It’s a Jackie Chan film in the style of the Bob Odenkirk film NOBODY, with a Valentine’s Day theme stapled to it. I say Jackie Chan because Ke Huy Quan gets the crap beaten out of him a lot – one of Chan’s innovations was being the hero who gets hit, in opposition to the near untouchable likes of Bruce Lee. Quan keeps his glasses on, which seems almost like a nod to one of Chan’s Western influences, Harold Lloyd. There are nice details on the violence -I especially enjoyed the drinking straw through the eye, pulling out teeth with duct tape and fucking up two guys with what look like cookie cutters. One shot towards the end reminded me of Stephen Chow’s KUNG FU HUSTLE to the point where I was waiting for the pinball sounds.
Way too much voiceover sticking it together, not enough action scenes, but there are a couple of fun performances in there and the fight scenes are generally very well done and occasionally inventive. It’s not NOBODY or BULLET TRAIN, but that handful of action pieces are worth a look.
“This little motherfucker’s a spider-monkey ninja god.”
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