China Strike Force

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 fight 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.

This movie has some great fight scenes and incredible stunts but the plot is only average and the casting director should never have been hired. most of the acting is so awful it will have you cringing, especially the performances of Coolio and Norika. And while Aaron Kwok and Lee Hom give reasonably good performances, they've given the actor who can barely speak english (Kwok) the english lines and the American born actor (Lee Hom) with a rather bad mandarin accent got most of the mandarin lines

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.

I really expect much from Stanley Stong, because he is well known as a good action director (Rumble In The Bronx, Martial Law), but when I decide to watch this one, I found my self fell in a such boring movie. The things that deserve to watch are only the action scenes and (off course) Noriko Fujiwara. The plot is trashy, and Aaron Kwok was seems to gorgeous to be a cop. Bad for you, Stanley. I hope he could do better next time.

5/10