-Story-
This is actually a pretty good tale of loss and hardship overall. Well, for an action film. Kung Wei is an undercover cop infiltrating some bad mob guys. His sickly wife and his expert matial artist son no nothing of his real job; and are disheartened to come to the conclusion that the man they thought they knew is a criminal. As Kung Wei's wife slowly dies of some unnamed illness, we are introduced to another police officer an attractive young woman who of course is also a great martial artist. It does seem to be a running theme in all of these Hong Kong action films that the entire police force are expert martial artists. I kind of doubt it, but hey, it's just an action film. Kungs Wei's young son Jonny Kung gets entangled with the bad guys as he tries to get to the bottom of things and help his dad save the day. Action ensues.
The story is actually a fair bit better than a lot of American action films. And it actually has some moving moments. Notably the wife dying entrusting her son to a police officer she hardly knows. Very decent.
3/5This film looks pretty much like you'd expect a low budget HK action film to look. The wire work is excellent but obvious. The atmosphere is great but then again I suspect shooting anything in a place like Hong Kong makes it look great pretty easily. I liked it for what it was. Nothing fancy.
3/5Jet Li takes charge here; as this is obviously a vehicle for his talents. He does a fantastic job of it to, good action, and some very interesting fights make this a very watchable film. He uses some pretty unique weapons too. Notable scenes include a great fight where Li's got two police nightsticks, a good sequence with a wet towel, and my favorite fight scene in the film, involving using his son (played very well, by Mui Tse) and a length of rope. I know that it's mostly the wirework that impresses, but I also know that guys like Li and this fantastic kid have to really be able to hold their own to pull these stunts off. A very good job by the actors all around. Tse, who has been in one or two of Jet Li's other films is a wonderful cast and really shines, even in his non action scenes. I was heartily impressed with the quality here.
The direction isn't much to mention. It's an action film. And if anything the credit should really go to the fight coreographer. Oh yeah, and one other thing, the one very dissapointing actor in the film had to be the main bad guy. Maybe it was just the dubber but I think it was probably just a very very bad job by him. He was almost cartoonish. Well, maybe that's what the Chinese like. I found it easy enough to ignore his role though. The viewer is really there to see Li kick ass, which he does with his usual thouroughness.
3.5/5A pretty cool Jet Li film. I think he's better now that he's making American movies with actual budgets, but still very entertaining for what it is.
