POC I'm Watching: Rick Yune

Rick Yune as "Chance"

Hey, Ricky
You so fine, you so fine
You blow my mind
Hey, Ricky!  Hey, Ricky!

I'm gonna go ahead and dedicate this one to my main girl Amaya Radjani for reasons I think are beyond obvious at this point.

Pretty Ricky returns to the bar via The Fifth Commandment* (2008), a year before he portrayed the infamous sociopath Takeshi in Ninja Assassin.  Now, I originally was going to do a post about the fabulous Dominican Blacktina Dania Ramirez, but when I did additional research it became all about Rick Yune, as he wrote, produced, and starred in this gritty action flick.  It's like he just woke up one day, looked at Hollywhite, and said, "Fuck you."

Co-stars Keith David, Bokeem Woodbine, and Roger Yuan all appeared to agree.


Dania Ramirez as "Angel"

Yune plays Chance Templeton, an assassin, while Woodbine plays his foster brother Max Templeton, an ex-Marine turned bodyguard to a famous popstar (Ramirez).  Both were raised by Vietnam vet turned profession killer the Jazzman (Keith David), an alcoholic trumpet player.  The film begins in 1976 when the Jazzman rescues the orphaned Chance after a gunfight.  Chance and Max grow to be close brothers, but the Jazzman notices that while young Chance (Boo-Boo Stewart) has a natural, inborn talent for assassination, he notices young Max (Owen Williams) "has too much heart", and when Max grows up and leaves, the Jazzman tells Chance his brother died.  Eleven years later, the two are reunited when Chance is the first assassin picked to take out the popstar Angel, and refuses when he realizes she's guarded by his brother.

This isn't a story of redemption; it's a tale of a hood-ass family of professional ass-whoopers. Chance is what he is and fully accepts it, which allows Rick Yune to voice some really great lines (my favorite is when and how he says, "Don't get it twisted.").

According to the extensive interview in the special features, Yune came up with the story, but originally wanted someone else to write it. But conflicting visions, financial restraints, and the Writers' Strike forced him to write and then constantly rewrite as filming went on. Anyhow, if you're looking for gun fights, interrogation scenes, stylish hand-to-hand, vengeance, and the requisite explosions, The Fifth Commandment is definitely for you. Yune states he was inspired by the action flicks of the late Seventies and the Eighties, which he himself grew up on. The film is set in Thailand, and the cast is predominantly (and unsurprisingly) POC.

Needless to say, it's filled with all kinds of goodies. The foremost, of course, being Yune himself.  Click to enlarge any image.





Interrogation is such a bitch.

Thinking of Amaya.

Thinking of Amaya some more.

LOVE this man's smile!!!

I also dug how they handled the whole sibling thing.

"Do as I do."

"Done."

The Blasian-ish thing they had going on didn't hurt either.

Hey, remember that scene in Romeo Must Die where Trish saves Han by cappin' Mac?  Dania does.

Other peeps also caught my eye in The Fifth Commandment, of course.

Tokolize Robbins as "Tamara" (right).

And suave Daddy-o Roger Yuan
really shone in this film as the villain.

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*For those of you are who heathens like Moi, the actual 5th commandment is "Honor thy father and thy mother" - not the one I was expecting.  Can you believe I actually had to look that one up?  It bugged me throughout the whole damn film.