Reviewed by: Beat TG Date: 03/09/2025 Summary: Very Uneven & Out of Place Remake Most negative reviews of the movie you can find on Internet are right. I don't know if it was the director or the writers but alot in the story is downright terrible and makes absolutely no sense. The filmmakers took almost no time building up momentum for key scenes in the story and properly explaining the logic behind the characters' origins and motives and just jumps right away into the essential parts taken from the original 1989 movie ICEMAN COMETH. The result is a hugely unfitting film with lots of nonsense humor (many "out-of-the-blue" moments from Wang Baoqiang, Yu Kang, and even Donnie Yen himself), incoherent acting performances, and obvious story loops. Unlike the original movie, the filmmakers also couldn't balance seriousness and comedy at all. Watching everything is like watching several types of movie genres rolled into one. It gets to the point where one would scratch the head thinking what the hell director Law Wing Cheong wanted to achieve and whether he lost it somewhere along the process of making the movie. Because the overall narrative is so confusing. That being said, I think Donnie's action choreography is the saving grace. I especially enjoy the nightclub fight scene and the action finale on the bridge, which features creative ideas -- the concept behind Donnie's action direction forsakes the usual HK style exchanges of punches, kicks, blocks< because it's mostly situational and seeks dramatic tension -- wirework, and decent-looking CGI. All scenes, including the brief action sprinkles scenes, are shot and edited exceptionally well. And something that surprises me: It has the same sound design from SPL, FLASH POINT, and IP MAN quadrilogy giving the impact of the hits and blocks an edgier/meaty feel to it. However, unfortunately, they aren't in great numbers and, beside the ones I mentioned, they aren't lengthy either so what's present aren't enough to hold the whole movie. Overall, it's yet another good example of bad remakes, and ending up as one of Donnie Yen's worst movies in recent years -- easily making SPECIAL ID look much better in comparison -- and ever (it's up there with CIRCUS KIDS and IRON MONKEY 2). This review has now given me little hope for the sequel being good in its' entirety, although I'm sure the action will be good. The bad reputation is very spot on! Reviewer Score: 4

Reviewed by: ewaffle Date: 06/08/2017 Summary: Not bad “Iceman 3-D” which I saw in glorious 2-D, is by no means the worst sequel/remake ever done. That dubious honor will remain with “Casablanca”, a deservedly short-lived television prequel to the all-time great movie of the same but with David Soul, formerly Hutch “Starsky and Hutch” substituting for Humphrey Bogart. “Iceman 3-D” falls in that middle ground of not a disaster but would be better if one weren’t constantly reminded of the exquisite original. This movie would be a decent entry in the fish out of water who ultimately saves the day by applying the moral code of a bygone era to the urban wretchedness of the modern day if only one could forget the performances of Maggie Cheung, Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah and the note perfect production design of the 1989 effort. There are a number of reasons why a movie might be remade—indeed the Hong Kong film industry in the 1980s and 1990s was a very efficient self-plagiarizing machine with the second and sometime third chapters of a celluloid tale ready for release while the original was still in the cinemas. A famous negative example of this was “A Better Tomorrow” with Chow Yun Fat as Mark Gor not only shot full of holes on the beach but actually seen to die. Not only was there no sequel planned available but with teenage boys from Hong Kong to Singapore suddenly sporting trench coats and being cool while chewing on a toothpick, Mark Gor couldn’t stay dead. Which he didn’t, of course, since his identical twin was waiting in New York City to pick up his weaponry. “Iceman 3-D” is a different matter entirely than a typical remake or sequel, though. There was no built in audience for a movie that had run a quarter of a century previously. While a few tickets might be sold based on nostalgia, that is not enough of a basis for a CGI extravaganza (Ming dynasty soldiers using shields to snowboard down an avalanche, for example) like this. Polly/May, the hooker with the heart of gold plate, is a juicy role for an actress but Eva Huang Sheng-Yi, while an accomplished and lovely actress, wasn’t going to set hearts racing and wallets opening as the headliner. The most likely reason was that Donnie Yen and his reps thought He Ying would fit his ability and reputation perfectly, which it did. He is listed as one of several producers of the “Iceman 3-D” and his participation may have been the reason it was dug out of the ice after 25 years. Still, a decent movie in itself even if it does end inconclusively enough for a second helping to be possible. