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.

Following the death of his wife, Ip Man travels to San Francisco to ease tensions between the local kung fu masters and his star student, Bruce Lee, while searching for a better future for his son.

A Hong Kong variation on Robin Hood. The corrupt officials of a Chinese village are continually robbed by a masked bandit know as “Iron Monkey” named after a benevolent deity. When all else fails, the Govenor forces a traveling physician (Donnie Yen) into finding the bandit. The arrival of an evil Shaolin monk, brings the Physician and Iron Monkey together to battle the corrupt government. After watching films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Shaolin Soccer and immensely falling for them, I had some hesitancy with this film. With Tarantino’s name attached to the previews,

I had this growing concern that Hollywood had gripped this film a bit too hard, thus squeezing out any remaining value or originality. I had heard of the stories of Harvey “Scissorhands” and his ability to really do a number on these Asian films that find their way into our cinemas I have heard that if you ever really want to fully enjoy one of these films, do not touch those with the name Miramax stamped anywhere. With this in mind, I believe you can see where the hesitancy was coming from, but I need to be honest,