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Matt Glasby

The pitch for Ultraviolet (2006), a super-stylised American sci-fi movie shot in China, must have had the moneymen salivating.
Star Milla Jovovich had just made two very successful Resident Evil flicks for the same studio, Screen Gems, and would soon be dubbed the “reigning queen of kick-butt” by VH1.
Writer-director Kurt Wimmer had shown he could handle action on a budget with Equilibrium (2002), and the combination of a talented Hong Kong crew and the towering Shanghai backdrops would ensure it all looked great.
Surely a franchise was in the offing?


Well, no. The film bombed, making just US$31 million on a production budget of US$30 million, and was described as “thoroughly unprofessional” (Village Voice), “incomprehensible” (Chicago Reader) and “a criminal waste of time and talent” (Empire).
So what went wrong?
“Hello, my name’s Violet, and I was born into a world you may not understand,” says Jovovich in an introductory voice-over. It’s a comment that proves highly prophetic as the convoluted backstory unspools.
Sam Neill couldn’t save it: first Sino-Australian film co-production flopped
In the near future, an accident in a US military laboratory has unleashed a virus that turned certain humans into “hemophages” (essentially vampires), who were then forced into hiding.
Having lost her husband and child, hemophage soldier Violet fights the system, as ruled by the evil Daxus (Nick Chinlund). But when she intercepts his supposed secret weapon, it turns out to be a young boy called Six (Cameron Bright) – perhaps the inspiration for Eleven from Stranger Things? – and the two join forces.
Although scenes of mask-wearing hordes on the metro seem creepily prescient in the Covid era, Wimmer claims the plot was inspired by John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980), which saw Gena Rowlands going on the run to protect a young boy from the New York mob.

Whatever the truth, Gloria probably doesn’t contain exchanges as thudding as this one – Daxus: “What do you think you can do against that many men?” Violet: “I can kill them.”
Gloria may have been the inspiration, but Ultraviolet also rips off sci-fi standards such as Total Recall (1990), The Matrix (1999) and Minority Report (2002).
It’s a risky strategy. Not only do these films have intelligent scripts that probe at what it means to be human, they also have jaw-dropping visual effects that don’t look, as IMDB suggests, “visibly unfinished”.
Reigning queen of kick-butt or not, Jovovich really earns her pay cheque, managing to conjure genuine maternal concern for Six while taking on room upon room full of masked storm troopers.

She deserves so much better, but then so does Shanghai, which offers up its imposing Pearl Tower, the gleaming piazzas of the Science and Technology Museum, plus all manner of cinematic staircases for very little in return.
Most of the supporting actors are non-Chinese, and the briefly glimpsed Asian bad guys speak a fictional language based on bastardised Vietnamese, called Thaihindi.
It’s this affectless, anonymous aspect that kills the film stone dead. The visual effects render the Hong Kong soundstages as bland as a bad PC game, and characters are often masked or dubbed, so it’s difficult to connect to them.
Even the final battle between Violet and Daxus takes place in darkness, their flaming swords making it look like a full moon party rather than a bitter fight to the death.

If all this speaks of studio interference, that’s long been the rumour. Jovovich complained of being locked out of the editing room, but blames Wimmer.
“On both Resident Evils I had a lot of input into the movie before it was finished,” she told IGN.
“But with Ultraviolet I was very depressed, because [Wimmer] was a real cad, in the sense that he kind of reneged on his promises and didn’t allow me to see my performances.”
According to internet scuttlebutt, poor Wimmer had his movie shortened, re-edited and cut to a PG-13 by Screen Gems, which goes some way to explaining how he made a vampire film with almost no blood in it.

Not that it stopped the studio trying to get its cash back. For anyone who wants to know what happens next – or, indeed, at all – an Ultraviolet novelisation and anime series are also available.
Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook


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American cinema

Why Milla Jovovich movie Ultraviolet, a US film shot in China, went so horribly wrong

Milla Jovovich in a still from the 2006 movie Ultraviolet, a US-China co-production that rips off sci-fi standards such as Total Recall, The Matrix and Minority Report.

Milla Jovovich (left) and Cameron Bright in a still from Ultraviolet.

