taipei. He has plenty of well-armed pals willing to bring him a latte anytime he wants. He pays police officers to look the other way.
But not enough, apparently. No, someone decided to sue Kwang Industries for something. So now, poor Kwang must waste time—precious money-making, drug-dealing, dolphin-killing time—in court. Or holding press conferences. Or sitting in a limo between court and press conferences
Yes, we should pity Kwang. Such tragic circumstances are more than one man can be expected to stand.
But might he receive a little solace at home? Some love and understanding from his wife and her 13-year-old boy? No. Wife Joey spends most of her time shopping. The kid, Raymond, despises him. Why? The dolphin killing. It always comes back to the dolphin killing. Does he not know that his quality of life is propped up on the flippers of ever-so-many dolphins?
Why, even the United States government seems determined to make him miserable. When he watches the news on his tablet (no doubt protected by a dolphin-skin case), he sees that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has confiscated another 400 kilos of high-grade Kwang heroin. If the DEA keeps taking away his drugs before they reach Kwang’s buyers, he may have to tell Joey to stop buying Ferraris.
Surely not. It couldn’t come to that. He is Chairman Kwang, after all—corporate lord, illicit captain of industry and scourge of dolphins everywhere. He will not let his subpar family life get him down. He will not allow a pesky, multibillion-dollar lawsuit harsh his mellow. He will not let the DEA spoil his sunny days.
But little does he know that one very single-minded DEA agent is spending a weekend in Taipei in the hope of bringing Kwang down. Little does he know that his wife, Joey, once spent a great deal of time smooching, said DEA agent some 13 years ago. And little does he know that 13-year-old Raymond has had enough of his stepfather’s dolphin-killing ways.
Yes, poor Chairman Kwang. He might need to pull on a pair of dolphin-skin boots, grab himself a latte, walk over to the makers of Weekend at Taipei and give them a firm talking to.
So, let’s circle back to that single-minded DEA agent, John Lawler. For the last 15 years, he’s worked at throwing Kwang in jail. Not only does that reveal him as a guy who wants to punish the bad guys, but one who has plenty of perseverance, too.
Meanwhile, Joey has shown her own knack for perseverance, sticking with Kwang for all those years for the sake of her son (I guess). She loves Raymond, and she’ll do anything to protect him. (We learn that she’s donated a ton of money to her home village’s hospital, too.)
Joey has no idea that John’s coming back to town to take down her hubby, of course. But one does not need to be a film major to know the two will cross paths. Nor will it come as a surprise that Raymond just happens to be John’s son (though it is a huge surprise to John). And that ultimately makes Weekend in Taipei a … family movie? Father and mother reunite to show their love and sacrifice for their son, as well as teaching him how to hotwire cars? Sure, let’s go with that.
DEA agent John—on vacation, remember—meets up with a couple of old pals who seem absolutely willing to team up with him on an off-the-books, life-threatening mission. And as they inspect their massive cache of weapons, one says, “Pray for the best,” while another adds, “but prepare for the worst.”
In flashback, we see John’s and Joey’s romance, almost literally kiss by kiss. Their fifth kiss apparently included a round of actual sex, too, and we see the couple afterwards from the shoulders up. After the two renew their acquaintance, they soon renew their relationship, too. The two spend the night together in Joey’s room (though both are mostly clothed when we see them), with John hiding quickly when Raymond comes a-knocking.
We should note that that last roll in the hay takes place after Joey is married to Kwang. And while Kwang may be both a drug dealer and a jerk, one cannot just overlook those wedding vows on a whim. We also see that Joey’s married relationship with Kwang is rather … chilly. But the drug lord does convince her to engage in some intimacy on his birthday. We see the two kiss as he begins to take off her bathrobe. (We see just her shoulders.) Joey lifts up her shirt to bare a bit of tummy.
We learn, in flashback, that Kwang’s much-smaller, grittier operation back then was also involved in human trafficking. When they’d recover some of their drugs from small Chinese fishing villages, Joey tells us, they’d not just take the drugs—but all the young women in the village. (One wonders why Kwang was constantly losing huge stashes of drugs in fishing villages, but that is a question for another day.)
Judging by Weekend in Taipei, the DEA’s combat training program is pretty impressive. While John is working undercover as a pastry chef in the States, he fights several bad guys, and several wind up dead. He thwacks many with woks and frying pans. He stabs others with cooking utensils. He uses an oven door as a weapon, knocking one of his assailants out. He pushes someone’s head underwater, hoping to persuade him to cooperate. He sets someone on fire. And, yes, he shoots a few guys as well. But John’s assailants are remarkably proficient at accidentally killing each other, too: One has his head cleaved by a massive meat cleaver. Another becomes a convenient target for hurtling knives.
