From the director of brooding, manga-tinged actioners Black Mask and Star Runner comes writer-director Daniel Lee's most violent and stylish entry to date. Dragon Squad forms a mergence of Pan-Asian and Western talents and multiple generations of Hong Kong stars set within a colorless landscape, highlighted only by frantic motion and generous amounts of mean-spirited bloodletting. The film is a slick update to the John Woo heroic bloodshed tales of the 1980s with its own nod to Hong Kong's action roots in martial arts as seen in carefully orchestrated running gun battles and Sammo Hung's machete-wielding presence. Yet for all of its visual flair, ballistic kineticism and localized sentimentality, the film can't help being a soulless and at times uneasily laughable affair.

Lee taps Hung for what has increasingly become the martial arts movie legend's typecasting now that he's past his prime, as a mentor to a younger generation of heroes. A handful of youthful Interpol agents fronted by Canto-pop star Vanness Wu arrive in Hong Kong to testify at a trial for a crime lord. En-route to court, the police escort is ambushed by a small band of heavily-armed attackers who abduct the crime lord. With their original mission put on hold, no official jurisdiction to act and the likely prospects of another confrontation the agents are put into the care of a veteran cop, as played by Hung.

The director unintentionally makes a mockery of this supposedly professional Interpol team by turning them into a group of glorified semi-superheroes, complete with distinctive gunplay skills right out of a B-movie Western and frequent ESPN-style profiles. He does the same with the lead villains, but they fare better thanks to slightly more fleshed out characters. But even then cast members usually appear lost in their ill-defined roles, while the fresh-faced members such as Eva Huang (Kung Fu Hustle) show little promise of their own.

Terminator star Michael Biehn has the most interesting character as Pedros, a Columbian terrorist whose interest in the crime lord's former girlfriend (Isabella Leung) comes into conflict with his desire to get revenge on Hung for the death of his brother three years prior during a battle with police. Biehn's stiff line delivery sours what could have otherwise been one of the better gweilo acting roles in Hong Kong action cinema to date.

Biehn's partner in crime is Korean actor Heo Jun-ho (Simido). It's unfortunate that he is the only one who seems comfortable in his role. Steely-faced, he drips menace and hate. Heo proves to be an excellent nemesis for Hung and the two tangle twice in the film's only martial arts scenes.

As with his performance in SPL, Sammo Hung gets to show off that he's still the fastest and fiercest fat man around. Lee's direction and editing has improved over the choppy fight scenes of Star Runner, but some genre fans will no doubt be disappointed in how Hung's fight scenes are presented. Although Hung is one of Hong Kong's great action directors with his own evolving style, it's interesting to see that he has adapted well to the modern choreography of genre leaders like Donnie Yen. As the film's martial arts choreographer, Chin Kar-lok seems to have been inspired to maintain the kind of gritty realism of Hung's previous film. While not as well crafted, Chin's scenes serve their intended purpose by giving us some great action pitting two old warhorses against one another.

In Dragon Squad, Lee aspires for it to be the Chinese equivalent of Michael Mann's Heat. It is only partially successful in the movie's elaborate gun fights, which are entertaining but stretch plausibility to the limit. Lee's idea of action has never strayed far from his days as director of Jet Li's superhero flick Black Mask. Nine years later, the action is every bit as exaggerated and over-the-top. All that's missing are the costumes. The one thing that has changed is the increased level of violence portrayed.

The opening ambush is a startlingly grizzly scene that quickly establishes Biehn's terrorist team as capable of any atrocity and skilled enough to pull it off with style. Heo later shows his specialty of close range combat by waiting to surround himself with targets in tight quarters before unleashing a barrage of gunfire and hand-to-hand combat. Maggie Q is their silent sharp shooter, who we learn nothing about except that she prefers rapid high-caliber fire tactics to carefully-aimed kill shots. She also likes to lay traps in graveyards to draw rival sharpshooters into. Go figure. Philip Ng is more of a scatter shot shooter, wherein he uses his combat shotgun to blast his way through a hallway filled with police during a second ambush. Here some clever uses of props are used to take the gun fight in unconventional directions.

Amid all this violence, one starts to wonder if the police have any control at all. Despite all of the planning of Simon Yam as the tactical police leader they are basically at the mercy of four active militants freely operating in the city. Kung fu masters and pop star superheroes to the rescue!

