Reviews

Stealing techniques from directors such as Scorsese, Tarantino, Woo and even Wong Kar-Wai, director John H. Lee has created a visually slick but highly derivative film. Virtually every major scene in this movie appears to have been stolen from a well-known film. The cliche-ridden script is essentially a ripoff of Martin Scorsese's 'GoodFellas' and like 'GoodFellas', chronicles a naive young man's transformation into a "gangsta". Unfortunately, the main character never gets developed (many gaps exist in the story) and the script is plagued by an overabundance of stock characters (prostitute girlfriend, laconic but "scary" boss, Pesci-style loose cannon). It was especially painful to hear the amateur Asian American actors recite their dialogue, which was written in an embarrassingly self-conscious and inauthentic "gangsta" style. Every tough guy line ends up sounding extremely fake and forced. If John Lee wanted to make an Asian American gangster movie, he should have used a screenplay about Asian Americans using more realistic Asian American crime situations. Merely inserting Asian American actors into a ripped-off gangster story does not create anything worth watching.