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1. 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
SUBMISSIONDATE: 1ST
OCTOBER 2015

2. 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,

3. 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

4. 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)

5. 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 , Aug10 ) .FilmReview :‘The ManFromU.N.C.L.E’.RetrievedfromVariety
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,Sep3) .The Transporter: Refuelediswinninglystupid.Retrieved from
A.V.Club website : http://www.avclub.com/review/transporter-refueled-winningly-stupid-
224839
6) Debruge ,P.( 2015 , Aug10 ) .FilmReview :‘The ManFromU.N.C.L.E’.RetrievedfromVariety
website : http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/the-man-from-uncle-film-review-
1201556925/