HawkHerald

To understand how this movie's run synergized with the ultimate demise of WCW you have to understand some things about WCW. WCW was the no. 2 wrestling company for years, until they signed Hulk Hogan and booked him as a heel and leader of the NWO (New World Order).

This angle went on for more than two years and allowed WCW to overtake the WWE as the no. 1 company and their Monday night wrestling program, Nitro, consistently beat WWE Raw in the ratings. By 1999, things had changed with the emergence of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mick Foley and Triple H becoming WWE's biggest stars. During the Attitude Era, Steve Austin's feud with Vince McMahon carried the WWE back to the top brand and winning the weekly battle for Monday ratings.

In 1999, pro wrestling had also enjoyed a mainstream popularity that it hadn't seen since the original Hulkamania and Rock and Wrestling days of the mid 1980's. WCW was trying to strike while the iron was hot and decided to make a film. While you can make a good story with a pro wrestling story, namely Mickey Rourke's 2006 comeback film The Wrestler, this movie was like a typical late 1990's teen road trip comedy.

Two fans living in Wyoming, Gordie (Scream's David Arquette) and Sean (Entourage and Hawaii Five-O's Scott Caan) are the two biggest fans of WCW World Champion Jimmy King (Oliver Platt, who looked nothing like a pro wrestler even though he could pull off a couple spots). The night Gordie and Sean attend a live WCW Nitro in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on screen WCW President Titus Sincalir (Bad Boys and The Matrix's Joe Pantolaino in weird cowboy garb with a wig that featured pig tail braids and a Stetson) has a backstage falling out with King and plots with Diamond Dallas Paige (as himself) to create a swerve so DDP can become champ. During the match, a Sinclair gives DDP the nod and King loses the belt to Paige. As a secondary result, Sinclair forces him out of WCW. Gordie and Sean are devastated and take it upon themselves to find their hero and help become the champ again. After an extended road trip, where along they find out their hero is a broke, selfish and non-child supporting paying loser, they eventually locate King and convince to try and make a comeback. They sneak onto a Nitro broadcast, where King ambushes Paige but Sinclair interferes and books a rematch for PPV. Cue another montage of training along with Gordie and Sean helping to audition small town weirdos to help Jimmy King a form wrestling "posse" to watch his back leading to the rematch.

The movie, while childishly stupid in its humor attempts and an overall inferior product, also takes a very dim view of pro wrestling fans in general, portraying Gordie and Sean as two idiots who were generally unaware of wrestling's scripted match finishes and kayfabe, basically wrestling fiction. This is besides the fact that WCW actually had David Arquette starting to participate in wrestling matches with DDP and Kris Kanyon as his partners. He even defended the title against UFC veteran David "Tank" Abbott. They used the WCW World Title as a promotional tool, having Arquette in a bizarre tag match where he pinned WCW President Eric Bischoff. In one of the worst heel turns and promos of all time, he reveals he was actually part of Hulk Hogan's group the whole time after helping Hogan win the title back. Needless to say, the movie flopped and WCW lost $62 million in 1999. Vince McMahon bought the company for song in early 2001 and the Monday Night Wars ended with a whimper.

Tsui Chik/Simon, a quiet librarian, is actually an ex-Special Forces super soldier. He is friends with Inspector Shek Wai-ho/Rock, a detective with Hong Kong Police, with whom Tsui Chik frequently shares conversation over chess. Tsui Chik learns his old commando unit, called 701, is still active, murdering gangsters and police in a grasp for power. Tsui Chik dons a black domino mask and bowler hat like Bruce Lee's Kato from The Green Hornet, becoming a masked vigilante to stop his old unit, inadvertently coming into conflict Shek Wai-ho/Rock and the police.

Black Mask isn't something you watch for the story, there's a minimum of it. There's just enough to let you know who the good guys and the bad guys are. There's also a tiny amount of romantic subplot thrown with a co-worker and a former squad member of Tsui Chik's introduced to give him a more personal reason to fight the good fight. Jet Li is at his best, his jaw-dropping on screen fights are like no one else, including the legendary Bruce Lee and contemporary peer Jackie Chan.

MMA, Bushido and Brazilian Jiu-Jistu seem to set the tone for this movie. A veteran and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor makes bad business deals, unintentionally wrecks his friend's life by giving him stolen property, lies to his insurer about how his school's front window was broken, and to cap it off is alienated and separated from his wife. He's also easily taken advantage of and shares his Bushido-inspired training method with the blind fold martial arts pebble taste test, which is usurped by the bad guy MMA promoters for making up the rules of their tournament. The rules say that the guys who draws the black pebble will fight with a disadvantage. So a guy in the movie with competes with his arm strapped to his side.

Wow, really, this MMA card would have to take place in Japan or an Native American casino because no state athletic commission that licenses boxing and MMA would allow something so stupid to took place. Japan loves it's pro wrestling, sumos, and Herculean Western strong men so it's known for it's rock opera and circus-like approach to MMA promotion. Native American reservations are outside of state regulations, but even the more reputable tribal group have their own form of athletic commission for regulations.

The problems of the Chiwetel Ejiofor character seem to just drop on him like a pile of bricks. His wife is also painted as a greedy shrew. It's waste of a performance from Ejiofor, who's actually very good in this and comes as capable and honorable. He's just so frustratingly naive and the way his personal and professional life are ruined is so far-fetched. Emily Mortimer is also well cast as a rape survivor and lawyer whom Ejiofor befriends when she wanders into his school for help. The story is supposed a type of honorable-at-all-costs samurai film but just fails with the soap opera-level tragedies the main character endures.