Bleeding Steel (2017)

Bleeding Steel arrives as a Chinese-Australian co-production directed by Leo Zhang, in which Jackie Chan plays Lin Dong, a Hong Kong agent who spends thirteen years guarding a daughter he believes is dead. The daughter, it turns out, was resurrected through a biogenetic blood substitute and a mechanical heart, which is the sort of premise a film can either honor or squander. This one squanders it, though not on ideology. It squanders it on a cyborg in an airship and a great deal of noise.

On the matter of social consciousness, the film is nearly inert. Its Asian lead cast and Australian supporting players reflect the practical demands of a story set between Hong Kong and Sydney, not a casting initiative, and the globe-trotting plot leaves no room for commentary on race or identity. The women, played by Ouyang Nana and Tess Haubrich, can throw a punch, but they occupy the familiar stations of damsel and henchwoman, which is a genre inheritance, not a thesis. A Korean arms dealer wants Dr. James' research for profit, a motive the film treats as villainy without ever suggesting the system that produced him is the problem. There is no environmental content, no body-positivity, no neurodivergence, no queerness, and no history to revise, since the whole affair is invented from scratch.

The film preaches nothing. It is a corny cyberpunk pastiche that would rather show a man rip a heart from a chest than deliver a message, and Variety's assessment that it appeals exclusively to children is difficult to dispute. We are left with a low classification, not out of disapproval, but because there is simply nothing here to classify. The explosions, at least, are sincere.