NEWS: Renny Harlin’s “Bodies at Rest”

Will director Renny Harlin’s mojo return with Chinese backing? The box office success of the recent Jackie Chan vehicle Skiptrace seem to suggest so. The man has certainly carved his niche into old-school action flicks such as Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight, but you can only go so far until you make utter tripe like The Legend of Hercules.

Eventually, the man has gone East (permanently, apparently), and it looks like old school Renny might (*might*) just return with this latest project, Bodies at Rest, which had just finished principal photography in Beijing and Hong Kong. According to Variety, the film’s plot sees a forensics expert and his intern assistant ready to call it a day in the morgue when a group of masked thugs break in. The thugs demand access to a body that contains evidence to a crime they recently committed.

I hope the film does not rely on CGI-induced flashbacks (a tiresome cliche of the genre regardless of country). Harlin has made a good film in the genre before – 2004’s Mindhunters (not to be confused with the also-good David Fincher-fronted Netflix series), so this could turn out to be something good, if Harlin does indeed stick to the basics.

Bodies at Rest stars Chinese stars Nick Cheung and Richie Jen, and rising actress Yang Zi, and is slated for a late 2018 release in Asia.

P.S., check out this article on Wall Street Journal chronicling Harlin’s move to China.