‘578 Magnum’ Review: New Thriller Puts Style Over Substance To Its Detriment
I love a good exploitation-esque action thriller. So, I went into 578 Magnum with cautious optimism. My enthusiasm was bolstered by the distinction that the film was presented as the official Oscar submission for Vietnam in 2022. But my hopes were dashed about five minutes into the runtime. The flick has a few good action sequences and the fight choreography is occasionally serviceable. Unfortunately, the picture never succeeds in making a lick of sense or fleshing out any of the characters to the point where they feel like actual people.
578 Magnum follows Hùng (Alexandre Nguyen), a truck driver whose young daughter is abducted by a human trafficking ring. Hùng follows the trail of the kidnappers and battles hundreds (thousands?) of henchmen to get to the head of the criminal organization responsible for his daughter’s kidnapping.
As you can probably tell from the plot crunch, 578 Magnum sets out to be a cross between Taken and The Transporter. The stylized action sequences occasionally have a similar look and feel to the aforementioned films but none of the characters are fleshed out on any meaningful level. We don’t even find out that Hùng is ex-special forces until well into the picture’s runtime. And without that added context, the proceedings feel even more preposterous.
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At every turn, writer/director Dung Luong Dinh chooses style over substance. It’s as if every aspect of the film revolves around presenting stylized martial arts sequences at regular intervals with no consideration for narrative cohesion. As I said, some of the scenes are enjoyable to watch. There’s a cool battle sequence on a boat that works well enough and another staged on and around a series of shipping containers. But with such a haphazard approach to logic, it’s hard to be immersed in the proceedings.
The setups frequently border on cliché. In one scene, Hùng battles probably fifty male henchmen and takes them all out, hardly breaking a sweat. In a subsequent scene, he repeats the process with 50 of their female counterparts. But there’s no real distinction as to why the henchpeople run in gendered packs. Further unclear is why when Hùng takes on the ladies, they throw colored sand at him. It looks cool enough but it amounts to yet another odd choice in a film filled to the brim with odd choices.
With each new setup, I kept shaking my head and asking myself how any of these scenes made a lick of sense. Matters are further complicated by a timeline that jumps between Hùng searching for his daughter and holding vigil at her bedside. At first, I thought there may be an artistic purpose behind the chaotic editing. But in retrospect, I’m not so certain.
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There’s also a sequence thrown in where Hùng rescues a young girl who isn’t his daughter because the kidnappers inexplicably decided to take his daughter to a hospital. After rescuing the child who isn’t his, said child vanishes from the proceedings, never to be heard from again. Then a female truck driver enters the narrative so she can later show up during a nighttime action sequence with an umbrella to singlehandedly take on a bunch of henchmen. Then, she vanishes from the story, only to show up again at the tail end of the film.
Incomprehensible narrative structure and timeline aside, the picture also has some challenges that stem from the Vietnamese-to-English translation. Much of the dialogue is captioned in such a way that a lot of the context is lost. While I suspect these exchanges make more sense in Vietnamese, I couldn’t make heads or tails of some of the interactions.
Although the fight choreography is occasionally effective, more often than not, the action scenes cut away to a different perspective at the point of contact. Nearly every punch, kick, and slap cuts at the moment of impact, which quickly becomes distracting.
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Criticisms aside, I can say that the cinematography and lighting are really well done. The nighttime action sequences feature bold primary colors that almost jump off the screen. I love to see that, especially with low-light shots.
But what works about the film is primarily overshadowed by what doesn’t. And that’s a shame. All in all, 578 Magnum suffers from a lack of narrative cohesion and a style-over-substance approach that requires nonstop suspension of disbelief.
If you are keen to check 578 Magnum out, you can scope the film on VOD and Digital now.
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‘578 Magnum’
Summary
‘578 Magnum’ never finds its footing. The viewer is hurled into one nonsensical setup after another.
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