I've always considered Jean-Claude Van Damme's Street Fighter movie from 1994 to be one of the worst martial arts movies that I have seen but compared to this, it's not looking too bad anymore. I hesitate to mention acting when reviewing a martial arts movie but when it's this bad you have to mention it. Chris Klein's Interpol character was ridiculous. Everything he does is so over the top and exaggerated that it looks as though he watched every cop movie from the past 25 years to get into character. Of course when you are given dialogue like "He walks through raindrops" to describe the villain's elusiveness, there's not much hope to begin with. Oh and he loves his job. So much that not one, but two scenes are punctuated with him smiling to himself and saying "I love my job". Enough about acting though because good fight scenes can save any martial arts movie but unfortunately there's none to be found here either. Kristin Kreuk is never believable at all in the action scenes. Her character is shown being taught Wushu by her father in the beginning of the film but I would describe her fighting style later in the movie as wire gymnastics. Girl can flip good though, I'll give her that. It was good to see Robin Shou again even if he does have the thankless role of teaching Chun-Li how to make a floating ball of something. He's the only one of the main characters who has any real martial arts background. The dude from The Blackeyed Peas is a pretty good dancer though. Guess that's why he got the part of Vega. What I will never understand is this: If you are going to make a martial arts movie that has a terrible script and terrible acting anyway, why not cast real martial artists. At least cast a real martial artist in a role that has only two lines of dialogue. Terrible acting, terrible fight scenes, and a terrible movie.
