Admit It: America Is No Longer the Superpower of Action Movies

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Tom Scocca

07/15/14 11:51AM

Filed to: end of empire

We barely watch movies anymore, because babysitting is expensive and the children don't leave many two-hour windows of being awake for streaming video. But when we do watch movies, they're usually Korean movies, because Koreans make better action movies than Americans do. (Or Hong Kong movies.) Every big Hollywood action movie is such an exact replica of every other big Hollywood action movie that it's as if you're already watching them on the airplane seat-back screen and forgetting them in real time.

So we went and saw Snowpiercer and there you go. American actors who want to be in action blockbusters should just all go work for Asian directors, the way European basketball stars go to the NBA. But Song Kang-ho should get the lead roles, because he's more charismatic than Chris Evans.

sui_generis Tom Scocca 07/15/14 05:56PM

"In Other News, everything sucks and nothing where I am is as good as it used to be."

Tom Scocca sui_generis 07/15/14 06:05PM

No, some action movies are quite as good as the best action movies have always been.

sui_generis Tom Scocca 07/15/14 06:36PM

Eh, I dunno. Looking back on a lot of action films from the 80s, they REALLY sucked, in hindsight. Our standards were just lower.

KomradKickass Tom Scocca 07/15/14 02:07PM

I think Chris Evans did a pretty good job in the movie, particularly the scene towards the end.

Tom Scocca KomradKickass 07/15/14 02:18PM

He was pretty good, but Song Kang-ho was great.

Max Read Tom Scocca 07/15/14 11:58AM

How long has this been true? The last great era for American action movies ended around the mid-90s, just as Hong Kong action cinema was rising in quality and popularity and esteem. And at some point in the 2000s the Koreans took over. Americans haven't been a great action movie power for 20 years, probably.

Tom Scocca Max Read 07/15/14 12:18PM

And, as you noted last year, we are short on male action movie stars.

Max Read Tom Scocca 07/15/14 12:33PM

You could probably make a good reverse-causality argument about this—Korea is swimming in charismatic male leads, just like HK was in the late 90s.

Tom Scocca Max Read 07/15/14 12:40PM

Yeah, the acting in the beginning of Snowpiercer is adequate and unremarkable on the heroes' side, and then Song Kang-ho sits up and just looks at the others, and it's like: NEEDLE SCRATCH.

Max Read Tom Scocca 07/15/14 12:48PM

Go Ah-sung, too!

Which reminds me that the most striking thing about Edge of Tomorrow—which was pretty good, as recent American action movies go—is the extent to which Emily Blunt stole the movie from Tom Cruise. (And I say this as a Cruise apologist.) There are a lot of American actresses out there that could probably make great action leads if they were given the chance. (I guess Jennifer Lawrence is trying in Hunger Games?) Though I guess Blunt is British.

Tom Scocca Tom Scocca 07/15/14 12:16PM

Slate had a piece last year that addressed the structural tedium of the movies.