Brilliant and touching

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Being a fan of parkour I have to agree they did some pretty amazing stunts,but what it all added up to in the end was a kung-fu movie. I swear, this movie must have the worst plot in history.Everybody fighting everybody for no apparent reason,random action (they fight when they should run and run when they should fight) adding up to a lot of pointless action.It's all so drawn out I stopped watching by the last 20 minutes or so. Good if you're looking for some stunts out of the ordinary category of Hollywood crap,for rainy afternoons.Also be sure to watch the chick that doesn't change facial expressions the whole movie.Also there is no sex in this one, which is pretty amazing by action flick standards.

Now, I may have had my expectations too high because the file read Les Fils du Vent, Yamakasi 2. I liked Yamakasi, even if I don't usually watch sport movies. As sports go, Free Running is pretty cool and the story and acrobatics of Yamakasi were very nice.This movie lacks the story, the technical prowess and it's set in Bangkok, where just about everyone knows how to jump from buildings (in the movie, of course). To make the French athletes fight in the end and mix Free Running with martial arts seemed to me a very bad idea.I could have liked this movie, though, if it weren't for the end. It's a mindless brawl where no one has any purpose in what they do. To make things worse, after this scene that seemed to be the end comes another, which practically voids the one before.So if you are a movie lover or a Free Runner enthusiast, you will not be particularly pleased with this movie. And it has no other qualities.

The plot is simple. A French youngsters who are into extreme sports go to China and get in trouble with the local triad mafia. Just because the training ground they use happen to be on their turf. Without really having anything to do with it they get into the gang warfare. And without choosing any sides they try to fight a way out.The story isn't very spectacular. But the fighting and acrobatics are. The actors are mostly the same as Luc Besson's Yamakasi. And if you have seen that film and those acrobatics and you combine them with martial arts. Then you will understand what makes this film so good. Those men "REALLY" Jump of buildings and "REALLY" climb them barehanded (of course they are protected with cables). But instead of the cable doing all the work it's them. If you want an evening of relaxing and giving your eye some original spectacle without having too much of a plot than this is the movie for you. Enjoy.

Some minor spoilers included. This movie looked very good when i first saw the trailer of it, but unfortunately after watching it i was very disappointed. Although the movie has been shot beautifully, the way it's been put together spoils the experience. I don't know if it was because of the subtitles, but it was next to impossible to discover a storyline in this movie. I found out what the story was by reading the DVD cover, but this shouldn't be necessary. It felt like the back story was all very well known to the producers of the movie, but they didn't put enough into bringing this forward in the movie itself. Because of this near lack of story you don't really connect to the characters and feel like watching some scenes instead of a coherent movie. The stunts and acting performed by the actors is good, but you'd be better off watching Yamakasi instead, in which there's more of a story and the stunts are similar. A missed opportunity.