Derek Carpet Yes! This is more like it! Guns, kicks, punches, bombs and there's even something for the ladies as the plot centres around the pointless world of fashion and of course Van Damme spends most of the film naked. This time he teams up with NFL star Dennis Rodman to take on some evil fashion designers who have been weaving their clothes from hemp. Once worn these clothes will instantly intoxicate the wearer, send them into fits of laughter, make them hallucinate and 'trip', and eventually descend into a spiral of addiction, crime, and murder that every drug user ever has suffered. Van Damme is a former model turned super cop and decides he is the best man to infiltrate the group, kick them in the face, destroy the clothes, and save the world. Unfortunately his boss decides to send a more flamboyant character along as a more modern partner. So they go undercover (sometimes literally!) as a gay couple pretending to want to buy a large shipment of these wonderful summer outfits. This leads to some jolly moments as Van Damme and Rodman attempt to 'out camp' each other with scenes reminiscent of the parties Oscar Wilder and Noel Coward used to hold for each other. Rodman keeps wearing shorter and shorter skirts, while Van Damme tucks his socks into his shoes and ends every sentence with the word 'sailor'. 'The only thing worse than not having any clothes is having too many' says Van Damme. 'The only thing worse than having no clothes is yo momma' replies Rodney.Of course the main focus of the film is the fighting and we are not disappointed. Famous Japanese director Sue Hark shows her trademark style with flashy camera movement, bullet tracking shots, cameras attached to Van Damme's sandals so that we can see a foot eye view of someone on the other end of The Mussels From Belgium's brutal attack. It is truly rewarding, as rewarding as throwing a dart into Jim Bowen's left cheek.Dennis Rocksmarth's moves are OK. Being a big lad we assume he can look after himself and he throws a few left hoops and upperclamps. His attempts at kicking are hideous and made my cat cry, I've seen better kicking from Peter in Dawn Of The Dead. Sue goes one further though with her interpretation of what would happen if you wore a cardigan of drugs. One character begins to giggle and roll about the floor, and we see what they see; we move to split screen a le Mario Kart. The top half is normal colour vision but spinning around 350 degrees, while the bottom half becomes black and white with blasts of neon colours. This eventually blurs into one and the character enters a world full of spinning knives and shoes being thrown from room to room. It reminded me of playing Doom naked with a live mouse and synthesiser instead of the usual keyboard/mouse combination. The floors and walls are melting and being sculpted by invisible artists into bewildering phrases such as 'Burt's Beans are Number 1!', 'If you sit in my kitchen you will become a-', 'Jacob the Chicken knows more than your Spleen ever will', and of course 'Carry your Turnip with Pride, Brain'. None of this makes much sense and it got a bit irritating after 7 minutes. Eventually the character reaches a help desk made of fire (which itself is made of water) and asks the Sheep in a Tux what is going on. 'Baaaa' replies the sheep. 'Well, that's what I though but I sought clarification'. As she turns away a large bubble engulfs her in slime and pops loudly. We cut to a wide shot of the women splatting against the ground and realise she has thrown herself off a building.In the end the co stars work well together and would go on to star in several more films together, including a theatre version of this film. I haven't seen it but if it's half as good as this it'll be average. If it's the same quality it'll be great! Best Scene: When VD and the DR are lying in bed together and Rodman feels something prodding him. 'Those aren't pillows you're hands are between!'

winner55 when I first saw this when it came out, I wasn't impressed. I thought Tsui Hark was selling out to Hollywood, and getting unnecessarily flashy in doing so.Seeing it again some ten years later, I have to admit I'm impressed. It's not just the story or the action scenes, or the integration of humor into the thriller storyline. But what once looked like flashiness now reveals itself as careful restraint. Tsui is working hard here to avoid any unnecessary frame, creating a film that admittedly jars visually, but does so tightly, with almost no excess imagery or story element. The film still looks fresh after a decade; while not great art, it's just supremely professional movie making. And in keeping with that, Tsui also manages to get restrained performance by two slices of Hollywood ham, Van Damme and Rob Schneider, the latter being one of the least tolerable comic actor I've ever had the misfortune to encounter on film. But here he seems almost at home in a Hitchcockian spy thriller with Jackie Chan flavored sense of humor - exactly where you would least expect to find him.Over all, although only a B-movie thriller, remains a neat accomplishment for Tsui Hark.

