It works, because Woo makes it work. It allows for different interpretations, different beats and rhythms, even different feels. I-1 at all. It's all dusty and cluttered, to De Palma's steely choreography and character duplicity. Here, there's no such mind play.
Good guys are good.
Bad guys are evil. And it's a manly man's world. The biggest irony in the film is the inclusion of the two loudest sides of the recent Napster controversy. Whoever came up with that potent little cultural meeting point should have taken a crack at the dialogue. What drove me nuts were the blatant cuts made to simply secure an R-rating.