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Surprisingly incoherent and boring

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Average for This Type of Thing, an Expensive, Slick Looking, Overproduced Kung Fu Action. Director Tong (a former stunt man) has Made a Career Helming Hong Kong Films and Seems to be Trying Forever to Become "International".Problem Is, the Appeal and Charm of Hong Kong Action is Hong Kong Action Unfettered by a Hollywood Looking Production that is so Pretentiously Pandering to a "Wider" Audience that the Core and Soul of its Raw and Reliable Homeland Sizzle is Wanting.The Only Thing Recommended Here is Some Daring Set Piece Stunt Work. But Even that is Derivative and Lacks a Certain Spontaneity. The Wire Work is Clunky and Rapper Coolio is the Clunkiest of the Clunk Going On Here. It's Not Awful but Some of it Is. A Very Weak Story and Even Weaker Acting, Makes the Whole Movie Sink Under its Contrived Conceit of Cool, and Again, Not Helped by Hiring Coolio. The Movie Looks Good and the Few Disjointed Action Scenes Make for Some Fun, but Overall it is a Mediocre Mess. An Appeal for a Hollywood Sleekness when None is Required.

CHINA STRIKE FORCE is the poster child for the disastrous attempt the Hong Kong film industry made in the early 2000s to achieve more "international" appeal - notably to sell the film to US markets, which is why it is filmed in English, but you also have a Taiwanese singer and a Japanese model in the cast to try to appeal to those markets. This kind of calculated marketing driven film-making process is just not what Hong Kong film-makers do well (leave that to Hollywood boys), and the result is a grand disaster of a film that I can't imagine appealing to *anybody*, whatever their nationality.The primary culpit is the script, which fleshes out a paper thin and utterly generic plot with terribly inane dialogue, delivered in poor English by a cast for who the language is mostly not a natural choice (and I include Coolio in that :p). As a result it's hard for the acting not to be utterly dreadful, even if the cast *were* made of people who actually could act in their native language. I'm not sure how the spurious racism sprinkled through the script was meant to increase international appeal either.The film's one saving grace is the action scenes, which Stanley Tong *does* know how to direct. There's a few moments of greatness to be found in these scenes, especially the finale set atop a pane of glass precariously suspended hundreds of floors above the ground (for whatever reason). This scene is almost worth the price of a rental by itself. If the film had just been a string of action scenes like this it might have been a significant guilty pleasure, but unfortunately these scenes are too few to really redeem an otherwise awful film.

First of all, this H.K. movie is clearly aimed at a more international market. Nothing immediately wrong with that - in fact, I was excited when I saw Mark Dacascos in the cast. I've enjoyed his work in other movies in the past, since not only does he know his craft well, he has screen presence and even has some acting ability.But perhaps because Dacascos is unfortunately still not that well known in North America, the producers also picked someone with more "name" value to pair up with him. While I can sort of understand this, they really made a bad choice with choosing Coolio(!) I guess I can't really blame Coolio, because in the past he has shown some screen ability. However, the screenplay and the direction make him EXTREMELY annoying, with his non-stop slang talking and insulting. What's even worse is that Coolio's character is given much more focus than Dacascos' character, right down to the climatic action sequence. To say that Dacascos is greatly wasted is putting it mildly.The climatic action sequence IS entertaining, and so are the previous ones in the movie... what little there are. The remaining running time is talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, etc. Most of the focus is in fact on a plot so weak and so cliched that it gives dumb action movies a bad name. (I suspect this is the main reason why the movie has yet to receive an official release in North America, 3 years after it was made!) Stanley Tong really needs to return to his roots, to realize what made his past movies work.

I really expect much from Stanley Stong, because he is well known as a good action director (Rumble In The Bronx, Martial Law), but when I decide to watch this one, I found my self fell in a such boring movie. The things that deserve to watch are only the action scenes and (off course) Noriko Fujiwara. The plot is trashy, and Aaron Kwok was seems to gorgeous to be a cop. Bad for you, Stanley. I hope he could do better next time.5/10