Romeo must Die

Neatly portioning gangs through racism!

When Han (Jet Li) learns of his brothers death due to gang violence, he goes to get to find the guilty party and makes a friend in Trish (Aaliyah), the daughter of ther rival gang boss.

The average acting and script is what most lets this movie down. There's definitely a sound issue too with loud rap songs drowning out character conversations early in the piece - making it much better when Aaliyah's quieter songs are played later on.

Wire-Fu is present in this film.

There are still funny bits, some of which being the heavy use of wire work that they don't even bother to try hide and Jet Li does get to kick some ass, but not as much as in some of his other films. I give this one and a half "baby girl's" out of 5 and only recommend it for fans of Mr. Li or Aaliyah, everyone else can give this one a miss.

Double Dragon: Kiss of the Dragon and Dragon Eyes

Kiss of the Dragon

It pays to run a background check on someone before you frame them for something.

Liu (Jet Li) is an undercover cop sent to Paris to assist the police there with some undercover sting operation. Things quickly go South when he is framed by the corrupt cops and spends the rest of the movie a wanted man in a foreign land. I quite like the story in this one as it is one of those rare action flicks where there is no traditional love story to get in the way. Jet Li is in good fighting form here and all parties involved are on the higher than average acting scale for me. This movie also holds one of my favourite fight scenes of all time, which is Jet Li vs "the twins", one of whom is played by Cyril Raffaelli.

Cyril vs Jet

No it's not a flawless movie by any means. Liu's ninja mastery is a little too good to be believed, being able to suddenly escape from what I would think are "challenging" locations, his funky use of acupuncture needles, and his magical shield which somehow protects him from bullets. You also have to question the final part where he simply decides to go on an all out attack. Probably could have done that a lot sooner dude! Still it's a decent action flick and one I give three spinning kicks out of five. Definitely would like to watch it again!

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Dragon Eyes

The best way to make friends is to beat them up.

Hong (Cung Le) is an excon trying to clean up the town of St. Jude from all the gangs, by beating them into submission. That's the whole "meat" of the story right there, and while Peter Weller makes for a good "bad guy", Cung is not charismatic enough to carry the film, nor is his fighting style "pretty" to watch. It's mostly just beat downs with no form which while probably being more realistic, is not as entertaining. The pointless opening credits with a car filler sequence should have been a hint.

Can you check if I stepped on some gum?

But, Van Damme is there right? Yes, in what seems to be an extended flashback cameo where he mentors Cung Le on how to fight. Doesn't look like you taught him how to do the split kick, Jean Claude. The editing is slightly wonky here too, which I think is intentional to disguise that there's not actually much going on.

Unfortunately what little story there is also makes no sense as gangs quickly concede leadership to Hong, who apparently is a skilled burglar though we never see him actually burgle anything, and almost everyone either forgets to use guns, or capitulated with Hong's "leadership decision" to stop using them. Eh?

After finishing with an abrupt end I could only feel pity, as this probably could have been something much better than what it turned out to be. Unless you are a martial arts buff that likes Cung Le then you'd best be skipping this movie. I can only give it one sparring session out of five and do not want to see it again.

Dragon Blade and The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

Dragon Blade

The only true way to achieve peace is through song... and killing your enemies.

Jackie Chan is the leader of the Silk Road Protection Squad whose task is to keep the peace between the many different factions that use the road. There are a lot of dialects spoken in the film and it works in Jackie's favor to cover his "not so good" English. As expected, there are many funny moments for him to shine but these are overshadowed by the fantastic fight choreography (again, designed by Jackie Chan I think) throughout the movie. Also, while I was a bit disappointed to see all the non-lethal fights I should have known better since this movie isn't afraid of killing anyone. It just does all the killing towards the end. I quite like flicks with high body counts. :P

Why bother with armies when everyone duels anyway?

The sets are quite nice, and most of the background music is pretty cool too. That said there are a few sung numbers and the ones Jackie sings are middling to fair (if I'm being nice). They are very short in the scheme of things though (it's not a musical) so don't let that frighten you off. More problematic for me are some of the child actors who are in short, annoying. Also the film suffers from some strange editing decisions but the biggest flaw is having a modern day segment which is total fluff and really is just padding for time. If you cut that entire bit out, the whole movie would be better for it.

All up I give Dragon Blade three out of five shield bracers and recommend it to other action buffs, especially those who like Jackie Chan. Would I like to watch it again? Definitely! I'm just not sure where they got the title from.

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The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

It's not just swords that are flying... there are arrows... and people... and buildings...

China is coming apart at the seams because the eunuchs of the East and West bureau are apparently really bad people and having their nuts cut off has given them special powers. They are so powerful that they even ride boats that go backwards and that can self repair instantly. Not that it matters though because Jet Li pretty much finishes dismantling one branch at the start of the film and his quest to take out the other (which happens to be chasing a pregnant lady) leads to a convoluted treasure hunt in the deep desert.

Gravity means nothing to these people.

Now I quite like Jet Li, and I do quite like the CGI on the large, panoramic shots and can forgive the obviously set piece desert scenes but come on. This story is ridiculously bad. That whole part of the eunuchs which they spend a fair bit of time with in the beginning is not even necessary to the plot, nor are half the characters. I might have been more forgiving if the body count was higher (definitely should have been) at the end but what really kills it are the gazillion unanswered questions and the surprisingly bad fight scenes.

Yes, I know! What the hell happened? There are fights where clearly motion is sped up like in those bad Highlander episodes, a ridiculous use of unbelievable wire work, and ludicrous fight decisions which can be sampled right at the beginning when people are kicking TREE TRUNKS around, sometimes into orbit. Then supposedly you can block said huge flying tree trunk with one hand. WHAT? There's a limit to my suspension of disbelief and this movie didn't just cross the line, it destroyed it with a tree log meteor. I give it one and a half sandstorms out of five and recommend that you give this one a pass. I think I'd prefer walking into a sand storm than watching it again.