Lei ting zhan jing

When Stanley Tong shot Rumble in the Bronx, I suppose the North American setting and actors made it a lot easier to secure a North American release (and presumably a bigger overall box office total) for the movie; it doesn't take much of a cynic to suggest that Japanese TV star Norika Fujiwara's presence in the cast was meant to give this one a shot at a third market.

The Japanese release of the movie makes a big deal of Fujiwara's presence as a second- string character and underwear model, perhaps deservedly so. With the camera's help, she fights better than Jade Leung did in the first Black Cat movie, and she's certainly got the goods as far as the stripping and stretching scenes go. Still, you sort of have to wonder if some distributor wasn't going a bit far in releasing it here under the name "SPY_N"... it is, after all, primarily a movie about other characters.

When it isn't making you wince over the English pronunciation or chuckle at the really obvious subbing of stunt doubles, though, this is a halfway decent attempt at creating a B-grade action flick with international appeal. The plot is disjointed, but piles on enough stunt pieces that you aren't endlessly looking at your watch during the eventual plot exposition scenes, and the rest of the movie is silly enough (see the motorcycle that rides up the back of a bus, or the hopefully intentional comedy resulting from Coolio's character being named "Coolio"... "Coolio killed my partner!", etc.) that you don't feel completely bad for renting it and turning your brain off for an hour and a half. Besides, just like in the commercials, Norika Fujiwara is always nice to look at, so there are definitely worse things to spend your rental dollars on.