Usually in a movie review I try to contrast the actors current role with previous roles, or try to show an example of what I think of their work as far as I have seen them. It'll be a little harder with this review because this movie doesn't have any big name actors, and I have few references to look back on.

Anyway, this movie stars Jet Li as Han Sing, a former Hong Kong police officer who went to jail to protect his father, Kai, and younger brother, Po, both of who fled to the United States. In San Francisco, Kai Sing has built a Chinese-run criminal empire that controls half of the city, the other half being controlled by a Black criminal empire headed by Issak O'Day, played by Delroy Lindo.

Po is killed in the gang fighting, prompting Han to escape from prison and travel to the US to find his brother's killer. Once here he meets Trish O'Day, Issak's daughter who doesn't want anything to do with her father's criminal activities. As Han and Trish start developing a relationship, Han discovers that his brother's murder was not the simple gang assassination that was told to him, but part of a bigger plan that threatens the careful balance between the two criminal empires.

Jet Li I've only seen in Lethal Weapon 4. He's been in a lot of Hong Kong action movies but I rarely watch those. His performance in this movie is not bad; he doesn't try to overdo it. He doesn't have a good command of English and he knows that. Certainly I think he's a better actor at this stage than Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Segal were, although that may not be saying much.

In contrast Aaliyah gets a lot of lines to make up for it, since this isn't a total action movie and tries to be a little more. Aaliyah is supposed to be some big R&B up-and-coming singer, and she also does a passable job. She also sings a bit and has three tracks in the movie. Delroy Lindo I've seen in various roles, although I don't recall any of them specifically. He has the most complex character in the movie, a crime boss who is trying to set up his kids so that they won't have to follow his footsteps.

As for the movie itself, it was quite entertaining. Keep in mind that this only the second action movie I've seen this year (Reindeer Games being the other one) so maybe I'm starved for the genre. Graphically it is very good, with the special effects for the most part not being egregiously overdone. A slight problem that I'm starting to see with movies is the overreliance on CGI stop-motion sequences like in The Matrix. This is where certain parts of the scene are sped up or slowed down with respect to the rest of the scene. It's a cool effect, but not if you see it a few dozen times in a movie.

If not for the title, it would be hard to tell this is a Romeo and Juliet themed movie. Han and Trish never kiss in the movie, and he's only called Romeo once or twice in derision for pursuing Trish. It's interesting that the neither of the two gangs are caucasian, making this movie a bit more racially mixed than most.

All in all, I think this is a worthwhile movie to watch. It has some good fight sequences, a plot that although I guessed most of it quite quickly, is still a bit novel. Good production value, cinematography, occassional humorous bits to lighten it up at the right times. It's a well done, rather medium budget movie, much like Pitch Black.