Almost bad enough to recommend just for how bad it is

Rating: 1/10 (26 May 2000)

I remember thinking about 20 minutes into it "Okay, the acting is terrible, but the plot's okay". An hour into it I was thinking, "Okay, the plot sucks too, but the action scenes are good." By the end, even Woo's trademark "bullet ballet" couldn't redeem this movie.
The entire audience was laughing at just how cliched and obvious this movie was. I go a long way on "suspension of disbelief" when watching action flicks, but this movie ate up my reserves and left me on empty well before the grand finale. It became a game to see JUST HOW MANY tired cliches they could fit in at the end.
Except for the fact that characters actually DIED, the stunts and action seemed better suited to the A-Team than to a modern thriller. It would have been far more effective if it at least had Mr. T and George Peppard -- or better yet, Peter Graves and Leonard Nimoy -- people you EXPECT to see in cheesy over-the-top cartoonish tripe like this.
Maybe the low budget of Hong-Kong films is a GOOD thing. I usually love John Woo movies, but if this is what happens when he gets his hands on a major studio budget, I wish he'd go back to the chop-socky stuff that made him famous.
This movie is almost bad enough to be recommended on that score alone. It's no Plan 9 From Outer Space, but it is stupendously awful.