Romeo Must Die is set in Los Angeles where Po Sing (Jon Kit Lee) the son of a Chinese mobster is found murdered hanging from a street post, back home in China his brother Han (Jet Li) hears of Po's death & escapes from prison & flies to Los Angeles to avenge him. Po & Han's father Ch'u Sing (Henry O) is in the middle of a big property deal along with black mobsters lead by Isaak O'Day (Delroy Lindo) who are buying up waterfront properties to sell to NFL businessman Vincent Roth (Edoardo Bellerini), some of the tenants don't want to sell but that's where things get ugly & rivalries start. Then Isaak's son Colin (DB Woodside) is also murdered as tensions between the three parties rise, meanwhile Han is on a mission to find his brother's killer & with help from Isaak's daughter Trish (Aaliyah) which increases the hatred between the two families even more...
Directed by first timer Andrzej Bartkowiak this was Jet Li's first starring role in an American film & came on the back of producer Joel Silver's promise after he appeared in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), while not the best action film out there Romeo Must Die is still watchable enough if your into martial arts fights & action. First of all it has to be said that although the title Romeo Must Die is obviously a play on the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet any connection is tenuous at best, sure there are two opposing families, sure the daughter & son from the heads of those families form a relationship (it's more of a warm friendship than out & out love affair here) & that in itself causes problems & tensions but otherwise Romeo Must Die has little connection to the Bard's immortal work. Anyway, Romeo Must Die is a pretty cool film, it's also quite long at over 110 minutes & there's surprisingly quite a lot of dialogue & exposition here with various subplots that the script tries to juggle around including the romance between Han & Trish, Han looking for his brother's killer, Mac double crossing his boss, the corrupt property deal with the NFL guy, the murder of the two family heads sons & a bunch of Isaak's men that Han keeps running into & beating up. It never really gels together that well & the eventual plot twists at the end have little dramatic impact, sure there's more plot here than one might expect (& more than is needed) for a Hollywood action film but it bogs the overall pace down, it's nothing original or particularly deep & it gets in the way of the action which is really the only reason anyone is going to want to watch Romeo Must Die anyway. The character's are OK, the dialogue is alright & it's watchable enough I suppose but there are better action films out there.
So is Romeo Must Die worth watching for the action? Well, yes I would say so. Even though he has no real charisma or presence or stature on screen Jet Li know's some moves & his martial arts fighting scenes stand out, from fighting prison guards hanging upside down to spinning & flipping through the air to taking on bad guy's with a water hose to all the usual head butts, wrist snapping & neck breaking moves you expect. The fights are well staged & quite fun although they are violent & some of the stuff that goes on here would really hurt someone. There's also some shoot-outs, a car chase & some explosions just to add a bit of variety. The film has an unusual feel as the majority of the cast are either Chinese or black & the soundtrack is full of horrible hip-hop rap songs which I just hated (even a supposedly sombre moment like when Trish has to identify her murdered brother Colin has a really inappropriate hip-hop tune playing in the background) although some of the techno dance type stuff that played during some of the fights sounded quite cool & energetic.
The IMDb says that this had a budget of about $25,000,000 which isn't that huge actually, certainly by Hollywood standards (the aforementioned Lethal Weapon 4 had a budget in the region of $120,000,000). Shot mainly in Canada apparently. The acting is alright, Jet Li is OK, Aaliyah is fine while Delroy Lindo brings a bit of warmth to the film. Rapper DMX has a small role.
Romeo Must Die is a watchable martial arts action film that gets bogged down with a needlessly complicated plot that thinks it's cleverer than it is, watch it for the action rather than the drama & most will like it. Director Bartkowiak along with Li & DMX teamed up again to make Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) which is also well worth a watch.
Directed by first timer Andrzej Bartkowiak this was Jet Li's first starring role in an American film & came on the back of producer Joel Silver's promise after he appeared in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), while not the best action film out there Romeo Must Die is still watchable enough if your into martial arts fights & action. First of all it has to be said that although the title Romeo Must Die is obviously a play on the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet any connection is tenuous at best, sure there are two opposing families, sure the daughter & son from the heads of those families form a relationship (it's more of a warm friendship than out & out love affair here) & that in itself causes problems & tensions but otherwise Romeo Must Die has little connection to the Bard's immortal work. Anyway, Romeo Must Die is a pretty cool film, it's also quite long at over 110 minutes & there's surprisingly quite a lot of dialogue & exposition here with various subplots that the script tries to juggle around including the romance between Han & Trish, Han looking for his brother's killer, Mac double crossing his boss, the corrupt property deal with the NFL guy, the murder of the two family heads sons & a bunch of Isaak's men that Han keeps running into & beating up. It never really gels together that well & the eventual plot twists at the end have little dramatic impact, sure there's more plot here than one might expect (& more than is needed) for a Hollywood action film but it bogs the overall pace down, it's nothing original or particularly deep & it gets in the way of the action which is really the only reason anyone is going to want to watch Romeo Must Die anyway. The character's are OK, the dialogue is alright & it's watchable enough I suppose but there are better action films out there.
So is Romeo Must Die worth watching for the action? Well, yes I would say so. Even though he has no real charisma or presence or stature on screen Jet Li know's some moves & his martial arts fighting scenes stand out, from fighting prison guards hanging upside down to spinning & flipping through the air to taking on bad guy's with a water hose to all the usual head butts, wrist snapping & neck breaking moves you expect. The fights are well staged & quite fun although they are violent & some of the stuff that goes on here would really hurt someone. There's also some shoot-outs, a car chase & some explosions just to add a bit of variety. The film has an unusual feel as the majority of the cast are either Chinese or black & the soundtrack is full of horrible hip-hop rap songs which I just hated (even a supposedly sombre moment like when Trish has to identify her murdered brother Colin has a really inappropriate hip-hop tune playing in the background) although some of the techno dance type stuff that played during some of the fights sounded quite cool & energetic.
The IMDb says that this had a budget of about $25,000,000 which isn't that huge actually, certainly by Hollywood standards (the aforementioned Lethal Weapon 4 had a budget in the region of $120,000,000). Shot mainly in Canada apparently. The acting is alright, Jet Li is OK, Aaliyah is fine while Delroy Lindo brings a bit of warmth to the film. Rapper DMX has a small role.
Romeo Must Die is a watchable martial arts action film that gets bogged down with a needlessly complicated plot that thinks it's cleverer than it is, watch it for the action rather than the drama & most will like it. Director Bartkowiak along with Li & DMX teamed up again to make Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) which is also well worth a watch.