Search - China Strike Force on DVD

Diverse Cast, fairly good story

sorcerez | USA, Los Angeles | 08/16/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although this movie was not one of the greatest Hong Kong movies I have ever watched, it was quite enjoyable. Synopsis (taken from back): Two young and handsome cops Darren and Alex watch the charity event, and suddenly an assassination occurs. Alex follows the assassin and suspects the beautiful woman, Norika, with move of taking something off from the victim's jacket pocket. Actually, she's a Japanese interpol agent. Darren and Alex try to save Norika who is trapped, but in the midst of the bullet showers, Alex dies heroicall. Darren on a quest to save Norika and revenge for Alex, he pursues them relentlessly and defeats the gang in a high-octane action sequence involving helicopters, and fights on a large glass plane...**I know the translation is bad, but that is what is written on the back cover.**I have to say the fight sequences are well choreographed. Mark Dacascos looks great, Coolio does a passable job of the typical ghetto gangster, Aaron Kwok has improved in acting and his mandarin, the other actors performed well also. There is a great deal of English dialogue but it does not detract from the movie.I am sure that audiences will really enjoy the helicopter fight sequence as well as the fight on the large glass pane fifty stories in the air...I hope this was helpful."

Above Average Action from Director of "Rumbles in the Bronx"

Tsuyoshi | Kyoto, Japan | 07/26/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is an average Hong kong actioner with its cast from diverse countries. From Hong Kong, upcoming star Arron Kwok appears as a special agent in Shanghai while America provides Coolio as a drug lord and Mark Dacascos as a gangster hungry for money and power (rare case for him to play a bad guy). Plus from Taiwan you get singer Leehom Wang as Kwok's hot-shot sidekick, and Japan also sends its popular actress Norika Fujiwara as a mysterious spy. It is obvious that "China Strike Force" (in Japan where I saw it, it was called "Spy_N") is made for international market, and whether it succeeds or not, I don't know, but as an action film it fares better than many other outings from Hong Kong, where you can see no longer Jackie, Chow, or maestro Woo constantly.And the story is about a Chinese police team of Arron Kwok and Leehom Wang, who must stall some plot of a joint force of Chinese crime syndicate (Dacascos) and American gangster (Coolio), about some drug deal, but it is just a usual excuse to carry on 90 minutes of exciting actions and dull dialogues. Just wait till the film kicks off its action scenes, which are quite impressive.There are two things that you might be interested. Director Stanley Tong is famous for Jackie Chan films, especially "First Strike" and "Rumbles in the Bronx" (the latter reaching the No. 1 box-office hit in US), and ... (embarrasing silence) ... Lesley Nelsen's "Mr. Magoo." His first Holywood film was surely a bomb. But he went back to his roots, real Hong-Kong actioner, and made a pretty good one, even though it sometimes goes to far, showing too much superflous viloence.Another thing is that the location is not in Hong-Kong, but in Shanghai, and that may add some value to the film. This means it was shot in China, not in a rather crowded city of Hong Kong, so the actions are done with a larger scale as a result, and especailly the following two -- a "Driven"-like car chase sequence, and the final action using helicopter carrying a car and a glass panel held at the deadly height -- is very exciting."

Great Action--Acting? I dont speak a lick of Chinese

Magellen | 10/29/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The action in this movie is outstanding, the helicopter/glass pane scene is unreal, I loved it!--I am pretty sure the acting is pretty bad but I have watched this twice, once with Cantonese and the second time with the Mandarin DTS track (my girlfriend speaks Mandarin so when I saw it again with her she was happy) and I had to work with English subtitles. The DTS encoding is superb and the Lfe channel made my couch move a few feet to the right. And I can't forget Norika Fujiwara, she is one of my favorite foreign actresses, not to mention the fact that she is gorgeous (sharing the level of beauty with Shu Qui and Zhang Zhiyi)--and she is outstanding in this movie, you can't take your eyes off of her."

Aaron Kwok gives a great performance in this silly cop movie

morgoth | omaha, NE | 02/20/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Kwok is on fire in this movie with maybe his best physical performance ever. He looks like a pop star but his acting is actually very good. Unfortunately, his performance is completely wasted in a movie this bad. I won't explain the story, it is cops vs. drug dealers. There is a beautiful fighting female, good car chases, big name stars, and good fights. How did this movie go wrong? Well, Stanley Tong is a decent director, but he is an action dierctor at heart. He tries to make this an American movie but he disregards everything that gives feeling to movies. I cracked a smile more than a few times but this is the most mindless modern day film I have seen in a long time. Usually, I am able to get past all of this since I am a sucker for good fight scenes, and this movie does have a few. Highlights to watch for are Ken Lo vs. Marc Dacoscos and Dacoscos vs. everyone in the final fight. The thing that ruins this movie is that the real final fight never finishes, but instead it moves on to a totally ridiculous fight to finish off the movie. 'Cradle to the Grave' has a better end fight! Stanley Tong must have been out of his mind because in the finale, Coolio ends up as the main opponent. Not Ken Lo who is the leg fighter that faces Jackie Chan at the end of 'Drunken Master 2', and not Marc Dacoscos who is one of the very best modern day martial arts actors, but Coolio.

I honestly thought this was a good cheesy movie, but the final fight sequence is just horrible. Stanley Tong comes up with a great idea having the actors fighting on a huge piece of glass hundreds of feet in the air and they have to keep their balance while they fight. It is just too bad Coolio had to ruin it. 2.5/5

DVD from Dimension Home Video has good sound and picture quality. No special features except the outtakes in the credits which was a much more satisfying end to the movie."