The film's main event is a well-crafted gun battle in a rundown alleyway filled with exploding canisters and flying debris. Lee uses a variety of slow motion, jerky zooming and handheld camera work to add tension to the visuals. It's a little too self conscience in execution, but fun to watch and consistent with the gratuitously silly flashbacks repeatedly interjected, seemingly to remind us of how cool the stars can look in various poses. Like a classic G.I. Joe episode, hundreds of rounds are expended in all directions with not so much as a scratch scored on anyone until Lee decides to call it quits on the scene by capping it with some dramatic punch.

The exaggerated action and underdeveloped characters would have worked a lot better if not for Lee's injection of frivolous sentimentality. Instead of a wink to the audience or a bit of humor to allow audiences to better accept the excesses, Lee plays it straight and like Star Runner, it becomes difficult to not laugh whenever a Canto-pop song or montage sequence begins. I cannot speak for Asian audiences but Americans will likely have a hard time accepting it. I would almost fear that it's a cultural barrier, except that other Hong Kong filmmakers like Stephen Chow and Johnnie To have proven otherwise with films that successfully ride the line between excesses.

Dragon Squad has some excellent, if unreal gunplay and two enjoyable fight scenes with a still vigorous Sammo Hung versus a wickedly enjoyable Heo Jun-ho. It's nice to see Biehn, a solid B-movie star drifting into obscurity, given a sizable role in what appears to be a rare reversal of the past influx of Hong Kong talent to Hollywood. The film definitely shows promise as Steven Seagal's first attempt at co-producing Asian action films. But despite its polish, the film has plenty of rough spots that will make it a hard sell for casual viewers.

Directed by Daniel Lee; action choreographed by Chin Kar-lok; starring Sammo Hung, Michael Biehn, Heo Jun-ho. 110 minutes. Rated IIB (Hong Kong).

The plot is your standard action movie stuff. For some unexplained reason, a group of young members from various law enforcement organizations are brought together to help protect a criminal as he is brought to court for trial. They fail in the mission, and so Sammo Hung is sent to baby-sit the group, while the police commander (Simon Yam) takes care of business (why Simon just doesn't disband the team is one of the movie's many plot holes). Of course, Simon can't pull off the mission either, so he reluctantly agrees to give the plucky kids one more shot.

Even though the plot is pretty simple, Dragon Squad takes forever to move the story along. It clocks in at around two hours, but feels longer than that, because Daniel Lee seems more concerned about showing "touching" scenes like the kids bonding over shooting targets in a gallery or re-using the same comic-book style inserts rather than actually advancing the story. There are quite a few action sequences, which action director Chin Kar-Lok handles well, but most of the excitement is leeched out by the schizophrenic "MTV style" editing that plagues far too many films from both the east and west.

All in all, Dragon Squad makes a valiant attempt. Hell, it was nice seeing Sammo starring in a project that wasn't a total embarrassment like most of his recent work like Legend of the Dragon. But the film-makers couldn't seem to pull all of the elements together to make anything other than an average action movie.

Michael Bay: Michael Bay Enterprises, this is Michael Bay director of Armageddon speaking, how can I help you?

Daniel Lee: Hello Mr. Bay, this is Daniel Lee. I directed Star Runner and Black Mask with Jet Li.

MB: Ah yes, Danny, can I call you Danny? I like your work, you have, uhm, potential!

DL: Thanks Mike! Hey listen, I am working on a new film called Dragon Squad. It's starring Samo Hung in a comeback role and a bunch of young SUPER hip Hongkie actors who are just screaming coolness. It also stars Michael Biehn who I think you know?

MB: Ah yes, he was in my action film The Rock, how is the old bastard?

DL: Great, he's doing great. Well hey; the reason I called is that I wanted to get some pointers from the master of bombastic-and-visually-appealing-but-ultimately-meaningless-cinema.

MB: Oh man, I'm sorry but Tony Scott stepped out to grab some lunch.

DL: Oh that's cool I already spoke to him. He loaned me a truck full of special filters, lenses and video effects. You know, just in case I wanted to change filters, lenses and effects for every single frame of certain action and or dramatic sequences. It was really nice of him. He even showed me how to use everything and told me the golden rule: if you have it, use it! So anyhow, I would actually like to talk to you now.

MB: Well, you know my motto: Sure, why not? So go for it, ask away and I will try to steer you in the right direction.

DL: First of all, I need help with fleshing out the characters. I don't want to waste precious film time on "background." How can I go about doing this as quickly as possible?

