"It must have been a goodnight kiss, cuz it just about put my ass to sleep"
Jet Li wants to be the new Bruce Lee with his latest film, right down to the haircut. Unfortunately, he comes off looking more like Evan C. Kim in "A Fistfull of Yen" (The greatest Bruce Lee parody ever, seen in "Kentucky Fried Movie"). And for chrissakes, can someone from the makeup department put some putty into that crater on his nose?The story, supposedly co-written by Luc Besson, is typical martial arts pap. Li is a chinese undercover cop sent to Paris to work with french cops, all of whom are corrupt. In fact, the entire french police force seems to be dirty, carrying out criminal activity without the slightest attempt at subtlety or stealth, shooting people in the back in front of dozens of witnesses, etc. Naturally, they set Li up to take the fall when they orchestrate the murder of a chinese crime lord in a french hotel. Tcheky Karyo, who has done some decent work in films like "The Patriot" and "The Messenger", comes off as a faceless eurotrash thug. To make matters worse, a nearly unrecognizable Bridgette Fonda is thrown into the mix as a whiney junkie whore who is forced into prostitution because the above-mentioned eurotrash thug is holding her daughter prisoner, etc. etc.
The result is a really long fucking movie with mediocre and sparsely-placed action sequences. Jet Li appears to have moved away from the wirework at least, and there are no scenes of him jumping up and kicking six guys in their heads in a row. And while there are some cool ass-whoopings (like when he starts bitchslapping some guys around with a pair of hot irons - YIKES!), the overall experience is quite underwhelming. The thing drags on way too long with all of Fonda's melodrama, and would it have killed Li to pick up a fucking gun every once in a while? I get so sick of movies where the guy is supposed to be an expert in hand-to-hand AND weapons, but the dumb fucker will never once pick up a piece even though everyone else is shooting at him. Oh how I miss the days of Chow Yun Fat and his twin .45'sPoor little Jet Li. While he indisputably has talent in the martial arts, he doesn't have the moves or comedic timing of Jackie Chan, the looks or charm of Chow Yun Fat, and he certainly isn't the second coming of Bruce Lee. Once the fighting stops, he is completely forgettable.
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