Great set pieces and fight scenes throughout. The basic premise of the story is a little cliched (to be expected for its time), but still executed rather well, despite losing its way a little bit half way through the film. Brandon's use of martial arts is visually impressive, succinct and clearly carried his fathers talent in his own unique way, and the martial arts marries the story premise well. Brandon's character Jake Lo is caught up in a seedy underworld of gangsters and corruption, being a witness to something sinister going down, a 'wrong place wrong time' affair, having to escape criminal bad guys and use his wits and fighting skills to outmanoeuvre the low level unskilled brawling crime thugs, until he meets more worthy adversaries later in the film who know a thing or two about applied martial arts, with one fight in particular the choreography effectively incorporates some Jeet Kune Do to great effect in a mostly realistic fight scene. The love interest for me was it's weakest element by far, also Jake Lo I feel could have had his relationship to his father padded out more, rather than a highly predictable romantic love interest for Jake with Karla Withers, a supporting actress providing sexual tension building up to raunchy sex scene thrown in for the 90's remit of action movie making, and perhaps more script given attention to Jake's father's involvement in the Tiananmen Square protest, but despite these minor flaws, for a film without a massive budget it is a great martial arts action movie with thrilling visuals superbly executed, a great musical score demonstrating some of the true high's of 90's action cinema, guaranteed to bring visceral excitement to anyone who enjoys raw mostly unimpeded martial arts movies. Brandon was truly mesmerising on screen, such a shame to lose a burgeoning naturally gifted actor and ultimately a beautiful human being so early.
Review of Rapid Fire
