This is the first American film where Jet Li had the leading role. Jet Li made his American film debut in Lethal Weapon 4 as one of the villains. There is one thing you must keep in mind, this is not a Hong Kong movie. The style and feel of the movie is completely different than it would be in Hong Kong, if you are expecting another of Jet Li's movies you will be disappointed as this was quite different from what you would be used too. This film was targeted at several audiences, action fans, Hip-Hop fans, and gangster movie fans. It is a loose mix as they only have a bit of each, those of you who are going only for kung fu wont see enough of it. Another thing to note is that music is extremely present in this movie. It was actually an integral part of it but many people found that it was annoying because there were some scene where the music was louder than the dialog. There was also fast cut between different types of music, when you had a scene with the gangsters there would be the rap or Hip-Hop in the background but right after the scene is cut to the Triad and the music is changed completely without a smooth fade.

The concept behind the storyline was very good. It was original but it could have been put together better than it was. There were some scene some people might fight long if they are waiting for action. Many of these different scenes were for the different fans of the known people in this movie , one example are the many scenes quiet scenes with Aaliyah.

The characters were good in the movie, but only a few had any attention on them. As for the HK triad there was very little for their side. You only saw the boss and his top man (Russell Wong). The gangsters had more air time but on their side aswell only a few of them were really present. Jet Li and Aaliyah made an excellent duo and the acting was excellent same for the characters they played.

The movie is labeled as Action but its not the HK action that most Jet Li fans are used to. Compared to HK movies there is a lot less fighting, instead they concentrated more on dialog and story. The actions scenes that do exist are very well put together, Jet Li pulls of his excellent moves once again. There is a fight scene in the prison where Jet Li is fighting upside down, it looks incredible. The gun fights and car chases are good too, the quality of the special effects were good but were not integrated very well in the movie. There was an interesting special effect that had mixed review, a couple of times in the movie when Jet Li would do a lethal move you'd see the affects in this X-Ray view of bones snapping. Some said it was a good affect other did not like it. Keep in mind that the movie is 13+ so they had to limit the violence.

The editing of this movie was strange, there were many scenes that had no order to them. In other words you could have seen them almost anytime during the film and wouldn't have made a big difference. Also because of this the transitions between certain scenes wasn't so good. It seems Hollywood producers looks a previous martial films that the American public enjoyed and used that as a reference. There were several scenes in the movie that seemed similar to the action found in a Jackie Chan film, in the past Jet Li has always been very serious in his roles but is time it seems there were times he was trying to make us laugh.

Unlike our other film this one was in English but there are a few scenes where they speak in Chinese for those scenes the subtitles were very good. Here at KFC we had mixed reviews about this film, one of us hated it and the other liked it. The best advice is don't go see this movie expecting something, if you expect something like Jet Li's previous films you have room for disappointment. It is safe to say that it is a decent action film.