Uriah43 After witnessing the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of a mysterious terrorist known as "the Doctor" (Kelvin Wong), a military officer named "Kit Li" (Jet Li) resigns and becomes a bodyguard/stunt man for a martial arts actor by the name of "Frankie Lone" (Jacky Cheong). The problem is, that while Frankie was a decent martial arts expert at one time, his skills have atrophied to the point that he is hardly able to defend himself—much less anybody else. So when he and a number of other rich and influential people are held hostage by "the Doctor" it falls upon Kit Li to essentially save everyone. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought that this was a really bad film due in large part to the bad acting, poor quality stunts and less-than-humorous comedy. Likewise, the fact that the director (Wong Jing) had an ulterior motive to discredit Jackie Chan didn't endear me to it either. In short, I found this film to be insipid and without cinematic merit and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

winner55 The action sequences in this film are utterly superb, among the best in Hong Kong's long history of fine action films. Yet it's a difficult film to recommend.There are a number of real problems with the film. First and foremost is Wong Jing's decision to use the film to strike out at Jackie Chan. While I can understand that Wong and Chan did not work well together on City Hunter, and a case can certainly be made that Chan is overly fond himself and does, indeed, occasionally use stunt doubles (contrary to hype), nothing suggests that Chan is a coward and a raving lush. To suggest this isn't mere satire, it's direct character assassination. This is an incredibly bad strategic decision. All fans of Chan, all who only respect him, and perhaps even many who have only heard his name, will find this attack unnecessary in the extreme and profoundly upsetting.And there is more in the film to upset the average viewer. The film is not only excessively violent (I rather like excessive violence), but depressingly so. Innocent women and children splat like flies against a window. Various efforts at heroism and decency go unrewarded or even punished. The whole atmosphere of the film is gaudy, dark, choppy, nasty.Wong Jing has made many films, and some of them are even quite fun. But this isn't really one of them. Wong's history shows that he also doesn't take his profession very seriously, and many of his films suffer for it, getting terribly sloppy at times - and Melt Down is no exception. Which is unfortunate - when you have a stunt crew like this, action choreography as good as this, not to mention Jet Li at the top of his form, so much could have been done, yet it is here left unaccomplished.Oh, well. Occasionally fun, occasionally disturbing; one last good thing to say of the film is that the end is surprisingly strong and satisfying. If only the same could be said of rest of the film.

gerrythree The words `no talent' and `wastes of skin' are not harsh enough to describe the Hollywood vultures who bowdlerized and rewrote High Risk, renaming it Meltdown. For example, the villain of the movie, called the Doctor, is having a meeting with his gang. In the 1995 Cantonese movie version, with English subtitles, he tells the gang one of them is a police undercover agent. That agent tries unsuccessfully to escape. In the 2000 version, dubbed in English, the Doctor orders the killing of this same gang member for incompetence. In another scene, Jet Li tells a reporter and her cameraman to leave, which they do in a rush by news van as German shepherds chase them. In the original, one of the dogs gets in the van and, off screen, you hear the van crashing. In Meltdown, the scene ends with the van driving away, the dogs chasing it. Whoever adapted this movie for English decided that they would `improve' the movie, with rewritten dialogue and new edits. Wong Jing, the director of High Risk, made an over the top action movie that borrowed heavily from Die Hard. Jet Li is good in this movie, and Jackie Cheung is even better, as a Jackie Chan type actor who is supposed to do all his stunts, but never does. I have read that the real Jackie Chan was upset over being made fun of in this movie. That may or may not be the case. What is true is that I am upset that High Risk could not have just been dubbed into English and the print cleaned up. Instead, the movie has new dialogue and a cheaply done remastered print for the American market.

gridoon If you are an action fan, and are able to overlook the usual, for Hong Kong movies, schizophrenic tone, which mixes excessive violence with slapstick comedy, it's practically impossible to be disappointed by "Meltdown": first-rate fight scenes, wildly over-the-top stunts, prime explosions and lots of shattered glass. It's hard to believe that so much action can be packed in just one movie. Jet Li moves with amazing speed and agility, Jacky Cheung is pretty funny, and Chingmy Yau is also around, which is always a plus. (***)