Lei ting zhan jing

CHINA STRIKE FORCE has some strikes against it. One is the odd casting of Coolio and the Japanese female lead. The other is the casting of two pop idols, which usually signal a flighty, silly movie.

While CSF is sometimes silly, it's mostly entertaining. Not incredibly so by any stretch, but entertaining enough that you wouldn't mind watching the film again. The action is good, and Coolio gives the film some terrific laughs.

CSF is one of those films that doesn't do anything it does with great excellence, but it's always good enough that you never feel cheated.

6 out of 10.

There was some outstanding stunt work at the end, and some really good fight scenes, but that was all there is.

The irritating Coolio completely played over Mark Dacascos (Cradle to the Grave). The constant jive just wore thin after five minutes.

Aaron Kwok was good, and Japanese model Norika Fujiwara really kept things interesting, but not enough to recommend the time spent.

Lee-Hom Wang is proving to be really good, and in recognition was in Lust, Caution.

If you want to see real action, there are many better films to check out.

First of all, this H.K. movie is clearly aimed at a more international market. Nothing immediately wrong with that - in fact, I was excited when I saw Mark Dacascos in the cast. I've enjoyed his work in other movies in the past, since not only does he know his craft well, he has screen presence and even has some acting ability.

But perhaps because Dacascos is unfortunately still not that well known in North America, the producers also picked someone with more "name" value to pair up with him. While I can sort of understand this, they really made a bad choice with choosing Coolio(!) I guess I can't really blame Coolio, because in the past he has shown some screen ability. However, the screenplay and the direction make him EXTREMELY annoying, with his non-stop slang talking and insulting. What's even worse is that Coolio's character is given much more focus than Dacascos' character, right down to the climatic action sequence. To say that Dacascos is greatly wasted is putting it mildly.

The climatic action sequence IS entertaining, and so are the previous ones in the movie... what little there are. The remaining running time is talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, etc. Most of the focus is in fact on a plot so weak and so cliched that it gives dumb action movies a bad name. (I suspect this is the main reason why the movie has yet to receive an official release in North America, 3 years after it was made!) Stanley Tong really needs to return to his roots, to realize what made his past movies work.

There was some outstanding stunt work at the end, and some really good fights scenes, but that was all there is.

The irritating Coolio completely played over Mark Dacascos (Cradle to the Grave). The constant jive just wore thin after five minutes.

Aaron Kwok was good, and Japanese model Norika Fujiwara really kept things interesting, but not enough to recommend the time spent.

Lee-Hom Wang is proving to be really good, and in recognition was in Lust, Caution.

If you want to see real action, there are many better films to check out.

I'll admit that much of the acting is very bad, the dialog is even worse, many of the stunts look so fake that they're ridiculous, nothing about the action scenes is in any way believable, and the story itself has been done to death... BUT...

Coolio is consistently funny as the South Central LA drug dealer trying to make a Chinese connection, Norika Fujiwara is as beautiful and sexy as you could want an actress to be, Mark Dacascos is actually pretty good in the movie, and even the fake-looking stunts are fun to watch as long as you don't let yourself get shaken out of the story by the extremely poor production values.

So although I grimaced in a few places, after it was over I realized I had enjoyed watching it.