When I sat down to watch this I expected a martial arts thriller as promised by the TV guide
what it had neglected to say was that it also contains quite a few comic moments. Jet Li plays Han Sing; a man who escapes from prison in Hong Kong and goes to Oakland when his brother, the son of the senior Chinese crime boss, is murdered. At first it looks as if he was killed as part of a rivalry between black and Chinese crime lords even though the heads of the two groups are working together in a major property deal. Han's first lead takes him to Trisha; she owns the shop to where Han's brother made his last phone call as well as being the daughter of Isaak, the senior black crime lord. When her brother is also killed it looks as if the two groups have started a war despite their shared business enterprise. Han gets close to Trisha as he investigates and ends up fighting her unwanted minders on several occasions; often with fairly amusing results.
While this wasn't exactly great it had plenty of fun moments; the fight scenes were all well choreographed and in earlier parts of the film they were rather funny; later on the tone got more serious and the outcomes more deadly. Jet Li did a decent job as Han although I often found myself comparing him unfavourably with Jackie Chan; the master of martial arts with a comic twist. Aaliyah was good enough as Trisha and Delroy Lindo was good as her father. The ending wasn't a total surprise and the biggest mystery was who is the Romeo of the title? After all none of the characters has that name! It is explained although it was almost as if somebody thought up a cool title then needed a way to use it. Over all I was a bit disappointed although that might be because it wasn't quite what I'd expected; it isn't too bad though so if you see it is going to be on TV and there is nothing else on it passes the time well enough.
While this wasn't exactly great it had plenty of fun moments; the fight scenes were all well choreographed and in earlier parts of the film they were rather funny; later on the tone got more serious and the outcomes more deadly. Jet Li did a decent job as Han although I often found myself comparing him unfavourably with Jackie Chan; the master of martial arts with a comic twist. Aaliyah was good enough as Trisha and Delroy Lindo was good as her father. The ending wasn't a total surprise and the biggest mystery was who is the Romeo of the title? After all none of the characters has that name! It is explained although it was almost as if somebody thought up a cool title then needed a way to use it. Over all I was a bit disappointed although that might be because it wasn't quite what I'd expected; it isn't too bad though so if you see it is going to be on TV and there is nothing else on it passes the time well enough.