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I saw "Romeo Must Die" yesterday, just because I am a Jet Li fan. It was pretty damned bad.
Jet Li plays an imprisoned Hong Kong former-cop who busts out of jail and flies to the US to investigate the death of his brother. He gets caught up in the middle of a war between Chinese and blank gangs. He falls for the daughter of the black gang leader (played by Delroy Lindo _ the gang leader that is, not the daugther), and tries to find out who killed his brother while fuel is being thrown on the fire by parties unknown.
I don't think the studio trusted Li to carry the film, so they massively built up subplots, a "whodunnit", and wimpingly staged the most platonic romantic relationship I have ever seen in an R rated film (This Romeo and Juliet don't even kiss, much less have a balcony scene). I suspect the inter-racial nature of the relationship scared the studio off. All of this clutter left little room for action sequences, and the sequences that *do* exist are crappily edited and directed. The choreography makes the scenes somewhat interesting, but if you really want to see what Jet Li can do, watch Once Upon a Time in China, or Fong Sai Yuk. (Fist of Legend and Swordsman 2 are supposedly great as well, but I haven't seen them yet). One planet.
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