Not really as bad as people say it is. At least it's better than some of Van Damme's other movies. The action choreography in this is at least visually interesting at times.

Oh God this is awful. Rob Schneider is about as funny as terminal illness, and JCVD plays an idiot who rarely even fights, and when he does, the choreography is piss poor. The pretentious, irritating female characters just make it that much worse. While the competition was heavy, this is the worst Van Damme film I have seen, and that's saying a lot.

Tsui Hark is always so very close to shooting himself in the foot with his visuals. This is a film where not just that failed, but everything backfired.

Worth a watch

This film tried so hard to make me like it. It had some quirkiness, it had some jokes, it had a few hot ladies, it had JVCD hamming it up, it had action. What a shame it fucks it all up with the confusing editing of the fight scenes which is done so harshly, with such careless disregard for continuity that they quickly descend into what can only be described as a swirling, dazzling movement of colour and sound like a film made for cats.

Not so much a movie as a bunch of stuff happening on-screen with no real rhyme or reason. If you're going to cast JCVD in a movie then make sure to include a sizable chunk of him kicking assorted bad-guy ass; this doesn't. Instead we get a convoluted mess of double-crossing; which would be fine except that all the double-crossing characters barely get any screen time before their treachery is revealed, so who cares? Combined with the headache-inducing camera-work and this is just an utter mess.

The flaws with this Van Damme film are obvious, but Tsui Hark decision to turn the generic material into an excessively hyperactive action film makes it stand up far better than most. Whether it is very unconventional camera shots (first person of a foot into a shoe?) to the fluid yet haphazard fight scenes, it cannot be taken seriously and is better for it, sharing the same goofy mood that Van Damme himself has wandering through the scenes that is infectious.

I thought it was kinda fun actually.

You know what doesn't make a Van Damme movie more tolerable? Rob Schneider.

While it's all well & good to see a Hong Kong film hit mainstream screens in the US of A fully loaded with explosions & stunts & Jean-Claude & Tsui, I still would like a little more coherence. Maybe just i am left behind, but i cant usually tell what is going on in the fight scenes.

Not bad at all, certainly one of Van Damme's best, thanks to the wild imaginative direction of Tsui Hark and despite the presence of Rob Schneider.

It's like a mid-career Jackie Chan movie only with Van Damme instead. Still just as good as, say, Rumble in the Bronx or Who Am I?, though JCVD isn't quite the slapstick comedy actor Jackie is.

Man, Jean Claude Van Damme really sucks, and Tsui Hark should be ashamed.

Well, I laughed...