Lionsgate's faith in "Bleeding Steel" could be a tentative step in the right direction, though their reasons for singling out this Australia-set superhero/scifi-comedy dud are—at this moment in time and based largely on the film's quality—mystifying. In fact, if you look at either the film's Internet Movie Database or Wikipedia pages, you will find no mention of the film's sliver of a 2017 American release (I do, however, have emails from December to this effect, not to mention the iron-clad proof of a handful of stray tweets). It's almost as if "Bleeding Steel" was either forgotten by American filmgoers and/or actively scrubbed by American distributors because, uh, well, let's try to solve that mystery together.
"Why 'Bleeding Steel'?" is a question that I asked myself (in so many words) multiple times as I watched Special Agent Dong Lin (Chan) chase around an amnesiac heroine (Taiwanese pop star Nana Ouyang) and her equally mysterious traveling companion Sen Li (Show Lo, also a Taiwanese pop star) for ... well, some reason. It's often hard to tell what motivates these characters beyond a blind need to protect each other from the slings and bullets of the pale and punchy villainess known only as "The Woman in Black" (Tess Haubrich) and her colleague, the domineering, cybernetically enhanced martial artist Andrew (Callan Mulvey). All we know is that it has something to do with an incident 13 years ago—foregrounded during the film's noisy but otherwise forgettable opening scene—involving Andrew, Lin, Lin's leukemia-afflicted daughter Xixi, and a mysterious cyborg heart created by cutting edge scientist Dr. James (Kim Gyngell).
The plot-light nature of "Bleeding Steel" wouldn't be so vexing if the film's tone and story didn't seemingly shift at random. You might leave the film with burning questions like: why was this story set in Sydney; what was the point of that tangent involving Caucasian racists and creepy would-be male rapists; why did Li dress up in drag—including a set of fake rubber breasts—just so he could drug somebody; who pays for Andrew's flying space-ship(!!!), and why does he look like the lead singer for a science-fiction-themed Nu-Metal band; and why did Lin give Li a Vitamin B pill (for a hangover) after tying him up? I'm sure you can come up with rationalized answers for some, or even most of these urgent queries.
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