Rapid Fire [DVD] [1992]

Rapid Fire was the penultimate film starring Brandon Lee before his untimely death on the set of The Crow. It's a standard martial arts thriller in which Lee plays Jake Lo, a young arts student who witnesses a gangland execution and is unwittingly drawn into a pitched standoff between the mafia, a Chinese drug syndicate and Ryan, a downbeat but resolute Chicago cop (Powers Boothe) determined to nail his prey. With a plot that careens through every genre cliché, Lee's smouldering looks and showy fighting skills carry the film. The martial arts sequences (which Lee co-choreographed) are nicely staged, but given the unusual settings--the penultimate fight takes place in a Chinese laundry--could have been even more inventive. The workmanlike direction by Dwight H Little (Marked for Death, Free Willy 2) fails to inject much into the material. In particular, traumatised by seeing his Special Agent her die in the Tiananmen Square massacre, Jake Lo's attraction to both a corrupt FBI agent and Ryan as surrogate her figures could have been given more resonance given the loss of Brandon Lee's own her at an early age. With hundreds of bloodless deaths, cringe-worthy dialogue and a dated power rock soundtrack, Rapid Fire looks and feels like a TV film. And on that level, at least, it's entertaining. On the DVD: The main feature is presented in letterboxed widescreen. Sound and picture quality are very good. Subtitles are provided for ten languages (Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norweigian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish) and in English for the hard of hearing. Extra features are limited to chapter selection and a theatrical trailer. --Chris Campion

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