sol1218 **SPOILERS**Mind boggling action movie that takes place on the eve of the British colony city of Hong Kong being handed over to the Red Chinese. The movie is about this group of Russian international mobsters who plan to blackmail the world with thousands of button, or micro, bombs. The Russians hide them in knockoff, phony high priced and name item, clothes and electrical equipment as well as toys. Then threaten to detonate them if they aren't paid, like cable TV, a monthly fee of 100 million dollars. Jean-Clude Van Damme is Marcus Ray a shady businessman who exports knockoff running shoes and jeans who gets involved up to his neck in the action. This happens when it's found out that his partner in crime the lovable and wise-cracking Tommy Hendricks, Rob Schneider, is an undercover CIA agent planning to get the goods on him, as well as his associates, in the illegal knockoff business.It soon becomes evident that knockoffs aren't the only headache on the minds of the CIA. It's found that their, the knockoff clothes and toys, are being used as explosives by the Russian mobster and suddenly Ray becomes a good guy in stopping, together with Hendricks, that from happening. Still Ray is hamstrung by ambitious CIA agent Karen Lee, Lela Rochon, who's playing double-agent in the film. This confuses both Ray & Hndricks to the point where all thee almost end up shooting each other.***SPOILER ALERT***It turns out that the person behind this evil and grandiose plan is non other then the CIA chief in charge of covert Hong Kong operations himself chubby Harry Johnson, Paul Sorvino, who together with even chubbier Hong Kong crime kingpin Slim, Glen Chin,are working together with the evil Russians in this crazy and off the wall criminal venture. The mindless action is almost non-stop in the movie with Ray going from rickshaw races to food fights and warehouse shootouts and finally a showdown with the Russians. This happens on an outgoing freighter loaded with bomb laden ripoffs headed for US Pacific port cities to unload and, by remote satellite control, activate them.People in the movie seem to be killed over and over again coming back for more like walking dead zombies especially the Russian mobsters. Who have, for what at first seems like no reason at all,hoods over their heads. Later you realize that it, the hoods, were just there so you won't see or recognize them coming back to get themselves killed, by Ray & Co, all over again sometimes as much as three or four times. The leader of the Slavic mobsters himself is done in a number of times by both Ray & Lee only to come back for more. Thats until Ray, out of sheer frustration, finally finishes him off much like he would have done to a vampire. But not with the usual wooden stake driven through his heart but with a ten ton steel cargo container dropped square on top of his head!All kinds of wild and far out zany camera angles make you dizzy following the non-stop action scenes with bad guy CIA turncoat Johnson getting the worst of it. Johnson gets knocked around all over the place then set on fire, with a bottle of deadly sulfuric acid, and then killed in a freighter explosion. Just when you thought the movie and Johnson were history he again killed in another explosion in his Hong Kong hideout. Johnson who at that point seemed to have come back from the dead has the same crazed and manic look in both scenes in both scenes that he was killed.

quaid82 This movie had good moments but the cheesy acting and Schneider made this one worse than Double team.Yes Double team was bad but at least there was better action scenes.The problem with it was the script,even Paul Sorvino sounded b-list.I dislike the fact that the studio's kept on giving JC movies to Hong Kong directors.It's o.k, if you catch it on the tube, but don't take valuable DVD time for this one.There were some cool moves,it kinda had a Rush hour vibe but that ended in the first 20 minutes.As a loyal JC fan i can tolerate this movie but i wonder some times what was the average viewer was thinking when they saw this one? this one ended his long run in theaters,i thought that this was going to revive the JC legacy but it ended up demoting him to direct to video. It's true folks you don't know the good times when there happening.