Let's set the record straight before The Bard comes back from the dead and lands a karate chop to Jet Li's head: Romeo Must Die has nothing to do with Romeo And Juliet.
After all, this is a tragi-comic action picture shot through with martial arts mayhem, car and motorcycle chase scenes and more gunplay than a Schwarzenegger family picnic.
The Romeo routine is just a joke. The filmmakers are having us on by playing with the memory of Shakespeare's play about doomed teen lovers whose families are in a dispute, but it's not explored beyond the cliche.
So there are two extended families at war in Romeo Must Die. Both are gangster groups, one of them African-American, the other Chinese-American.
And there are two people who could become lovers and be doomed because of it. But they're not kids. And you know from the get-go they're not going to die -- but others will.
One is a hardboiled Hong Kong ex-cop (the perversely poetic and visceral Jet Li, who out-kicks even Jackie Chan). He's the eldest son of the Chinese crime boss (Henry O) and he happens to be in jail. And he's the hero.
The other is a hip-hop store manager (singer Aaliyah in her movie debut), who is the only daughter of the African-American crime lord (Delroy Lindo). And she's the heroine.
The two families get caught up in a threatened war while simultaneously trying to cut a major business deal with some Caucasian-American sleazoids. The movie makes sure that every major race represented is slagged, bagged and ridiculed in some way. All for malicious, mocking fun.
The screenplay, written by Eric Bernt and John Jarrell from a story by Mitchell Kapner, has something to do with a vicious battle to buy up waterfront land in Oakland for a new NFL football stadium. But the story is completely ludicrous. There are gigantic and laughable holes in logic as it unfolds.
That's not the point, of course. Plot is just a vehicle to get us to the eight amazing martial arts battles involving Li. Several battles are unique in martial arts history. One of those shows Li using Aaliyah as a weapon to vanquish a female foe when good manners forbid him hitting her.
In between there are comedy sequences, including a riotous football game, plus family scenes that are as funny as an afternoon soap opera, including some father-son and father-daughter conversations that satirize sentimental movies.
Meanwhile, the movie is beautifully shot by cinematographer Glen MacPherson (in Vancouver) and slickly directed by cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak, who slamdunks the audience in some violent scenes by showing us an X-ray of the corpse being crunched as it happens. The cheeky rascal. If only he kept the action moving more forcefully. Some sequences are snail slow.
In the end, Romeo Must Die is a martial arts opera that steals ideas from sources as diverse as West Side Story and GoodFellas. It is deliberately funny. It is raucously violent. It's unpretentious. And it kicks major movie butt.
(This film is rated AA)
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