War (North America 2007)

Jack Crawford (Jason Statham), is an FBI agent in charge of an anti-Asian gang force in San Francisco who discovers that a hitman name Roge (Jet Li), is back in town after 3 years of complete seclusion. The trail is sparked up again by Rogue's trademark titanium shells with depleted uranium slugs. Crawford has dealt with Rogue's antics before due to the fact that he killed Crawford's partner Chang (John Lone), Chang's wife and daughter, and set fire to their home. Crawford is now hell-bent on getting revenge for his partner, so much so that it's cost him his marriage and his relationship with his son. While Crawford and his team hit the streets to find out this killers whereabouts, Rogue is pulling off robberies, and a murder that incites a war between the local Triads and Yakuzas in San Francisco. All the while, he's also a personal "yes man" for local mafia head Shiro (Ryo Ishibashi), and is ordered to help him keep his control over the local syndicates. While cleaning up most of Rogue's handy work, Crawford finds out Rogue has actually changed his face with plastic surgery and his current identity is Victor Shaw (Jet Li). Now it seems that Crawford's back at square one on his revenge tangent, that is until Rogue goes looking for him.

War is undoubtedly one of the worst action movies I've ever seen. One would've thought that "The One" was terrible enough to keep Jason "I play the same character in every movie" Statham and Jet Li from ever working together again. These two have zero chemistry together and I don't buy into the hype of these two together on-screen. The director, Philip G. Atwell's career lies mostly with music videos and he has no real experience in the action movie genre and that definitely shows in War. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter, because War plays out more like a bad drama than an action film. The story is a train wreck that is just so uninteresting you'll begin to question if you even want the over-acting Statham to get revenge for his partner or he'd just be better off callin' it a day. So the story just spins around and around, with the worst part of it being the ending. It comes so fast and abruptly that you'll stare at the black screen waiting for something, anything to help explain what just happened for one hundred and three of the longest minutes of your life. The saddest thing about War is that it seemed to have had the recipe for a solid action movie; revenge always equals plain and simple text-book action. It looks like everyone involved with War doesn't read books. (Converter)

Rush Hour 3 (North America 2007)

Welcome to Los Angeles a mere three years after the outing that was Rush Hour 2. Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker), is now a traffic cop and Detective Lee (Jackie Chan), is the personal bodyguard for Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma). The Ambassador is scheduled to speak at the World Criminal Court, and during the middle of his speech about the over-whelming presence of triads, he's shot by an assassin. Lee gives chase only to come face-to-face with Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a man that Lee remembers from his past. Han survives the attack, but is in critical condition. His daughter Soo Young (Zhang Jingchu), wants Lee and Carter to seek vengeance and find out who's responsible for the attempt on her fathers life and why. Soo gives Lee an envelope that her father had requested her to deliver if anything were to happen to him, and it contains important information on the triads. While looking for clues, the duo run into French speaking Chinese assassins and find out they're marked for death. Leaving Soo in the care of the French Ambassador, Lee and Carter are off to Paris to get to the bottom of this triad mayhem.

I'm very depressed that Rush Hour 3 has to be my first Jackie Chan movie review for UTAI. I'm a huge fan of this man and have been in awe of his work for a very long time. When watching Rush Hour 3, the only thing I can think of is that Jackie Chan is like the friend you've known for years and you see him start a relationship with a woman named Hollywood. You see that your friend is happy, but you don't like, or approve of his choice what-so-ever yet you smile and wish him all the best. Why? Because he's simply your friend. I understand completely why Jackie has this partnership, but it's still a waste of his charm, charisma, and even his talent. Brett "Hackner" Ratner is still a clueless director after doing three of these movies. He has no idea how to handle film, let alone action. The story is ridiculous in every sense of the word. Yes...even for a summer popcorn movie. Even the Roman Polanski cameo was completely unmoving (I guess Jean Reno was busy). Chris Tucker is still there whining away with his borderline racist comments towards Jackie's character, but I guess it's OK when you're loud and hard to understand most of the time. Jackie's performance, again, seems very turned down, which I guess isn't hard when you're working opposite Chris Tucker. It's a chore to find anything to like about Rush Hour 3. There might be a chuckle here and there, but even if you're a fan of this series, you'll have a difficult time with this so-called "Rush". (Converter)

DOA: Dead or Alive (North America 2006)

DOA follows four beautiful female fighters and their quest in the martial arts tournament that is Dead or Alive. Kasumi (Devon Aoki - princess), begins a fight with Hayabusa (Kane Kosugi - resident ninja) about her brother Hayate's (ninja and the best fighter in the world) supposed death. If she leaves to find out what happened to her brother, she will become a shinobi, and her army will kill her. Worried about what could happen to her family, she leaves. When she does, she receives a DOA shuriken, inviting her to the tournament, which happens to be the last known location of her brother. Tina (Jaime Pressly - the professional wrestler), relaxes on her yacht, and is arguing with her father about the importance of taking professional wrestling seriously. At the same time, a gang of pirates shows up and as you can imagine, Tina makes short work of them. A DOA shuriken pierces the side of her boat. Christie (Holly Valance - the Thief) is being investigated along with her "partner" Maximillian Marsh (Matthew Marsden), after a theft of diamonds. After some quick moves, she evades arrest, and the authorities, just in time to receive her invite. Ayane (Natassia Malthe - resident ninja), is instructed to secretly follow Kasumi, and kill her for betraying the clan. Helena (Sarah Carter- descendent of the DOA creator) welcomes the three girls and the other participants that have entered. Helena then introduces the fighters to meet Donovan (Eric Roberts - DOA host and bad guy), the organizer of this year's DOA, who explains about the $10 million prize money, and some of the history about the tournament. However, fighters be warned. These fights can take place at anytime, and anywhere!

When adapting a popular video game, a fighting to be more specific there has to be one simple rule: make the fighting as awesome, fun and fantastic as the source material. This is a tall order for DOA (based off the Tecmo/Team Ninja popular series of fighting games), mainly due to the fact that the movie loses most of the games main story line and tailors it around the four girls. So in turn, this just becomes an "Enter the Dragon" rehash. This is too bad because there is a lot of potential here. Some of the locations are beautiful with filming locations in Bangkok, Guilin, Heng Dian and Hong Kong. The stunt and choreography are decent at times, but it's your typical wire work and CG taking over a majority of the fight scenes. This is understandable with most of the talent involved. The one thing that stood out was the use of sound effects. The sound effect of a character launching and landing a kick, while a shotgun cocks and fire is just plain cool. It worked with the way the movie was presented. I would of liked the movie to take more risks. The acting is cheesy and weak most of the time, but the performance by Eric Roberts and Matthew Marsden will hurt the most and have you questioning the casting as a whole. Overall, DOA is another example of a video game-movie blunder. Due to the overseas release, the movie is wildly available on the internet for sale (YesAsia.com for example), but North American audiences will finally get DOA in theaters on June 15, 2007. So bottom line, if you're a fan of the game, you might get a chuckle out of it, but that's pretty much it. (Converter)



Buy DOA: Dead or Alive on DVD or VCD at YESASIA!