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 07/31/2014 Summary: Not as good as the original Imperial bodyguard He Ying (Donnie Yen) is accused of collaborating with Japanese pirates after returning from a trip to India, and is sentenced to death for himself and his whole family. Breaking his bonds he starts to flee, chased by two of his colleagues and somehow - this is never really explained - finds himself frozen alive, waking up 400 years later in the early 21st century, where his frozen/thawed colleagues continue to pursue him. He finds refuge with a young club hostess (Eva Huang) when she realises he possesses some valuable antiques, and sets out to seek the Golden Wheel, a mystical device which may have the power to return him to his own time so that he can save his family. ICEMAN 3D is, obviously, a remake of the classic ICEMAN COMETH from 1989, with Donnie Yen stepping into Yuen Biao's shoes and at least two other people attempting to fill Yuen Wah's. The plot has been changed up a bit but is still basically recognisable, and the modern day times that our Icemen find themselves in are obviously a couple of decades more modern - which is actually a bit of a shame, because there is something quite hilarious now about Ming dynasty warriors being overwhelmed by 1980's technology. In fact, one way in which the remake is mysteriously inferior to the original is that the whole "fish out of water" angle has been almost completely excised - apart from a scene where Donnie Yen is briefly baffled by tinned food and mistakes a toilet for a well, the time travellers adapt to the modern era almost without note. They are almost immediately comfortable in their surroundings and using modern technology, as if the 21st century is basically exactly what they expected life to be like. It's a pretty conspicuous omission in a film about ancient warriors being suddenly transplanted to modern times that the culture shock and confusion this must surely entail is only given a passing glance. The other ways in which the remake is inferior to the original are... well, everything. ICEMAN COMETH was a bit uneven, as Clarence Fok films tended to be, but it was undeniably glorious the incredibly opulent art design and cinematography and the spectacular wire-enhanced acrobatics and combat were the kind of mind-blowing stuff that only Hong Kong had the nerve to produce in those days, and which made me a fan of Hong Kong cinema. The script wobbled in places but was basically tight, and had something to say about modern life. Where the script for the new film deviates from the original it is invariably to its detriment - the new film is less coherent and less entertaining. The visuals in the remake are still good, and benefit from the more modern technology and probably higher budget that the film makers had access to, but they don't have that dreamy extravagance of the original, and there are a few places where lousy CGI or compositing are more conspicuous than the low budget effects of 1989 ever were. The action scenes are also good, with Donnie Yen being his usual gifted self and primary opponent Wang Bao-Qiang also delivering some impressive acrobatics. Given that the original featured an extended toe-to-toe between Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah in their prime as its finale, though, it would be hard for any film to improve on the martial arts and acrobatics. ICEMAN 3D does hold its own though, with some cool acrobatics and a final fight scene on a bridge surrounded by crashing cars that is quite spectacular, even if much of the spectacle is down to CGI. I say final fight scene, but that's not quite accurate, because this is only part one of the film, and although it has its own climax it is clearly not complete in its own right - the ending is very much a "To Be Continued...", which is annoying because I'm not sure I want to watch another 100 minutes of it! Whilst not awful, there is no question that ICEMAN 3D is a worse film than ICEMAN COMETH. Did anybody really expect otherwise though? You have to wonder why people remake films that were already at least minor classics... unless the original has some blatant flaws that you can clearly improve on, chances are you're just going to suffer in comparison. I suppose the idea might be that young audiences will be too freaked out by the dated technology and wardrobes to appreciate the original, so updating it to a more contemporary style might allow them to enjoy it... this is not a philosophy I subscribe to personally, but I have certainly noticed that mainstream audiences struggle to watch old films in the context in which they are made, so from a commercial perspective it probably makes sense. It's just a shame that in bringing the film up to date, they lost quite a lot of what made the original so charming. Reviewer Score: 5

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