Badge of Fury

"Badge of Fury" (aka "Bu er shen tan") has one of the most misleading DVD covers ever. It shows Jet Li looming over central Hong Kong engulfed in flames. First of all, the movie is nowhere near as explosive as the cover makes it out to be. Secondly, Jet Li is not even the main star in the movie.

The movie is a comedy action of sorts, which I didn't know, so I was a bit surprised when finding out. So does the comedy work? Sure, most of the time, but at times it was awfully forced and scripted. But if you do enjoy silly action comedy movies, then you will get some enjoyment out of the movie.

The characters were colorful and the dialogue was oddly quirky enough to match the characters. But the movie was somehow lacking a deeper storyline and meaning, giving the movie a somewhat irrelevant sensation to it.

It should be said that the actors were doing good jobs all round. I just wonder why Jet Li actually agreed to be in this movie, because it is really way off from his normal arena. And this is definitely not what you would expect from a Jet Li movie.

One thing that puzzled me senseless was why the movie was in Mandarin language when it was filmed and set to take place in Hong Kong. It was just so stupid. It should have been Cantonese.

All in all a mediocre movie that was nothing at all what the DVD cover presented it to be.

i have to say i do love Jet Li, i have seen all his movies but it is a wonder why he was in this movie although he was not the main actor it was a very bad production. lets start with the script it was lousy something which was done and killed many times i think this film was the actual burial. effects and cgi was done by backstreet dealer. camera man should have had his medicine before even start to work on the day it was that bad. then there is the director i do not know who it was as my knowledge on directors is limited but i can say to you he would be working in Mcdonalds after this movie, he simply try to copy Stephen Chow in to this production but failed on every level on film making. if you want to see a Asian movie today don't bother with this crap go for movie called DRUG WARS thousand times better than this. NOT recommended by me.

Having Jet Li headlining the cast will really set high expectations. However, in the first few scenes of this particular film, you will know that you need to tone these expectations down.

There is a series of mysterious murders in the city. The victims were all young men who strangely die with a silly grin on their faces. The policemen who get assigned to this case were unlikely partners, the young bumbling Wang Bu Er (Zhang Wen) and grizzled veteran Huang (Jet Li), under their lady boss Angela (Michelle Chen). Investigation lead them to a young actress Liu Jin Shui (Lui Shishi), who was the girlfriend of all these victims.

Zhang Wen plays the slapstick comic lead in this action/comedy. He is shameless in some really embarrassing scenes and stupid situations. He does have fight and chase scenes, but will usually end up bungling everything. Jet Li plays straight man to Zhang here, but Li of course figures in some exciting though exaggerated martial arts fight scenes. Michelle Chen is quite funny in her cute little way, though she was not entirely believable as a police chief at all.

This film is shallow and light-hearted, not to be taken seriously. There will be scenes that you cannot help but laugh out loud in their craziness. The investigation of the murders has its own nifty twists and turns which can puzzle you. It can be a fun way to spend a lazy hour and a half, if you do not expect too much.

To sum up this movie in one word: Silly.

I watched it because it stars Jet Li, and because Corey Yuen is the action director. I knew of the super low score, but I thought, since Corey Yuen is involved, it at least has to have some decent fighting..? And it does. Sort of. Corey Yuen has worked with Jet Li and Jason Statham several times, (directed the first Transporter-movie) he is excellent, so I wanted to check this out.

Anyhow. The movie is a comedy, think Kung Fu Hustle, only not funny. Basically it's like a cartoon. With cartoony sound effects, very weird "physics", and so on. It's just silly, like one time: someone is punched way up in the clouds by a tiny woman, and everybody laughs. Weird.

The best thing about the movie though, is still the fights. Doesn't have that much fighting, but the fights are entertaining. Full of silliness, but still fun to watch. A little heavy on stupid looking wire-work, though.

Also there's a lot of good, fake-looking mostly, but good use of CGI. Windows breaking, dents in cars, cracks and bullet-holes in walls, that sort of thing, and it actually really adds to the action. Destruction is always good in action-movies.

But, even with some decent fighting, and big use of CGI, it is still not very good. The story is, well, I didn't really catch the story, as I watched minutes at a time, because let me tell ya, when it's no action going on, it's pretty boring. And it's stupid.

This movie is not as bad the reviews if taken as a comedy which I am sure is it's intent. I found it be very humorous and amusing and I am not a huge fan of International humor. To me as a Westerner International Humor just doesn't come across however the physical humor in this was very funny and there is nothing wrong with the plot. The script however needed some polish to be sure and that is why I rate it 7 out of 10. I would give it a 9 for the excellent use of CGI in making some very funny fight scenes and some of the verbal jokes and not so physical insinuations are amusing as well. The dialog does get muddled though in the middle of the movie and it probably could have been edited a bit better. In conclusion I would say the comedy and action scenes are worth putting up with what seems an unpolished film.