Audience Member
Is Contour a good movie? No. Is it entertaining? I'd say so. Filmed with barely any budget, and written directed and starring Eric Jacobus and The Stunt People, its about an anti social tour guide who moonlights as a tough fighting thug who likes to crash drug deals and steal either the drugs or money. He owes money to a pho soup fighting conman (maybe?) or something and teams up with an annoying voiced Prince with a blood sugar disorder that makes him violent, as well as the Prince's tough bodyguard and a mysterious woman in order to find a video tape before a scandal of an unheard of country is destabilized. The plot and acting is threadbare, but are the production values. It was filmed with whatever camera they could get, and I heard Jacobus edited the footage and slept on the floors of film sets because that is how little money they had. The final product is decent, and the fight scenes are just good enough despite the bad camera work. Contour shows that with just effort and heart you can still make a passable action comedy, and its at least as entertaining or even more than DTV action movies nowadays. Their next film Death Grip definitely shows that with a budget they can make good stuff, but this is what came before.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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Audience Member
Tremendous fight scenes. Tremendously inept film-making.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/25/23
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Audience Member
The closest thing I can say this film resembles is your first shit after a long drought of constipation. Stay with me, now. After days, weeks, hell even years of almosts and false hopes, you finally let it go.. and oh boy, does it feel good. This film is that shit. OK. Maybe it isn't.. but this film is still an awesome find that any fan of Martial Arts film NEEDS to see. A needle in a haystack of other, dirtier, not as good needles. A unique snowflake, if you will. While LOW-budget, extremely low, you need to look past that. Yes, I said look past it. Stop crying. This isn't a glossy film. It's shot with a camera.. but who the hell cares how it looks when the content is just that good? With awesome fight choreography (I'll repeat: awesome) and a hell of a lot of laughs. This flick gets a high, high... HIGH recommendation from moi.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
Cracking martial arts movie with near constant action and offbeat humour.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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Audience Member
"Contour" was made by a bunch of martial artists and stunt people who call themselves simply: The Stunt People. These are some crazy, but VERY talented mo-fo's. Anyhow, these guys and dolls have been making martial arts/fu/action shorts for some time now and in 2006-07 produced and released their first full-length feature film, "Contour". Eric Jacobus, one of the founders of The Stunt People, wrote, directed and starred in "Contour". For those of you who know of Ed Wood, Jr. and his films, there is some similarity between "Contour" and Wood films in their shoestring budgets, poor acting, and horrible scripts--but that's where the similarities end. If Wood could kick arse like Jacobus he'd not be simply remembered as the worst director of all time but the worst director of all time that no one would dare tell that to for fear of getting their head crushed. Anyhow, "Contour's" plot is thin at best--hell I can't rightly tell you what the plot is--but it's okay since the plot and character developments are just means to connect the various awesome fight scenes. This movie is one fight to the next, with many lasting so long one will get tired just watching these guys/girls beat each other relentlessly. The fight scene near the end of the movie is nearly 20 minutes in length and is a masterpiece. Nevermind that all the characters in the movie are played by a handful of people (they wear masks of various types, many times causing me to laugh out loud at how stupid it all looks, to shield that they are in fact the same guys/girls); the entire budget of the movie (~$5000) was likely spent on water (for obvious rehydration), food, and medical bills (there is no way it was spent on much more); and that NO ONE in the cast can act (Jacobus is a pretty decent fu version of Bruce Campbell--even looks a little like him)--this is simply a tour de force of fu action. You will wince 30-30 times I gaurantee! The DVD [I watched] also has a docu on the making of "Contour" and The Stunt People, as well as several shorts and training pieces--all quite amazing. I highly recommend it--but don't expect great (or even good---mark that decent) cinema, you need to watch this knowing it's low budget for film, but as high a 'budget' for action as anything out there.
4.5 stars - deducting 0.5 stars for low-rent nature of script and acting (feels wrong to give it a 5 outright).
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
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Audience Member
The fights are outstanding. Everything else is laughable (and not in a good way). But hey, what do you watch kung fu for? 1
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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