John and his enemies combine to make John’s undercover partner feel incredibly awful for a few minutes. His face is burned via boiling water: his hand is literally grated. He’s knocked out by a falling florescent light. Etc.
Kwang may not be the fighter that John is, but he makes up for it in cruelty. He gets very angry at one of his guards for smirking—smashing him in the face with a gun several times before shooting him dead. He threatens to cut the foot off a child—talking about how an ancient Chinese group used to systematically dismember lawbreakers, depending on the severity of the crime. (Someone hits a kid a few times in the face, as well.) Many bones are snapped.
A shootout leaves several people dead and bloodied. A man is literally kicked out of a car. A frenetic fight leaves both combatants seriously bruised and one man temporarily knocked out. (“Oh, my! It’s too violent!” gasps one onlooker.) A man’s face gets smashed against a car door. A car hits a man and sends him skyward. (We later see his corpse on the ground, his head haloed by blood.) Someone’s stabbed in the neck. Another person’s neck is broken.
Oh, and the dolphin killing: That is indeed part of the plot. Raymond tells John that Kwang’s fishing fleet is responsible for 650,000 dolphin deaths a year—a truly remarkable feat, given that environmental organizations claim that “just” 100,000 dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals are killed annually. That carnage puts Kwang “right next to Freddy Kruger and Leatherface,” he says, namechecking villains from movies that Plugged In would argue a 13-year-old should not see.
Speaking of aquatic animals in peril, the movie opens with footage of fish gasping for air. A massive tank full of fish is smashed. John manages to save one of them. The fate of the others is unknown, but not promising. We hear that both of Joey’s parents died in fishing accidents.
One f-word and five s-words. We also hear “a–,” “d–n,” “d–khead” and “h—,” as well as three misuses of God’s name.
Kwang is, as we mentioned, a drug lord. We see plenty of his merchandise, though no one actually uses it in the movie. We hear some discussion of distribution, competition, and “mules” who carry the merchandise.
In moments of crisis, John asks for a cigarette. But ironically, we don’t see him smoke throughout the entire movie. Joey makes a speech about how horrible and dirty smoking is as she puffs on a cigarette: She says she started smoking because its smell is “nothing like the smell of my husband … the putrid stink [of him] never goes away.” Joey’s grandmother is an unapologetic smoker—puffing away as she cooks or washes dishes.
Kwang drinks champagne and offers a glass to his wife, saying that he’s celebrating “just another day with my beautiful wife.” He drinks quite a bit of whiskey in one scene. John asks for two double bourbons on his flight to Taipei; the airline assistant tells him that he’ll have to wait until the plane takes off. He and Joey quaff several gulps of alcohol after a narrow escape.
Clearly, crime is at the crux of Weekend in Taipei, and we hear quite a bit about Kwang’s criminal activities. Raymond, thinking his stepdad is just guilty of environmental injustices, steals Kwang’s ledger and somehow gets it to someone who can punish Kwang. (He doesn’t tell Kwang about it, of course—which, pharisaically, would constitute lying to his stepdad.)
During the closing credits, we see a couple of people smell, and make faces at, a dirty diaper.
“Who are you?” Raymond asks Joey and John, as Joey tries to jimmy open a car door and an unconscious guard lies nearby. “You’re stealing cars and he’s punching everyone? Are you sure you’re my parents?”
John and Joey do indeed fall short of being picture-perfect parents here. But they do both care for Raymond. And that, at least, is something.
The same can perhaps be said for Weekend in Taipei.
This film is not, on any level, what you would call a good movie. It’s not designed to make viewers think deeply about the human condition or mull over the paradoxes of life. Its plot is propelled by coincidences so outlandish that, by comparison, Luke and Leia’s familial relationship feels utterly logical and grounded. This is, in a lot of ways, a silly movie—one built to burn a couple hours of one’s time.
And let’s not forget that it’s rated R, and comes with the R-rated content one might expect.
But honestly, if Weekend in Taipei edited out one cleaved head and toned down the blood just a bit, it could’ve skated by with a PG-13 rating. It can be sensual, but shows a minimum of skin. The fights can be frenetic, but they aren’t particularly gory. And the language? Well, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 pushed those boundaries harder than this movie.
And that, as I said, is at least something. But is Weekend in Taipei something to see? Honestly, I could think of better ways to spend a weekend.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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