Only for the comic-book marial arts fan the black mask is certainly less westernised than Jet Li's recent films, and has a very comic book style story and fight choreographing. It is about an elite group of assasins who 'feel no pain' due to genetic experiments, and plan to inflict evil upon asia, cue Jet li, the only 1 who can stop them. The good martial arts don't come until the last few scenes, and are often too fast to appreciate. All in all, a cheesy film with a cheesy storyline, with just about acceptable martial arts. For better martial arts try the 'Once upon a time in China' series, or 'romeo must die'. For better storyline, try ANYTHING else.
Yuen Woo Ping and Jet Li are wasted When I read that Jet Li is starring and Yuen Woo Ping is the action choreographer, visions of sugarplums dance in my head. Problem is, you only get about 10 minutes of that great tandem...the rest of the film is a shoot 'em up. The opening scene is cool enough, but the first half of the film feels like the director was trying to shoot an art house film instead of an action film. A bit disapointing...deffinately the biggest joke ever put to film I didn't expect much of a plot when I went to see this movie, but I did expect to dee some good martial arts performance by Jet lee. I got none. Instead the acting, story, plot, and everything else was far worse then even I expected, and I expected none. The Phony fighting scenes could not be more obviouse if they used hand puppets. Wen you see Jet Lee speed up to blur like speed, all the surrounding scenery also speeds up the same. What an insult to are intelligence. I know Jet Lee is very talented, I would just like to see a movie where he actualy shows some of it.
