Jet Li and DMX team up to fight Kelly Hu and Mark Dacascos. The results are sad.
DMX’s performance is better here than in "Exit Wounds". Most of the other performances were just okay. Jet Li looked as though he was sleep walking throughout this entire film. Famous cinematographer, Andrzej Bartkowiak, directs this film well, but it’s all style and little substance. The script is pretty bad and the dialogue gives little for the actors to play with. The action scenes were pretty short and not all that exciting. The finale was okay, but still pretty disappointing. I found some of the non-martial arts scenes to be far more entertaining than the fighting.
Only for really hardcore Jet Li or Mark Dacascos fans. Neither one of them will fight as well as you'd expect. I'm more likely to suggest this for someone looking for a brainless and funny action movie rather than a martial arts fan.
While it is nice to watch Jet Li, Mark Dacascos and Kelly Hu work together and participate in such great action choregraphy and stunt coordination, so much effort is wasted on this Hip Hop/Kung Fu Hollywood spectacle, filled with so much bland acting from Jet Li, worse acting by these so-called rapper/actor types DMX and Drag-On, and a storyline filled with so many hole, you'd think the writer had termites!
With all this said, if you choose to buy this movie, take it for what it is: 2 hours of watching Jet Li do what he does best. The rest is bananas!
This is probably the best of Jet Li's American films to date (yet to see "Unleashed" though). Sadly Mark Dacascos isn't given enough to do, and his end fight with Jet Li is too short and has to share too much screen time with DMX's fight scene. DMX is a hell of a lot better here than he was in "Romeo Must Die", but could definitely do with a few more acting screen fighting lessons.
Nice seeing Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture as cage fighters. According to the featurette, Hector Echavarria was one of them too. Didn't spot him, or I may have turned the film off. "Extreme Force" is one of the worst films I own.
Whilst this may be a good US Jet Li film, it doesn't hold up much to comparisons with "Martial Arts of Shaolin" or "Fist of Legend". Mind you, what does?