L

ivi Zheng'€™s Hollywood debut Brush with Danger has finally hit Indonesian theaters with, a unique cinematic blending of art and martial arts.

The film is a new take on the story of undocumented immigrants coming to the US to pursue the American dream.

The film opens with the arrival of a shipping container at a shipyard in Seattle. The container is filled with immigrants, including siblings Ken Qiang (Ken Zheng) and Alice Qiang (Livi Zheng).

Their plans to search for a better life immediately hit some snags as the siblings are robbed by a thug who has been waiting for the immigrants, losing all the money they had brought with them, a mere US$92.

They roam around the streets, eating leftover food from bins while talking about their plans.

Being homeless, they try to make some money by selling paintings that Alice makes at a street market. No one seems to want to buy the paintings, so Ken decides to put on a Wushu show after he sees a man getting a lot of attention by juggling.

His idea works and they make a few bucks, enough to get by for another day.

As the Qiangs are walking around the city, they meet Elizabeth St. Clouds (Stephanie Hilbert) who is mugged on her way home and is saved by Ken.

Elizabeth thanks them by taking them to her diner, cooking them hamburgers and offering Ken a job guarding her on the way home every day after work so she won'€™t have to be afraid of being mugged anymore.

The next day, the Qiangs come back to the market to try their luck again, but still to no avail. Ken starts to do martial arts shows and persuades Alice to join him.

Their movements catch the attention of an art dealer, Justus Sullivan (Norman Newkirk), who gives Alice a deal for her paintings.

Knowing that they have nowhere to go home to, Sullivan takes them with him, providing them with everything they need, from good food, clothes to a painting room complete with equipment for Alice.

Of course he wants something in return. Instead of asking Alice to work on her original paintings, he asks her to copy a long-lost Von Gogh piece to be passed off as the original to his client.

Alice hesitates at first, but Sullivan manages to convince her to help him. Little does she know that she is about to enter an art forgery syndicate that has been under police investigation.

Meanwhile, Ken gets busy training in a gym that later leads him to participate in underground martial arts competitions and rake in a lot of money.

Brush with Danger is built on an interesting premise that is rare in Indonesian films nowadays. It is unfortunate that the film'€™s key message is undermined by the paucity of qualified acting and a flat plot.

The conversations among the cast don'€™t flow naturally, and the delivery of lines feels awkward and insincere. The characters do not deeply inhabit their roles and thus do not create a strong connection between one another.

The film is set in the current era, but the costumes of the cast generate a feeling that is more reminiscent of the early 1990s.

Livi and Ken are no strangers to martial arts as they have been practicing Wushu and Kung fu since their teenage years, so their fighting scenes in the film are well-choreographed and convincing.

Brush with Danger, which was launched in the US last September, may not be a promising start for the Zheng siblings. However, one gets the impression that there is more to them than meets the eye, and their skills and film production ideas are already evident in this debut effort.

A more talented cast and adding more characters to the screenplay are two things that the Zhengs that should brush up on in their subsequent films.

'€” JP/Novia D. Rulistia