To begin with, there is an awful lot of comedy in this film that many viewers are not “getting”. Of course jet Li’s Mask looks like Bruce Lee’s Kato – he’s supposed to, it’s a joke. The guy who has a time-bomb sewn to his heart – outrageous? of course, it’s a joke! Some readers will probably ask, if this film is supposed to be so funny, why all the excessive and gory violence? well, for one thing the tolerance for this level of violence is actually different, from culture to culture; and while Hong Kong audiences would recognize this violence is extreme, it’s certainly only slightly more than average for a HK action film.

Also, Black Mask is really the kind of film that takes a genre’s conventions and pushes them to extremes, simply because the conventions themselves are wholly unrealistic. After decades of watching people get shot without any noticeable open wounds, many people were horrified to see Bonnie and Clyde and the outlaws of the Wild Bunch spurting blood all over the place. But the fact is, when you’re shot with rapid metal projectile, it’s almost certain that blood will spurt, especially from an artery.Tsui Chik tries to lead a quiet life as a librarian. However, he is really a former test subject for a highly secretive supersoldier project and the instructor of a special commando unit dubbed “701.” The 701 squad is used for many government missions, but after one of the agents kills a team of policemen in an uncontrollable rage, the government decides to abort the project and eliminate all the subjects. Tsui Chik helped the surviving 701 agents flee the extermination attempt. Having escaped, Tsui Chik went separate ways from his team. Later, he discovers that the rest of the team were responsible for a violent crime spree that was beyond the capability of the local police. He sets out to stop them, donning a disguise and using the superhero alias of “Black Mask”. Having lost the ability to feel pain due to the surgery performed on the super-soldiers by the military, Black Mask is almost invulnerable.

When a bomb went off unexpectedly during a police operation to disarm it, bomb disposal officer Poon Shing-Fung got caught in the blast and lost one of his legs. Poon decided to leave the police service. Three years later, the police suspect Poon, who was found in a coma at the spot of a terrorist bombing attack, of being involved in several bombing attacks in the past two years. Poon can hardly remember his past and even his own identity due to post-traumatic amnesia. He plans to escape to find out the truth. Meanwhile, knowing the terrorist organization’s schemes of destroying Hong Kong landmarks, Poon, as the key person between the police and the terrorist organization, could possibly save or destroy lives of the innocent civilians in the city.