BLACK MASK


You know its amazing trying to describe what the whole Hong Kong Jet Li movie experience is like to people who have never seen one in their lives. Were talking over the egde violence with really odd lighting, hype fighting and odd humor. All of which make ,Black Mask, a Hong King film to be repackaged and dubbed with new score and released in the US.

Produced by Once Upon A Time In China's Tsui Hark (Of course america knows this guy, unfortunately, as the director of Jean-Claude Van Damme's Knock Off) and directed by Daniel Lee. Jet Li plays the (supposedly) only surviving member of an experimental army unit who've all had "brain surgery to remove their nerves; so they can no longer feel any pain".

But Mr. Jet Li prefers to live a stable life and forget what past events occurred. Li takes a job in a library, where he plays a Mild-mannered and non-violent all around guy. Of course,he then dons a black mask (Umm..Kato?) to fight crime by night. He's pursued by Tracy (Francoise Yip), but his only real friend is a cop known as "the Rock" (Not the GREAT ONE, its Lau Ching-Wan), who keeps telling Li about standing up for ones self or get the snot boogers beaten out of him constantly.

Someone is going around killing all the drug-dealers in Hong Kong, using lovely methods: One man is sent to the hospital with a bomb implanted in his chest, which blows up half the place after an attempt to defuse it during surgery fails.

While the Black Mask gets credit for the heroic killings, he doesn't like it, so he sets about trying to track down the real baddies, who soon turn out to be his old comrades of the experiment. And therefore the rest of the movie goes by in a delightful little presentation of mistaken identities, gravity-defying wire-fighting choreographed by The Matrix's Yuen Wo-Ping. It's all way too fast and much too much,just the way I love it and makes it simultaneously look easy and realistic (sort of).

Its definetly a winner and made a little dough at the box office despite it not being exactly an american movie. I rated it 7 out of 10 stars.


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