SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: NG KWANG ZHOU

STUDENT ID NO: 0322802

FILMS SELECTED: ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E’ & ‘The Transporter Refueled’

WORD COUNT: 995

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 1ST OCTOBER 2015

COMPARE & CONTRAST ESSAY(ACTION-COMEDY FILMS)

Movie genres is a theatrical term that use to classify or categorise a group of movies that

have similar syntax or filmic techniques. For examples, content, recurring icons, themes and

plot. Movies can be categorised into many genre such as action movies (Fast and Furious,

James Bond), adventure movies (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hobbit), comedy movies

(Marly and me, Vacation) and so on. The movies that I have chosen are “The Man from

U.N.C.L.E” directed by Guy Ritchie and “ The Transporter Refueled” directed by Camille

Delamarre. The Man from U.N.C.L.E is an action comedy movie that lead by Henry Cavill,

Armie Hammer. The movie situates in the early of 1960s, two agents from different countries

Napoleon Solo a CIA agent and KGB operative Illya Kuryakin being teamed up by their

bosses to proliferate nuclear weapons. For the second movie The Transporter Refueled , Ed

Skrein played as the main character, Frank Martin. Frank Martin was a former special-

operations mercenary that now works as a man that known as “transporter” who help his

client to transport classified packages but ran into some unexpected scenes. For this essay I

will be doing the comparison on the similarities between these two action-comedy movies.

The core similarity for these two movies are mainly about genre. Both of these movies are

fall under the same common category of ‘Action’ and ‘Crime’. The primary elements of these

two films are similar. Both films are mainly focus on actions and slightly toward to spy

characters. For example, both of them have advanced driving skills, like how to lose someone

who may be following them and they also have keen observation. In these two films, I also

observed that both of the main characters are wearing western-style clothes, combine the

same British hairstyle and pare with the same type of leather shoes throughout all the films to

show their own unique characteristics. Apart from that, the scene of these two films are taken

in United Kingdom and mostly around the famous capital of London. For example in the film

of ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’ and ‘The Transporter Refueled’, some of the popular scenes

are taken from the same places such as the streets of Portobello, Carnaby street, Hyde Park,

Downton Abbey and many more.

Besides from the parts mentioned above, a strong friendship bond is also one of the

similarities for these two films. To make it clear, in the beginning of the film of ‘The Man

from U.N.C.L.E’, Solo and Illya treated each other as enemy. There are few scenes showing

that they were having a fight and teasing about each other. However, after going through all

kinds of hard situations together, a true friendship was born between them. At the end of the

story, they did not follow the instructions which given by their bosses to kill each other in

order to get the disc. Instead of doing that, they decided to destroy the disc. As for “The

Transporter Refueled”, the friendship bond was shown between Anna, Gina, Qiao and Maria.

They were being sold to prostitution under control of Karasov since they were young. Anna

then decided to take a revenge on Karasov by ruining his empire. The other girls who

experienced the same situation as Anna willing to put themselves into danger to help Anna.

At the end, Gina, Qiao and Maria were all sacrificed in this mission. Anna was the only one

who survived and she got all the money. Instead of having all the money for herself, she

transfer part of the money to each of their family.

Sticking with the similarities of these two films, the main characters are both betrayed by a

girl that they had feelings. In the film of ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’, Gaby betrayed Illya by

revealing their mission which was to find out the location of nuclear bomb and her father.

However, Gaby was an undercover for the British. She was then forced to betray them in

order to gain trust from her uncle, Rudi due to her father. She actually had good intentions,

but upon consideration for her father’s safety, she had no choice but to disappoint Illya. The

same situation goes to the second film, ‘The Transporter Refueled’, Anna also betrayed Frank

by making sure that his father, Martin being kidnapped by Karasov. By doing so, she would

leave Frank with no choice but to be there to save them all. As what we can observed from

these two films, they are basically related to women.

Love towards a father is also clearly shown in both of these films. For instance, from the

first film, ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’, Gaby’s father was being locked up by Victoria in an

island and forced to work on the atom bomb. In order to save her father, Gaby does not even

care about her own safety. She was forced to follow instructions from her boss no matter how

dangerous the instructions were. Her intention was just to pull her father out from danger.

Moving on to the next film, “The Transporter Refueled” also showed the same value too. As

an illustration, Frank helped Anna and her partners in the first place because of his father,

Martin. He was kidnapped by one of Anna’s partners, Gina. Anna told Frank that his father

was poisoned and if he refused to give her help, her father would die. However, it was just a

lie. All Anna wanted was to guarantee that Frank will help her to finish the mission.

In a nutshell, there are a lot of similarities between these two films. The similarities which

I stated above are basically about the genre, strong friendship bond, influence of a woman

and also the love towards a father. These two films are instilled with different moral values

that could educate us in a good way. We should not just take it as an entertainment, but also

learn the moral values that transmitted to us.

(995 words)

REFERENCE

1) Author Unknown (2015). Synopsis for The Man from U.N.C.L.E .Retrieved from

IMDb website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1638355/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_sa_2

2) Author Unknown (2015) . Synopsis for The Transporter Refueled . Retrieved from

Imdb website : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2938956/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_sa_2

3) Debruge ,P .( 2015 , Aug 10 ) . Film Review : ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E’ . Retrieved from

Variety website : http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/the-man-from-uncle-film-review-

1201556925/

4) Ebiri , B.(2015,Sep 4) . The Transporter: Refueled Is Stupid-Fun ,But You’ll Miss

Jason Statham. Retrieved from Vulture website :

http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/movie-review-the-transporter-refueled.html

5) Vishnevetsky , I . (2015,Sep 3) . The Transporter : Refueled is winningly stupid . Retrieved

from A.V.Club website : http://www.avclub.com/review/transporter-refueled-winningly-

stupid-224839

6) Debruge ,P .( 2015 , Aug 10 ) . Film Review : ‘The Man From U.N.C.L.E’ . Retrieved from

Variety website : http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/the-man-from-uncle-film-review-

1201556925/