Black Mask (1996)

Let me first say that I saw this in a really bad dollar theater last night. The film was delayed ten minutes while they fixed the projector, the sound was murky, halfway through the movie the picture jumped so that all we could see was a big black bar down the middle of the screen which lasted several minutes, and 30 seconds into the credits the film just stopped. I say this because it might have effected my overall enjoyment of the movie.

Black Mask is about a Universal Soldier type project in Hong Kong. The folks in charge decide it's a bad idea and try to kill all the participants. Unfortuantely they do a lousy job as most of them seem to escape, forming a criminal gang. The exception is Michael, who becomes a librarian so he can get some peace and quiet. His only friend is a cop they call Rock. The gang of super soldiers starts killing off drug lords, which Rock seems to think is a good idea. Unfortunately he has to go protect one of the last ones alive. That's pretty much the plot. Michael, now called Simon, puts on a black mask, hat and long coat and goes to help keep Rock from getting killed. That last line pretty much sums up the last 70 minutes of the movie. There is one funny scene where Michael confronts his former commander. It's not meant to be funny, but you can't help but think of The Empire Strikes Back and laugh at how closely it imitates the "I am your father scene."

The odd thing about this movie is that it's an absolute hoot to watch after they give up trying to support the razor thin plot. It degenerates into comic action and violence and suddenly becomes wildly entertaining. American directors could learn a lot from this movie on how to handle action scenes. The special effects were clearly low budget. I could have probably improved upon most of them with my own computer.

The presence of Jet Li makes up for it. There were numerous fight scenes that reminded me of The Matrix, except they didn't need state of the art effects to pull it off. That made it that much more impressive to watch. His movement is extraordinary in its grace and confidence.

If you want my advice, show up about 20-30 minutes late. You won't be missing anything. In fact what you miss won't have the chance to detract from what follows, which is pretty damn cool.

- John Shea