Black Mask

Back then they didn't really have any hong kong superhero movies so Black Mask was something that stood out. It manages to be a superhero movie that knows it's unrealistic and embraces some of the campiness. It also had some R-rated looking scenes so it's not like a kid's superhero film. Jet Li and his co-star Sean Lau has good chemistry and really pulls off the action scenes.

This is probably the movie that made Jet Li well known in the States. The mask obviously reminds you of "Kato" in Green Hornet, and that homage alone was enough to secure this as one of the classics of Hong Kong martial arts movies.

A genetic experiment to create super soldiers is deemed a failure. All are ordered to be destroyed. One of them survives, and finds a peaceful life as a librarian until the old acquaintances shows up to finish their job.

The production of this movie is not its good part. It reminds you of the dingy atmosphere of '70s Hong Kong movies. But the idea is brilliant, and casting little known Jet Li at the time for the lead was a spectacular success. He really is believable as genetically enhanced super soldier. Very young Karen Mok plays an unwitting hostage to Li, and adds sideline to the story.

This genetically enhanced soldier scheme continued with other movies such as Huk Mau (Black Cat), which is in the same vain as this movie, with also "Black" as part of its title.

With fantastic moves like this, who wouldn't be a star ! Jet Li became the premier super star from this point on, which still is on going.

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.

I really enjoyed this movie and it was a little difficult do that when your brother is making stupid comments in it ever 30 seconds. But this movie I enjoyed, mostly because I'm used to the usual HK action films. Most of the films like this are don't watch it for the story line, watch it for the mindless action. And mindless action is right. You get to see Jet Li Jump, spin, kick, punch, shoot, make impossible jumps and dodge countless bullets. It's true that this movie was released to a broader audience after Li was in Lethal Weapon 4. That is one of the reasons the ratings on this movie dropped. Most people were probably expecting to see a movie that was as polished as a North American film. But you need to remember most HK film budgets aren't nearly as high as a North American film, and the style in a HK action film is usually very different usually requiring in wire work in a lot of them. If you want to see a good action film you should see this just try to ignore the dubbing.

My rating was an 8.

This film appears to draw a borderline - on one side, those who love it, on the other, those who find it unbearable.

To begin with, there is an awful lot of comedy in this film that many viewers are not "getting". Of course jet Li's Mask looks like Bruce Lee's Kato - he's supposed to, it's a joke. The guy who has a time-bomb sewn to his heart - outrageous? of course, it's a joke! Some readers will probably ask, if this film is supposed to be so funny, why all the excessive and gory violence? well, for one thing the tolerance for this level of violence is actually different, from culture to culture; and while Hong Kong audiences would recognize this violence is extreme, it's certainly only slightly more than average for a HK action film.

Also, Black Mask is really the kind of film that takes a genre's conventions and pushes them to extremes, simply because the conventions themselves are wholly unrealistic. After decades of watching people get shot without any noticeable open wounds, many people were horrified to see Bonnie and Clyde and the outlaws of the Wild Bunch spurting blood all over the place. But the fact is, when you're shot with rapid metal projectile, it's almost certain that blood will spurt, especially from an artery.

This film is a Chinese comic book movie. It is true that the Spiderman films never get this gory - but if they were faithful to reality, they would be! Well, despite its comic-book origins, this film is faithful to reality.

The only complaint I have is the flashy, over-stylized filming and editing. If the makers of this film had shot it with an eye to Hollywood-style nostalgia (as, e.g., The Rocketeer, or the recent Sky captain film), I doubt anyone would have found it offensive.

But as it stands, I still had a lotta fun watching this movie.