China Salesman movie review & film summary (2018)
Another clumsy scene: Jian is hand-cuffed after his canteen of goat's milk is replaced with liquor (there are legally-enforced, religious laws against the possession of booze in Uganda). As he's being cuffed by a pair of mortified extras, Yuan wails and hops around like an electrified science class frog. And, in a laughably unnatural Stentorian voice, he screams: "I've BEEN set UUUUUP!" Hammy and painfully incompetent: yup, this is a film co-starring Steven Seagal.
Speaking of the big man: you're probably wondering what he does in this film whenever he's not gently growling and cautiously waddling around tables while drinking beer and patting a female lackey's rear end. I'm sorry to report: that's pretty much all he does. As in a lot of latter-day Seagal vehicles, Seagal is barely in the film. These days, he often plays villains, though he almost never allows himself to cut loose, and be memorably nasty (I hear "Machete Kills" is fun). So the above-mentioned tap on the bum is gentle, but ostentatious. Which wouldn't be so icky if Seagal had not been, in real life, repeatedly accused of rape and sexual assault. It's almost as if he threw in a little sexual harassment into this film just so he could thumb his nose at any American critics who expect more from him and/or still remember him.
Speaking of rape and sexual battery: Tyson's equally problematic appearance is also light to the point of being distractingly under-developed. Kabbah's an antiheroic heavy who takes a swing at Lauder simply because Lauder insists that Kabbah have a drink with him (and because the film's posters need some action to sell). But Kabbah, like Susanna, eventually is allowed a humanizing moment or two, a fine idea that is executed with a pachyderm's grace when Tyson—moving robotically, and mumbling his way through lines that he clearly recorded during a post-production recording session—says something vague about "my faith" and "my tribe." This may prompt you to yell back at the screen "Which tribe? Whose faith?" But I digress.
Still, if you—like me—are a reluctant Seagal completist, you might say to yourself: cram it, Simon Abrams, this movie sounds like dumb fun! Friends, let me assure you: we deserve better. Like chocolate babka, "China Salesman" is pretty crummy, no matter which way you slice it. The film's nature as a work of propaganda would be more deplorable—or at least eyeroll-inducing—if it weren't so poorly blocked, scripted, performed, and choreographed. There is no joy in Seagal-ville, dear rubber-neckers, because pretty much everybody here has struck out.
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