hanshotfirst1138

I wondered why he didn't fight, was that the reason?

RocShemp

That's what I read. Apparently, he wasn't even meant to be in the movie. He happened to be in Hong Kong so they asked him if he wanted to shoot a scene for this movie.

hanshotfirst1138

I wondered. The prospect of a talent like him teaming up with Yuen was enticing, but not only does he not fight, the character basically just jumps off of something and looks at someone, I could've done it, it was basically just an extra in the movie, could've been anyone. I assume the film was largely aimed at the Chinese market with big Chinese stars and large subtitled sections? Kudos to Reeves as a first-time director to have the smarts to hook up with the likes of Yuen and and Hui, veterans who know their way around the genre. It paid off.

Osiris3657

Watched this today. It was...eh. OK I guess. I like Keanu, but his line delivery was especially bad in this movie.

Also I thought the fight choreography (or at least the camerawork) could have been better. There were too many times where it was obvious the actors were punching and kicking air. Come on, either make contact or film it from an angle where it isn't as obvious. Too much wire work too.

I liked the guy that played Tiger Chen. It was also cool seeing Iko from The Raid movies make a cameo. The Asian dude with the American accent who was filming Tiger was a total douchebag, hated that character.

Finally, the car crash that the female detective gets into might be the worst CGI I've seen all year. That was student film level bad.

Anyway, despite most of these criticisms, I thought it was OK and not as bad as I thought it would be.

Solid Snake

Ha. I wish I'd seen worse CGI than that. Considering it's partly produced by a foreign source, a Chinese one, it seemed to be the norm for a genre pic. Maybe better. So I can't hate them too much on that one. I really think Reeves was going for a genre feel in it so it hits a lot of the norms, for good or bad.

The guy playing Tiger Chen was... Tiger Chen, you may remember him as the asian guy in the Merovingian's place in that fight against Neo in Matrix Reloaded.

Osiris3657

I thought I recognized him, looked familiar. Didn't know that was his real name too. Trying to do a Jackie Chan I guess (goes by his real name in alot of movies).

Solid Snake

I honestly knew who he was immediately cuz I really liked watching the features for those films. Tiger stood out a lot to me in those things. But.... I guess Reeves thought it was a good name for the character.