Romeo Must Die
Romeo Must Die is an entertaining but forgettable film starring Jet Li as the "Romeo" of the title. As the film opens, two families, one black and the other Chinese, are at war. I couldn't quite follow the business dealings, but it appears that they are fighting over a multi-million dollar scheme to take over the waterfront and build a sports stadium. It didn't actually make any sense to me, so I could be wrong. Anyway, that's just an excuse to have the two families fighting. When one of the sons of the Chinese family is killed (or "cancelled" as someone amusingly puts it), all hell breaks loose. The dead man's brother, Han (or Romeo, I guess) is in prison in Hong Kong, and when he hears about his brother's murder, he breaks out and flies to America to get his revenge. Meanwhile, the daughter of the black family is trying to lead a normal life, and wants nothing to do with her family's no-good business dealings, but her father insists that she be protected in case there is some kind of retaliation by the Chinese (which of course there is). When she escapes from her protective hoodlum, she accidentally runs into Han who is about to steal a taxi. So, I guess that's where Juliet meets Romeo. Of course, if they were to get together there would be no way that either family would stand for such a relationship, and blah blah blah. That's where the Shakespeare connection ends. The film is largely about one of the black gangsters killing off anyone who stands in his way, and about Jet Li doing lots of Kung Fu. Lots of impossible Kung Fu that had me in fits of laughter.
Two things make the film entertaining. Firstly, the acting is surprisingly good. The characters are believable, and they have problems and feelings, and just generally seem like people as well as gangsters, which is not often seen in films like this. Usually, gangsters are just heartless bad guys. Han appears to be non-violent, up to a point. He seems to try very hard not to hurt anyone unnecessarily, and is usually only defending himself. Usually. Second, the action is fun, although a bit silly in places. It's just the storyline that lets the film down. Romeo Must Die suffers from the problem that a lot of action films suffer from, namely the fact that even though people are being shot, blown up and otherwise damaged, the police don't show up. If I were to fire just one shot in my flat, I'm sure I would be visited by the police very quickly. The film's plot requires that the police don't show up until the very end, because if they did, everyone would be arrested and there'd be no more action. This is unrealistic, but I'm sure a lot of viewers won't care. If you want lots of action without the complication of logic, you'll get it in Romeo Must Die.