It starts off like any modern HK crime thriller... an elite band of cops banding together to battle an elite band of bad guys. The bad guys are going after a triad mob boss who killed the brother of one of their members. The elite bad guys have traps, snipers, elaborate plans, and no sense of morals. Cue the gun violence.
The good guys are all sharp shooters, they are all 'complex' with back stories (aka caricatures or clichés) including the guy who can drive really fast, the girl who fell in love on her under cover assignment (insert innuendo here), the rookie, the old timer who is days away from retirement who used to be the boss... you get the picture. These guys spend their time at amusement parks shooting the ducks in the game like they were on a Chinese menu that evening.
Midway thru the film, the big confrontation begins. Gee, what can the writers come up with next? Suddenly nobody can hit the broad side of a barn. Snipers run and constantly hit the ledge or the metal railing behind their target. The utter ridiculousness of this long, drawn out gun battle almost made me violently ill.
Unfortunately for the viewer, it only gets worse from there. The grand finale, where the bad guys supposedly set an elaborate trap for the baddies is nothing more than getting separated and isolated into a bunch of one-on-one battles with the bad guys. Great plan guys. That way, no one will know who lives and who dies afterwards.
Michael Biehn plays a big role as a baddie. I had trouble figuring out if it was Biehn or the Asian dudes who had the worse English. Biehn was sleep walking thru this one or he's just a bad actor. The only thing that got him awake in this movie was getting to kiss a cute Chinese girl. Poor Sammo Hung. Who signed him up for this crap? He tries. He honestly does. But something is wrong... oh yeah, it's called a crappy script. BTW - Sammo's always been chubby but since when did he become morbidly obese? That jogging scene with him in that white shirt as his man-boobs slowly bounced up and down, and up and down must have been horribly embarrassing for him. If not then there's some cultural barriers that I definitely never want to cross there.
This movie feels like a bunch of writers started a good movie, then left - to be replaced by a bunch of male high school film students trying to write an action flick. The flashback scenes were done too many times. The first time was fine. The second time was cheesy. The third time... the fourth time? You would do us all a favour and just cut that crap out and make our suffering just a little bit shorter.
5/10 - great promise at the beginning followed up by inanity, bad dialog, too much Biehn, not enough work on the script, and WTF is up with the man boobs?
The good guys are all sharp shooters, they are all 'complex' with back stories (aka caricatures or clichés) including the guy who can drive really fast, the girl who fell in love on her under cover assignment (insert innuendo here), the rookie, the old timer who is days away from retirement who used to be the boss... you get the picture. These guys spend their time at amusement parks shooting the ducks in the game like they were on a Chinese menu that evening.
Midway thru the film, the big confrontation begins. Gee, what can the writers come up with next? Suddenly nobody can hit the broad side of a barn. Snipers run and constantly hit the ledge or the metal railing behind their target. The utter ridiculousness of this long, drawn out gun battle almost made me violently ill.
Unfortunately for the viewer, it only gets worse from there. The grand finale, where the bad guys supposedly set an elaborate trap for the baddies is nothing more than getting separated and isolated into a bunch of one-on-one battles with the bad guys. Great plan guys. That way, no one will know who lives and who dies afterwards.
Michael Biehn plays a big role as a baddie. I had trouble figuring out if it was Biehn or the Asian dudes who had the worse English. Biehn was sleep walking thru this one or he's just a bad actor. The only thing that got him awake in this movie was getting to kiss a cute Chinese girl. Poor Sammo Hung. Who signed him up for this crap? He tries. He honestly does. But something is wrong... oh yeah, it's called a crappy script. BTW - Sammo's always been chubby but since when did he become morbidly obese? That jogging scene with him in that white shirt as his man-boobs slowly bounced up and down, and up and down must have been horribly embarrassing for him. If not then there's some cultural barriers that I definitely never want to cross there.
This movie feels like a bunch of writers started a good movie, then left - to be replaced by a bunch of male high school film students trying to write an action flick. The flashback scenes were done too many times. The first time was fine. The second time was cheesy. The third time... the fourth time? You would do us all a favour and just cut that crap out and make our suffering just a little bit shorter.
5/10 - great promise at the beginning followed up by inanity, bad dialog, too much Biehn, not enough work on the script, and WTF is up with the man boobs?