Romeo Must Die
Review
Format: English VHS
Stars: Jet Li, Russell Wong, Henry O, Aliyah, DMX

I put DMX in the cast as a joke. The trailor had his name listed, and he's in it for a good minute before getting shot.

Romeo and Juliet, without the total trajedy, plus a corporate takeover drama. The good Isaac O'Brian intends to build a football stadium (NFL football, big investment). Chu, the father of a Chinese family in the deal with O'Brian, is working for the deeds to the land surrounding the waterfront where the stadium will go. Han (Jet Li) comes from Hong Kong after hearing of his brother's death and straightens out the situation.

RMD isn't filled with good choreographed fights, and it has only Jet Li to show some real finesse (Russell Wong doesn't do very well until the end). But Jet Li is really good, both as an actor and actioner (obviously). The rest? Aliyah is good, actually I thought that everyone besides the white guys were pretty damn good. The setting was centered around a waterfront, which is small yet big, like in Shanghai Affairs, so you know what you're looking at. And to top it off, I liked the music.

But those whoosh-whip sounds whenever someone throws a punch need to go, really. They did that in the Fist of Legend remake and it really hurt the quality for me.

The action, I thought, wasn't bad at all. In the first scene, though, Russell Wong beats up some guys in a black-dominant bar, but doesn't look good at all because either his kicks completely missed or they just looked lame. He does an impossible-fu move where he jumps up, lays back, kicks to the right with his left leg, then vice versa, and finally lands. That was rediculous. I have no idea what prompted Corey Yuen Kwai (the choreographer) do that. He also does the take-off-the-jacket-and-use-it move but doesn't seem to be able to get it back on, so they changed the camera angle. At the end, 17 guys are pointing guns at eachother, really lame. Sorry.

The next scene has Jet Li in a jail cell, chained by his left leg, hanging from the ceiling. Not much happens here really besides Jet kicking some guys, and on one guard he holds his arm and there's this x-ray thing that shows his bicep-bone (don't know the name) being broken, but Jet only seemed to tap it a little bit. Not a bad idea, really, I kinda like the x-ray thing.

Next, Jet goes to Aliyah's house, which her friends don't like when they come. But Jet plays a delivery boy, which I thought was hilarious. The guy plays such a good sarcastic character. His expressions say "I don't care, really" so well and he's just goofy. No wonder he's making a hit like Jackie Chan here now. The guys come, Jet teaches them that they don't know wu shu or as the big guy says, "You ain't the only one who knows some shit!" so Jet kicks him in his crotch. Down in an alley, he uses those plastic zip ties to wrap their arms around their heads and the like, and with one guy who has a little metal spike, Jet takes off his belt and his pants drop, showing us his nice, shiny bikini underwear. Hilarious. He takes advantage of this and ties his knee to his head with his own belt. Yea I know, it's not entirely good choreography, but hell it's funny-fu, and at the same time practical-fu. Zip ties, awesome idea.

Next, Jet goes to his father, and Russell Wong is on the roof. He goes to see Wong (they're friends), and Wong's doing, I dunno, looks like the dragon stance or some crap, he's terrible, I had no faith in him at this point. He does the dragon stance and it's so sloppy that I got mad. The two have a little match, and again, Wong sucks, Li looks good. Wong's hits are pointless and will be blocked without contest, anyone can tell. Jet teaches him a lesson by stealing his sunglasses (Wong has no idea) and giving them back at the end.

The football scene really isn't fighting, but I'll put it in anyways just because Jet gets hit from way up high and flies straight back onto the grass, way far away. They cut the angle too soon, though. He was about to do a backwards roll.

Next, Jet and Aliyah are in a Mercedes, chasing 2 bikers. One of them gets clotheslined by some PVC pipes sticking out the back of a semi. The other drives off, and Jet follows. He hits the biker, who ends up on the windshield, and Jet slams on the brakes and she goes flying off. Yea it's a woman, and she's Chinese, so of course there has to be some choreography for her. Actually she looks 1/4 Chinese or something. She sucks. I don't really care to talk about it besides Jet uses Aliyah to do the dirty work cause he can't hit women.

Next, in a club, Jet does his kick-everyone-in-the-room-with-one-jump which looked computer altered, probably to get rid of the wire or something. But after that he gets ahold of a fire hose and throws it around all over his body like Jackie did in Shanghai Noon with the rope and horse shoe. Cool stuff.

Finally, Jet fights Russell Wong. I didn't expect much from this fight, but it was the best one in the movie, with the most choreography anyways. Wong isn't lightening fast but he's good enough to keep up and actually look good, unlike previously in the movie. He and Jet exchange some punches, wait, and then some more fighting, and Wong kicks a pan of burning coals at Jet and he burns his hands severely. At this point, Jet starts yelling, which I've never heard before. He gets really pissed, more pissed than I've ever seen. Wong grabs his hands too and starts scratching the burnt skin, dragging Jet around, who's still pissed off as hell, and finally throwing him through a fence. Jet gets up, wraps his hands in some fabric from his torn shirt, and locks Wong's left arm and punches him repeatedly, and then does it with Wong's other arm. Then they do a heavily wire assisted jump kick routine (one kick from each going 12 feet in the air), and Jet kicks Wong in the head, smashing his spinal column down to his tailbone. This is done with the x-ray thing again, and I think that had they not been so sloppy with the wirework (and this was sloppy believe me, slow drops you know) it'd be really cool looking.

So, I liked it. Funny and had some good action, Jet Li is charismatic and the cast did a good job supporting the story. I do feel like the wirework was a little overdone, but that's ok because, hey, it's an American movie and we don't get many like this too often. And really, Jet does his stuff really well here. He plays with a fire hose, uses zip ties, plays football, and looks really good. Maybe the rest of the cast wasn't so great (except Wong at the very end), but Jet was. So I give it a

7/10 - Remember, I rate this based on HK movie quality. If this hadn't had the plot or if it wasn't Jet Li, but say, Van Damme, I wouldn't really like it and would have probably given it a 3 or a 2.

UPDATE - 10/4/00 - This movie is really corny and the action is campy. I rated it a 7/10 because of the comedic nature, not the action, and that is misleading.

4/10

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

2/5 - Another lame American film.

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