1/5 stars

Nick Cheung Ka-fai plays a former soldier on a quest to take down a Golden Triangle drug cartel in Go for Broke, a ludicrous action thriller from actor-turned-director Marc Ma Yuhe.

Set in a fictional Southeast Asian country where the entire population is either corrupt or the victim of corruption, Ma’s film bristles with flippant xenophobia, alarmist anti-drug rhetoric and a dizzying stream of ridiculous twists and turns.

Only in its action beats does Go for Broke find clarity, but these pyrotechnics are just superficial distractions from what is otherwise disposable nonsense.

Zhang Yao (Cheung) returns home to discover that he has lost his wife (Zhang Li) and young daughter to a drug epidemic that has ravaged “Man City”.

It is an open secret that all production and supply is overseen by local crime lord Mukun (Vithaya Pansringarm), in cahoots with Anpei (Jack Kao Jie), head of the local police force’s Drug Enforcement Division.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is now available on Digital HD.

It’s safe to say that most Hellboy fans probably had their expectations firmly in check with Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Between the fact that it carries a far lower budget than its predecessors and that it’s skipping a theatrical release and going direct to video-on-demand, it’s easy to assume the worst from the fourth live-action Hellboy movie. That’s what makes this reboot/prequel such a welcome surprise. Despite its undeniably cheap trappings, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable take on a classic comic book storyline.

Directed by Brian Taylor (of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance fame), The Crooked Man has the distinction of being the most faithful Hellboy movie to date (the two animated films from the mid-’00s aside). It’s a direct adaptation of Mike Mignola and Richard Corben’s 2008 miniseries of the same name, in which Hellboy (Jack Kesy) is drawn into the Appalachian backcountry in search of the titular demonic foe (Martin Bassindale) in 1959 – in fact, Mignola scripted the film alongside his frequent writing partner Christopher Golden and the director. The result is a fairly close translation of the comic, albeit one that embellishes the source material a bit in order to pad out the 99-minute running time and give Hellboy himself a more clearly defined character arc.

For the most part, these changes work to the film’s benefit. The Crooked Man comic is a bit too spartan a tale to make a proper feature, so the added allusions to Hellboy’s origins and dark nature help put some meat on its bones. The same goes for the addition of Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph), a new creation of Mignola, Golden, and Taylor’s screenplay. Jo’s tense dynamic with her fellow Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense agent Hellboy is a lot of fun, even if in some ways Rudolph’s appearance and performance feel a bit anachronistic. From the way her hair is styled to her distinctly modern-sounding dialogue, Jo looks and sounds like the product of a more contemporary era. As the saying goes, hers is a face that has definitely seen an iPhone.

Kesy, for his part, delivers exactly what you’d want out of a comics-accurate Hellboy. He’s stoic and brooding, with just enough of a tender side to remind us of the character’s tragic nature. It’s a film that gives Kesy plenty of room to brood, smoke cigarettes, and crack wise, which are all necessary ingredients in a proper Hellboy adaptation. It’s also clear that the majority of the meager budget was spent on his makeup, allowing this Hellboy to hold his own visually alongside the ones played by Ron Perlman and David Harbour.

Leah McNamara’s villainous witch Effie Kolb is another highlight among the cast, with McNamara never wasting an opportunity to chew all the scenery she can get her teeth around. Unfortunately, The Crooked Man himself proves to be a rather bland villain, lacking the creepy, unsettling vibe the comic establishes so well. He mostly looks like a bad imitation of Warwick Davis’ character from the Leprechaun movies.

That speaks to a larger problem:- the budget, or lack thereof. There’s no getting around the fact that Hellboy: The Crooked Man was made on the cheap. The CGI is rudimentary. The cinematography is bland. Its worst sin is in failing to take advantage of the Appalachian setting. There’s both a beauty and an oppressiveness to this area in real life that fails to come across on screen. That could be because The Crooked Man was filmed in Bulgaria, but considering what a film like The Blair Witch Project can achieve with indistinctive forest locations and a shoestring budget, it’s disappointing that The Crooked Man doesn’t mine more horror out of its isolated, dimly lit environments.

Still, it manages to provide a lean, mean supernatural adventure in the vein of the Evil Dead movies. The plot moves briskly along and wraps up before it manages to wear out its welcome. All three lead characters are given small but satisfying arcs. What Hellboy: The Crooked Man lacks in fear factor it mostly makes up for in fun. Frankly, it could have been much, much worse.

Coldplay is heading back to North America for more of the Music of the Spheres World Tour after its six-night gig in Seoul in April.

After the release of its 10th studio album, “Moon Music,” last week, the English band has added 10 North American shows, scheduled for next spring and summer, to the long-running tour.

The tour, which kicked off in March 2022, will come to California on May 31 when the “Yellow” and “Something Just Like This” performers play Stanford Stadium in Northern California.

From there, frontman Chris Martin and the group head to Las Vegas; Denver; El Paso, Texas; and two nights in Toronto — where Coldplay will be among the first acts to play Rogers Stadium, an outdoor concert venue that opens in Ontario next year. The band also set shows in Foxborough, Mass.; Madison, Wis.; and Nashville. They’re set to close out the North American leg on July 26 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

“The dates announced will see the band bring its acclaimed live experience to fans in new cities, continuing to make good on their efforts to reach every corner of the globe,” concert promoter Live Nation said in a statement.

Artist presale sign-ups are underway and run through Thursday, with the presale beginning Friday at 9 a.m. local time on Ticketmaster. The general on-sale begins Friday at 12 p.m. local time.

The seven-time Grammy winners will again release a limited number of Infinity tickets — accessible and affordable tickets that are sold in pairs for $20 apiece — that are sprinkled throughout each venue. Those go on sale Nov. 22.

On Tuesday, the band plugged its new album and tour with a performance on NBC’s “Today” show in New York. While there, Martin confirmed remarks he made last month about Coldplay retiring after making a 12th album.

“We are only going to do 12 proper albums, and that’s real,” Martin told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 last month. “Having that limit means the quality control is so high right now and for a song to make it, it’s almost impossible, which is great. And so where we could be coasting, we’re trying to improve.”

He added that they settled on 12 because “there’s only seven Harry Potters. There’s only 12½ Beatles albums, there’s about the same for Bob Marley, so all our heroes.” The notorious jokester also made headlines during a Brooklyn concert on Monday for making up a song at the piano after a fan requested a nonexistent Coldplay song.

Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres tour has sold more than 10 million tickets across the globe and has become the all-time highest-attended tour by a group. Last month, the group sold out 10 shows at Wembley Stadium in London, breaking the record for most shows at their historic hometown venue. The road show includes several hits from their 2021 album “Music of the Spheres” and their new singles “We Pray” and “feelslikeimfallinginlove.” The band also incorporates some of their most popular anthems, including “Yellow,” “The Scientist,” “Clocks,” “Fix You,” “Viva La Vida,” “Paradise,” “A Sky Full of Stars” and “Adventure of a Lifetime.”

The tour resumes Oct. 30 with 11 shows across Melbourne and Sydney in Australia and Auckland in New Zealand through November. In January, the band heads to Abu Dhabi for a three-night stint, then Mumbai. It spends April in Hong Kong and Seoul, then takes a break for most of May before the May 31 show at Stanford.