Story:
In a city in America two crime families battle from
ownership of waterfront property. One is a Hong Kong
Triad the other is African American Gangsters. The son
of the leader of the triad is found dead, the night
before he caused a fight in a black club. This raises
the tension between the two crime families. Meanwhile
in a Hong Kong prison Han (Jet Li) hears of the murder
and he escapes from prison to avenge the death of his
brother.
When Han arrives in America he tries to piece together
the events that lead to the death of his brother.
During his search he encounters the daughter (Aaliyah)
of the black crime family's leader. They later join
forces to find our why members of each family are
getting killed, they uncover too much and their lives
are at risk but they have no choice but continue and
find the truth.
Review: This is the first American film where
Jet Li had the leading role. Jet Li made his American
film debut in Lethal Weapon 4 as one of the villains.
There is one thing you must keep in mind, this is
not a Hong Kong movie. The style and feel of the movie
is completely different than it would be in Hong Kong,
if you are expecting another of Jet Li's movies you
will be disappointed as this was quite different from
what you would be used too. This film was targeted
at several audiences, action fans, Hip-Hop fans, and
gangster movie fans. It is a loose mix as they only
have a bit of each, those of you who are going only
for kung fu wont see enough of it. Another thing to
note is that music is extremely present in this movie.
It was actually an integral part of it but many people
found that it was annoying because there were some
scene where the music was louder than the dialog.
There was also fast cut between different types of
music, when you had a scene with the gangsters there
would be the rap or Hip-Hop in the background but
right after the scene is cut to the Triad and the
music is changed completely without a smooth fade.
The concept behind the storyline was very good.
It was original but it could have been put together
better than it was. There were some scene some people
might fight long if they are waiting for action. Many
of these different scenes were for the different fans
of the known people in this movie , one example are
the many scenes quiet scenes with Aaliyah.
The characters were good in the movie, but only
a few had any attention on them. As for the HK triad
there was very little for their side. You only saw
the boss and his top man (Russell Wong). The gangsters
had more air time but on their side aswell only a
few of them were really present. Jet Li and Aaliyah
made an excellent duo and the acting was excellent
same for the characters they played.
The movie is labeled as Action but its not the HK
action that most Jet Li fans are used to. Compared
to HK movies there is a lot less fighting, instead
they concentrated more on dialog and story. The actions
scenes that do exist are very well put together, Jet
Li pulls of his excellent moves once again. There
is a fight scene in the prison where Jet Li is fighting
upside down, it looks incredible. The gun fights and
car chases are good too, the quality of the special
effects were good but were not integrated very well
in the movie. There was an interesting special effect
that had mixed review, a couple of times in the movie
when Jet Li would do a lethal move you'd see the affects
in this X-Ray view of bones snapping. Some said it
was a good affect other did not like it. Keep in mind
that the movie is 13+ so they had to limit the violence.
The editing of this movie was strange, there were
many scenes that had no order to them. In other words
you could have seen them almost anytime during the
film and wouldn't have made a big difference. Also
because of this the transitions between certain scenes
wasn't so good. It seems Hollywood producers looks
a previous martial films that the American public
enjoyed and used that as a reference. There were several
scenes in the movie that seemed similar to the action
found in a Jackie Chan film, in the past Jet Li has
always been very serious in his roles but is time
it seems there were times he was trying to make us
laugh.
Unlike our other film this one was in English but
there are a few scenes where they speak in Chinese
for those scenes the subtitles were very good. Here
at KFC we had mixed reviews about this film, one of
us hated it and the other liked it. The best advice
is don't go see this movie expecting something, if
you expect something like Jet Li's previous films
you have room for disappointment. It is safe to say
that it is a decent action film.