Milla Jovovich in a still from Ultraviolet.

(From left) Ultraviolet director Kurt Wimmer, Charles Wang of producer Salon Films, and John Tsang, then Hong Kong secretary of commerce, industry and technology, in 2004. Photo: SCMP

From Li Jun Li to Lewis Tan and Stephanie Hsu, 8 breakout Hollywood stars with Hong Kong or China connections who will make their mark in 2023

Stephanie Hsu in a still from Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Li Jun Li in a still from Babylon. With the recent success of films such as Everything Everywhere All at Once, Hollywood is opening its door wider to Chinese talent.  Photo: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures via AP

Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov in a still from Shadow and Bone. Photo: Attila Szvacsek/Netflix

Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu in a still from Babylon. Photo: Paramount Pictures

Lewis Tan in a still from Mortal Kombat.

Isabella Wei in a still from 1899. Photo: Netflix

Ben Wang (left) and Michelle Yeoh in a still from American Born Chinese.

Poppy Liu (left) and Katerina Tannenbaum in a still from Better Call Saul.

Izaac Wang plays an eye-catching supporting role in Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Is Dwayne Johnson action movie Skyscraper a blueprint for US-China co-production despite being a box-office flop in America?

Dwayne Johnson attends a Skyscraper press conference in Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

Dwayne Johnson (left) and Chin Han in a still from Skyscraper, a film which courted the Chinese market it wanted to break into with respect. 

Neve Campbell (left) and Dwayne Johnson in a still from Skyscraper.

Johnson with Chin Han (left) and Campbell (right) at the Skyscraper press conference in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. Photo: Sam Tsang

Dwayne Johnson in a still from Skyscraper.

Did China ruin actor Richard Gere’s career after 1997 film Red Corner?

FOR USE WITH FEATURE PACKAGE FOR SUNDAY NOV. 2 --Chinese actress Bai Ling begs Richard Gere not to run in a scene from the movie “Red Corner,” being released Friday, Oct. 31.  “Red Corner,” an account of an American executive framed for murder and railroaded by the Chinese judicial system, is one of five films being released that deal with Chinese oppression.  The fresh batch of China-related films is motivated by genuine concern about international human rights and the film business’ unique position to advocate for change. (AP Photo/Richard Foreman Jr., HO)

Richard Gere in the 1997 film Red Corner, which was highly critical of China. Photo: UPPA

Bai Ling (centre) in a still from Red Corner. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

Richard Gere in a still from Red Corner. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

Richard Gere (centre) and Bai Ling (right) in a still from Red Corner. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

Bad guys changed from Chinese to North Korean in Red Dawn remake at the height of Hollywood appeasing China in 2012 – but it still flopped

Chris Hemsworth in a still from Red Dawn (2012).

(From left) Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson and Chris Hemsworth in a still from Red Dawn. Photo: Ron Phillips/2009 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios

‘North Korea’ in a still from Red Dawn.

Chris Hemsworth and cast in a still from Red Dawn.

Will Yun Lee in a still from Red Dawn.

How The Dark Knight’s makers tried in vain to court China by shooting scenes for Christopher Nolan’s superhero masterpiece in Hong Kong

The Dark Night was partly filmed in Hong Kong.

Batman swoops over Hong Kong’s Central district in a scene from The Dark Knight, which failed to impress China despite its makers’ intentions. Photo: Warner Brothers

Christopher Nolan (right) on the set of The Dark Knight in Hong Kong.

Crowds mob Christian Bale during shooting in Hong Kong in 2007. Photo: SCMP

 Chin Han plays corrupt businessman Lau (right), with Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, in a still from The Dark Knight (2008).

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‘Reigning queen of kick-butt’ Jovovich had just made two successful Resident Evil movies but could not stop 2006’s Ultraviolet from bombing at the box office
Everything from the poor visual effects to rumoured studio interference led to Empire dubbing the film ‘a criminal waste of time and talent’


A super-stylised American sci-fi movie shot in China and starring Milla Jovovich, Ultraviolet (2006) had huge potential but bombed at the box office – ‘a criminal waste of time and talent’.


Cinema

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Hollywood

US-China relations