REPLACEMENT KILLERS

John Lee: Chow Yun-Fat Meg Coburn: Mira Sorvino Stan "Zeedo" Zedkov: Michael Rooker Terence Wei: Kenneth Tsang Michael Kogan: Jurgen Prochnow Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Written by Ken Sanzel. Running time: 88 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence and language).

Over the last few years, Hollywood has seen a mass exodus of Hong Kong's top action film directors and actors come to the land of opportunity. Because of Hong Kong returning back to China, the government now has full control of Hong Kong. In fear of the government's strict and moral codes on their work, they have decided to try their craft here, where only their craft would be appreciated. In the last three years America has seen movies from Jackie Chan, John Woo, Ringo Lam, Tsui Hark and now Chow Yun Fat. My theory for Chow Yun Fat coming to America is that all of his directors are here now. He would have to make movies with second rate directors.

His first try is the movie Replacement Killers. From the previews, you could tell what to expect from it. You could sense that the movie wasn't going to be impressive at all. How much confidence do the producers have in this movie when they don't even show a scene of him speaking?

I was telling my friend what to expect from the movie, while we were walking into the theatre. The movie is a basic Hollywood action film, where good is good and bad is really bad. The only difference is that it isn't some 20 million-dollar Hollywood star, it's Chow Yun Fat.

If you watch Hong Kong cinema, you already know that there is an image of him that is recurrent in all of his films. Since his movies with John Woo i.e. The Killer and Hardboiled, he has certain quirks that must be maintained in all of his action pictures. He has now become a genre instead of a person. He is an icon now and everyone wants to imitate him, from the use of the two handguns to the slick Ray-Ban glasses he wears. Even before this movie came out, he was already impersonated. Before John Woo came, where did you see any character use two guns? Now it has become a standard even in television and videogames. What was once art and a cinematic delight has now become impersonated, packaged and sold to mainstream America. It is the equivalent of all the Star Wars clones we had to put up for the last two decades. So now the real deal comes to the screen and shows us how it's done. Or does he?

Antoine Fuqua is an ex-music video director, who has decided to follow in the footsteps of Michael Bay. While taking the Michael Bay school of directing, he has learned the art of using scenes that last for twenty seconds, fast action and movement and slow-mows. It looked as if he watched all of the Hong Kong action movies and took each element that he liked and put it in this movie. He also added the Hollywood element, by putting in Mira Sorvino as the "target for the bad guys" sidekick.

The whole plot is pretty standard to all buddy-action movies. Chow Yun Fat plays John Lee, a Chinese immigrant to America, who works for druglord Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang). In the beginning, we see Wei's son being killed by a cop (Michael Rooker). Wei gives Lee the assignment to kill someone in revenge for his dead son. Lee's reward for completing the assassination is his freedom from Wei. The job doesn't turn out so well since he reneges the deal. "I went against Mr. Wei," he tells a Buddhist monk, "there will be consequences." Lee knows Wei will go after his mother and sister in Shanghai, and he needs a forged passport to fly home and protect them. He then meets Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino), a master forger, who agrees to help him for a price of course. Unfortunately, Wei's team finds him and now she is in the middle of the crisis.

As in all Hollywood action films, the head villain has to be as evil as anyone can imagine. He is a ruler with an iron fist and no heart. All action movies require this and Replacement Killers isn't an acceptation to the rule. Wei is merciless and cruel. So cruel that he only needs short amounts of screen time to prove how evil he is. He would only say one line and we would go right back to Lee and Coburn. That is how he evil he is.

After watching this movie I ask you: Why do we need Meg in this movie? She has to be axed from the script in order for the movie to be good. We have to go through so much useless plot with her. How does he meet her? How do they hook up? All of it is useless junk and wastes precious time.

The action sequences were too sparse and ridiculous, averaging around seven minutes. John Lee is this great assassin, yet he does certain acts that prove otherwise. He always runs out of bullets at every important moment. Half of the action would require him to find a gun, which is silly and unbelievable. Are you telling me he doesn't carry any spare cartridges? Another unbelievable fact is that he misses so many times that half of his ammunition would be gone. Another horrible habit was that John Lee, would never know if his gun was empty. He would try to shoot again and see that the gun wouldn't do anything. He throws it away in disgust. Why? Why can't you just get some more bullets? He acts like a rookie, instead of a first rate assassin.

The movie seemed to really concentrate on the image of John Lee. The camera would only do something when he was on. The director also had a great dependence on using slow-mows, when John Lee disappears into the crowd, spinning and tilting the camera (which was great in some places). Unfortunately, Fuqua uses it too much and really achieves the opposite of Lee's image as a killer. One scene I questioned was where Lee is walking the streets of Chinatown filled with people wearing black outfits and he is wearing white. Isn't he an assassin? What happened to blending in the crowd? Hiding in the shadows?

But through all that, Chow Yun Fat looked impressive. The man was doing his best, but just couldn't save the movie. How can you make a God into a two-bit rookie killer? You send him to a first time director in Hollywood. I can't even remember one good action shot. They were all so stupid. Grade: C

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