Great Action, Directing & Production, but...

Rating: 9/10 (22 March 2017)

Excellent movie if you're a fan and even if you're not, it's good all its own. But like any movie, there's always room for improvement and the only issue I really had with it is Donnie Yen's character.
The writing for him was not very good at all and it felt almost like they couldn't figure out what to do with his role to make it more relevant to the story. His opening fight scene was one of the best I've seen in any movie and it was downhill from there. Mr. Yen deserved better in the writing for his part in my opinion. Repeating the same line over and over quickly became annoying and there was so much more that could have been said and done with his ability as an actor. He clearly had a grasp of the "force" and I was expecting him to be some kind of spiritual mentor even if he wasn't "officially" classified as a Jedi and perhaps not central to the plot. The rest of the cast did very well and each role was clearly established.
As for the story, the only other improvement that I would have expected but wasn't entirely necessary was for more on the back- story of Forest Whittaker's character.
Overall, this movie is a 9 out of 10 for me and will definitely be in my collection when the Blu-ray comes out!!