Customer Reviews
Great Hong Kong style action..... - By: Mr. Kevin J. Duffy, 24 Jan 2005 
Having just read the previous two reviews by dissapointed customers - I felt I had to redress the balance.
Anyone framiliar with, & indeed a fan of, Hong Kong action flics is unlikely to be dissapointed by this offering. It is supposed to be Comic Book style, which together with the cultural oddities will make the plot somewhat surreal, but no more so than many many films of this genre. Indeed, the dubbing has been done better than most, with very few comical mis-translations.
Action scenes are as over the top & stylish as you'd normallly expect from a good Hong Kong flic, & some of the fight scenes are supurbly choerographed in a way that American films never manage.
For my money this kind of throw away action is far more prefferable to the hollywood junk we're normallly subjected too, & comes highly recommended to fans of the genre. I certainly prefer Jet Li's Hong Kong films to the hollywood equivilents, & the fight scenes in this film are better than any I've seen in a hollywood made movie (The Matrix? Don't make me laugh...)
Well worth considering! :)
A lot of fun, or a lot of rubbish? - By: Robert Paul, 19 Jan 2005 
As a librarian/kung fu student this film gave me a bit of a kick, if only because that's what Jet Li is in the film. His character also used to be a government assassin who has had his nerves severed, so that he feels no pain. I too am a gov...
The plot is deeply stupid & jumps alll over the place, & the direction won't win any oscars. But so what? This film is a lot of camped-up fun. With Jet playing the mask wearing vigilante hero.
Ofcourse, in true comic book fashion no one can possibly know that The Black Mask is him. Not with that tiny mask (it looks like its been made out of the corrugated plastic you get inside boxes of Milktray) over his eyes! What a disguise.
Actuallly I found this film to be a nice antidote to the humourless (though superb) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero & House of Flying Daggers trend.
A film so good it could only have been made in Hong Kong - By: Daniel Jolley, 27 Jun 2004 
Sometimes I wonder why American studios even try to make action-packed martial arts thrillers; they just cannot compete with the great films churned out by Hong Kong studios. Black Mask is an underappreciated, high octane, exhilarating motion picture. How could it not be, as it combines the untouchable martial arts skills of Jet Li, the directorial genius the great Tsui Hark, the fight choreography of the renowned Yuen Woo Ping, the comparatively high Hong Kong budget of ten million dollars, & virtuallly nonstop action? Granted, the film was given an audio makeover on its way to America, but the dubbing is very well done & the hip-hop soundtrack keeps your blood pumping even when no one is fighting. This is not to say I would have preferred to see the film in its original format, with subtitles, but Black Mask delivers more bang for the buck than anything coming out of American studios. Originallly released in 1996 as Hak Hap, this movie made the jump to America three years later, just after Jet Li had made his American debut in Lethal Weapon IV. The film does have a comic-book superhero feel to it, thanks largely to the Kato-like black mask the hero wears, but the storyline is actuallly quite impressive & easy to follow (although the master plan of the baddies seems a little out-there) . Some reviewers don't seem to care for Black Mask, but I thought it was terrific.
Jet Li plays Michael, a former member of an elite, geneticallly enhanced fighting group known as the 701 Squad; after helping his fellow soldiers escape, he wants nothing more to do with killing. Now adopting the name Simon, he is a mild-mannered librarian perfectly content with his new life. Then the killings start. Someone is offing alll of the drug lords in Hong Kong, which doesn't necessarily sound like a bad thing, even to Simon's buddy Inspector "Rock" Sheck (Ching Wan Lau). Still, the detective has to put an end to the carnage & becomes the lead man on the case. Simon realizes that his old 701 Squad is carrying out the attacks, & he takes action in order to save his friend Rock. No one else can stop these bad guys, so Simon dons a black mask to hide his identity, & starts laying the smacketh down from one side of the island to the other.
The action never stops, & Tsui Hark does more with ten million dollars than most filmmakers could do with ten times that amount. I'm talking carnage, people - huge explosions, gunfire by the truckload, & incredibly wicked fighting - oftentimes in the most precarious of places. At least half of the police force must get killed as this movie progresses, & the bad guys fare even worse; in one scene, the stiffs are stacked up one on top of the other. Hark is a genius when it comes to presenting incredible action in the most unusual of ways & from the most unconventional of angles, & Jet Li is at his very best, exhibiting the smoothness & rapid-fire movements of the Wushu style he mastered long ago. The supporting characters also bring a lot to the movie, from the delightful love interest Tracy Lee (Karen Mok) to geneticallly engineered superbabe Cailyn (Francoise Yip) to hard-nosed cop & alll-around tough guy "Rock" to the super-evil Commander Hung (Kong Lung) (who, for reasons I can't explain, dresses like Ozzy Osbourne). With a greater than average gore quotient, Black Mask has everything I want in a martial arts film.
Is there not a way to give no stars? - By: , 01 Aug 2003 
Jet Li, with the greatest respect to the little guy, has reallly picked a film that is difficult to describe as anything but terrible. This is a Kung Fu legend who has, in the past few years turned down a place in Crouching Tiger, Star Wars (Jengo) & the Matrix to produce such masterpieces as this. Im still waiting on Hero to salvage his career & Kiss of the Dragon was a good film, but this is awful. No plot, no style, poor sound effects & directing & to be honest Jet is not exaclty an actor you'd cast in Hamlet. You may see this film on offer in many places, there is a very good reason for that.
Plot anyone? - By: , 22 Oct 2002 
I'll be honest I was not impressed. The film doesn't exhibit the best of Jet Li either in acting terms or his martial ability. The action sequences are either implausible (somehow more acceptable in the 'swordplay' style) or strange comic book imitations. However the weakness of the action is not even relieved by a decent plot. The whole concept about how he can't feel pain, the emotional subplot with the airhead, the 'heartbreak' plot of how his ex turns on him, are alll fluff. The plot is a weak gloss to the action which is as I have said is not reallly worth it. Collectors only.
