Within a family power struggle, lies the son and heir to a great fortune in Phillip. However, the dashing young Brit wants to remain grounded and spend his life with Cindy, a bar singer from Singapore. As the power struggle begins, Phillip's mother tries to keep him safe while his powerful uncle tries to find ways to remove him as the heir apparent.
At its heart, “Bloodline Blues” aims to be an action film first, and a drama second. In assessing the film in the action genre, a deal of care and appreciation for the genre becomes reflected in the fight scenes. Consequently, this becomes the most engaging part of the short, notably complimented by a good upbeat score. The fights may not be entirely seamless, and the budgetary restrictions do show, but Michael S Chua shows a degree of visual creativity and a knack for capturing complimentary angles in action sequences. Unfortunately, any charm the production carries stops within these sequences, with the rest of the film suffering for various reasons.
The most egregious action in the production comes from a narrative structure that is messy and incomplete. To the production's credit, certain choices hint that the short film was intended to be part of a bigger project, or is planned to be expanded on at a later date. This becomes apparent in the final fight scene, which takes place among two characters with unknown motivation, (a possible) bodyguard and a masked assassin. Unfortunately, what turns out to be a well executed fight scene, does not answer the question of either parties' motives. Keeping this context in mind, the disjointed and poorly structured narrative can be somewhat forgiven. However, in critiquing what has been presented as a ‘short film', it is horribly flawed and rushed. Overall, it feels like each persona has some extensive background story that is not revealed to the audience, which is a problem within the current format.
Off the back of a poorly delivered plot, it seems slightly unfair to pick apart the acting. In all fairness, the performers do an admirable job delivering emotional performances, which might have worked if their effort was a part of a larger narrative. Unfortunately, with and abundance of emotional responses and plot lines packed into a short run time, each performance comes across as campy and slightly comical.
The love of action cinema is apparent in “Bloodline Blues”, which understands the key components to making an action film, particularly within the fight choreography/cinematography and sound design. However, the end product is too formulaic in its approach, largely relying on a series of tropes which kill any originality. Furthermore, the shoddy narrative that feels incomplete does not help in giving the film a sense of identity.
The only positive take away from “Bloodline Blues”, rests on the hope that a feature length production would be able to bring over the visual flair of the fight sequences and offer up a competent script when not restricted in the current format. Adversely, an attempt to make a short film with a tighter script may also prove to better display the strengths of director Michael S Chua. Sadly, even romanticizing what ‘could be' cannot ensure future success when faced with a narrative mess attempting to be passed off as a short film.
