Thin plot + badly constructed action scenes = boredom

Rating: Null/10 (3 May 2003)

First of all, I feel I should point out that it was actually CORY YUEN who directed the movie, NOT Louis Leterrier (who was actually the ARTISTIC director). This fact is listed on the DVD box and in the opening credits. Still, I can understand why who originally submitted the credits to the IMDb may have been confused, because you would be kind of hard pressed to successfully compare this to Yuen's (usually superior) Hong Kong product.
Before that, a look at the plot. We have an extremely thin plot here. All that's going on is more or less a simple smuggling operation. The bad guys behind it are simply greedy gloaters who will kill if it's necessary - and that's ALL that's done with them! Even with the two ringleaders; about all that's different about them is their ethnicity. It isn't much better with the protagonists. Jason Statham looks good and throws himself into the action well, but he can't do much more than that, playing the same old tired hard-lined loner with a murky past. Shu Qi is pretty, though sometimes has problems with her English dialogue, and her character is even thinner than Statham's.
Now back to the action. The scenes did have the potential to be great - a fight in oil, struggling all over a transport truck speeding down a freeway - but they are ruined by what quite often ruins action scenes in Hollywood movies (despite the fact the creative part of this particular movie is non-American):
(1) Too-quick camera movements (usually hand-held)
(2) Unbelievably fast editing, that chops up the action instead of holding sight of it and playing it out like a ballet of sorts (what you will find in the best Hong Kong action movies.
I also need to point out that the editing in this case is even worse, sometimes cutting out "links" that result in people or cars all of a sudden jumping from one place to another.
No need to rent this, when there are plenty of good action movies already sitting in the catalog sections of your local video stores. Even if you see this for free, it's still likely you'll feel ripped-off at the end.