China Strike Force

In China, Uncle Ma (Siu-Ming La) is a powerful mobster, who deals with smuggling. His bodyguard Tony Lau (Mark Dacascos) betrayals him with the American drug dealer Coolio, introducing drugs in his territory. Two young Chinese detectives and an undercover Japanese Interpol agent chases the `bad guys'. `China Strike Force' is a good action movie, with well choreographed action scenes. I do not know who perform these scenes (stunts or actors themselves), but I found this film a good entertainment. It works perfectly on video. Norika Fujiwara is really a very beautiful woman. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Fúria em Shanghai' (`Rage in Shanghai')

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.

First of all, this H.K. movie is clearly aimed at a more international market. Nothing immediately wrong with that - in fact, I was excited when I saw Mark Dacascos in the cast. I've enjoyed his work in other movies in the past, since not only does he know his craft well, he has screen presence and even has some acting ability.

But perhaps because Dacascos is unfortunately still not that well known in North America, the producers also picked someone with more "name" value to pair up with him. While I can sort of understand this, they really made a bad choice with choosing Coolio(!) I guess I can't really blame Coolio, because in the past he has shown some screen ability. However, the screenplay and the direction make him EXTREMELY annoying, with his non-stop slang talking and insulting. What's even worse is that Coolio's character is given much more focus than Dacascos' character, right down to the climatic action sequence. To say that Dacascos is greatly wasted is putting it mildly.

The climatic action sequence IS entertaining, and so are the previous ones in the movie... what little there are. The remaining running time is talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, etc. Most of the focus is in fact on a plot so weak and so cliched that it gives dumb action movies a bad name. (I suspect this is the main reason why the movie has yet to receive an official release in North America, 3 years after it was made!) Stanley Tong really needs to return to his roots, to realize what made his past movies work.

There was some outstanding stunt work at the end, and some really good fights scenes, but that was all there is.

The irritating Coolio completely played over Mark Dacascos (Cradle to the Grave). The constant jive just wore thin after five minutes.

Aaron Kwok was good, and Japanese model Norika Fujiwara really kept things interesting, but not enough to recommend the time spent.

Lee-Hom Wang is proving to be really good, and in recognition was in Lust, Caution.

If you want to see real action, there are many better films to check out.

I'll admit that much of the acting is very bad, the dialog is even worse, many of the stunts look so fake that they're ridiculous, nothing about the action scenes is in any way believable, and the story itself has been done to death... BUT...

Coolio is consistently funny as the South Central LA drug dealer trying to make a Chinese connection, Norika Fujiwara is as beautiful and sexy as you could want an actress to be, Mark Dacascos is actually pretty good in the movie, and even the fake-looking stunts are fun to watch as long as you don't let yourself get shaken out of the story by the extremely poor production values.

So although I grimaced in a few places, after it was over I realized I had enjoyed watching it.