La vendetta della maschera nera

Horrible dubbing. Cheesy overworked plot. Story that's been done and done and done. Implausabilities abound. Plot holes large enough to drive a cliche through. But MAN those fight scenes were incredible! If you go in looking for a serious piece of cinema, you'll leave unhappy. If you can't laugh at how horribly some of the humor flops, you'll be disappointed. If you go in to see Jet Li kicking butt -- something he is incredible at -- you WILL be happy. Scale: 1 to 10. I give it a 7, simply because I said, "WOW!" so many times.

Jet Li behind a black mask? Does that work? I think it does. It's not the greatest movie ever made, but it's a fun little action b-movie that you get here.

The emphasis is clearly on the word "b-movie"! You can't watch this movie expecting a Hollywood Blockbuster. Or anything that would resemble a logical story. It is quite literally a "no-brainer". I have criticized movies for being no-brainers before. Why did I rate this one higher? Because I see it in the context. For example, Black Mask 2 is a "no-brainer" ... but there is nothing there that is entertaining. Here you have some jokes that work, but more importantly you have good choreographed action scenes. All of that is missing in the sequel (if you can call it that ...)

Having not been particularly knowledgeable when it comes to this particular genre, this film came as a complete surprise to me. Not in a particularly good way either. Coming off like some insane take on UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, BLACK MASK sees a librarian don the mask of the title - which incidentally looks like a piece of corrugated cardboard - and fight off a large number of enemies. Extremely cartoonish, this plays like a comic strip which is useful as it's impossible to take anything that happens seriously.

The moment Jet Li's character opens his mouth, it all goes downhill. For here we have an incredibly awful piece of dubbing work which just about ruins any credibility the movie may have had. And as the film shifts haphazardly from scene to scene, barely bothering with cohesion and sometimes cutting scenes off when they are only halfway through, you think all hope is lost. Then come along some bizarre fight scenes which almost make the whole enterprise worthwhile.

Forget Hollywood action - this is something different. Jet Li (a hissable villain in LETHAL WEAPON 4) convinces as a superhuman mainly due to his ability to do lightning moves and stunts that, for a normal person, would be impossible. People jump all over the place, kick each other, shoot and explode things in rapid succession. A love interest appears only for her to be in mortal danger from the baddies (yawn). The final battle is a real show-stopper. It's just a shame about what happens when the fighting stops. I don't quite know what I watched, but I'm not in any hurry to see it again.

The story would never win awards, but that's not what it's about... the script was just entertaining and suspenseful enough to make room for the incredibly choreographed fight scenes. Who needs a story with fighting like that? Really, it's worth watching for that reason alone. IF you can handle the gore, of which there is a LOT... none of it done realistically enough to be tough to look at. I gave it a 7.

Anyone who had never seen anything like the fight scenes in The Matrix has never seen this movie. The fight scenes were choreographed by action scene psychopath Yuen Woo Ping, who also did the fights in The Matrix. And the fight scenes are somethin.

Li plays a supersoldier who feels no pain, who now lives a life as a pacifist librarian (ya got me). When other evil supersoldiers begin killing off local drug lords to take over the drug trade, Li teams up with his cop buddy to help stop them.

There are some absolutely crazy things going on in this movie (one badguy gets his arm lopped off with a pane of glass and hardly notices). The fights scenes are filled with flying kicks and punches; the body count is way up there. Li has seldom been better, and he has surrounded himself with a bevy of beautiful female costars (Yip kicks some serious ass as a fellow supersoldier). Anthony Wong even makes a cameo as a drug lord (no suprises there; he makes a cameo in every HK movie). It's unfortunate they don't make action movies like this in the US; I wouldn't have to sit through all of these horrible dubbing jobs to see that action that I crave so much. Recommended.