Romeo Must Die

Capitalising on his scene stealing role as the stonefaced Triad villain in Lethal Weapon 4, veteran HK martial artist Jet Li lands his first Hollywood lead in a slick, Joel Silver-produced action movie with a borderline straight to video feel. As a showcase for Li's fighting moves, the film works well, but only when Corey Yuen's inspired choreography, Matrix-style wire work and CGI-enhanced bonecrunching are centre screen. The uninvolving plot sees black gangster Isaak O'Day (Lindo) and crime lord Ch'u Sing (Henry O) held in uneasy balance by a shared interest in ousting small businesses from their respective waterfront patches, to make way for a semi-legit, Jewish backed syndicate's American football stadium. Not even the lynching of Ch'u Sing's wayward son can scupper this money laundering scheme by provoking gang war. Despite the trouble stirred up by the dead man's brother (Li), a disgraced ex-cop who escapes from a HK prison to avenge his brother's death, the real threat to the fragile peace seems to come from ambitious rogue elements within the black and Chinese gangs.