MB: Just have a bunch of split second still-photo flashbacks of each major character. Make sure these photos show what special tactical or military unit each of the characters was from, and bingo - back-story! For example, if you need a hot chick who is a sniper, just show a picture of her looking all bad-ass in some fatigues and a beret holding a huge sniper rifle. Maybe play some dramatic drummy music over the photo-back-story-montage and there ya go. Next question.

DL: Okay, so to add "emotional depth" is it cool to have a really super cheesy "sad" death scene after every single large scale gun fight in the film?

MB: Sure, why not? Just make sure the sad parts are filmed in slow motion with stuff falling from the sky, preferably feathers or sparks, and also, now this is important, pick the cheesiest song you can find - you know, some power ballad by Aerosmith or something, now that's hot!

DL: Ooh, great idea! I have this one song in mind, I think it's in D-minor, and it has some chick singing about building a mansion higher than the trees and it crumbles because her lover has died. I'll use that!

MB: PERFECT-O! Next question.

DL: Okay, this pertains to something you said earlier. I need lots of debris falling but I am not sure how to go about setting up the set so the debris seems logical.

MG: Logical? Son, have you seen my films? The more shit that's falling from the sky during any part of the film, the better. Okay, so, where do you want this debris?

DL: Well, there is one major gunfight in an alley.

MB: Okay, so put some propane tanks in front of some bags full of shredded paper. Every alley I know of has tons of garbage bags full of shredded paper strewn about, so no big deal. Now, here is the important part: the first gun shot fired during the scene MUST hit the propane tank and cause the bags to explode so you will have paper scraps falling like snow for like 15 minutes! Also, make sure there are some large industrial strength fans in the alley that happen to turn on - maybe from the explosion or something - so they can generate air currents and make the falling paper scraps look like snow.

DL: Should I film this scene in really slow motion?

MB: Sure, why not? Just make sure it looks expensive.

DL: Got it. Okay, next question Mike. At the end of the film I want there to be a shoot out between two snipers that takes place in a graveyard. Only problem is, the end I have written takes place in a shopping mall and an abandoned factory - there are no graveyards around these two areas.

MB: Who cares? Just show the snipers running from the factory, edit in a bunch of jump cuts, pans, wipes, and slow motion, and then have the two snipers appear in a graveyard. It's cool - and trust me, the audience will be so wowed by your editing prowess they won't even question the graveyard. Plus it'll look awesome, and just think of the deep symbology of it all.

DL: Excellent, just what I wanted to hear! Okay, so for my final scene, I need a way for the bad guy to lead the good guy into a cool room for a final showdown. How can I do this?

MB: Blood.

DL: Well, it would have to be a lot of blood; the hallways we are using are pretty long.

MB: Do you know how much blood the human body can lose before they die?

DL: No.

MB: Neither do I, and neither does the audience. Trust me, it's a lot. So, have the bad guy get shot, and then have him run and stumble all the way to the coolest room of the location leaving a trail of blood so the good guy can follow. So what is the coolest room you can think of?

DL: Well...

MB: No prob Danny, listen. Have the last fight scene take place in the laundry room with pillows and fluorescent lights. This way, you can have the two guys shoot at each other hitting a bunch of pillows and then you can have feathers falling from the sky. Secondly, as the two guys are shooting at each other, make sure to show the fluorescent bulbs exploding for no reason, and have the light fixtures fall causing a shower of sparks to blur out in the back ground. The sparks coupled with the feathers, along with bullet casings and blood should make for a really kick ass sequence.

DL: Wow, that sounds awesome! I was also thinking of adding a greenish Matrix-like colored filter for this sequence.

MB: Sure, why not?

DL: Okay, so I also need more emotion. So during the last fight sequences, I want the audience to feel bad for the bad guys when they die - you know, because they're human too.

MB: Easy - just make sure to use slow motion and that really cheesy song you have about the mansion (remember, you already used that song when a good guy dies so the audience will know the song is used to trigger emotion), and also make sure to show one of the bad guy's girlfriend look really sad when he dies even though she knows he is an evil murderous bastard.

DL: Oh man, this is gonna be good. Any last minute pointers?

MB: Look, Danny, just have fun man! No matter what, just make sure the film entertains, the rest be damned. All to often nowadays action movie directors are afraid too just let it all go and have a rip-roaring good time. As long as the film looks slick, is cool as hell, feels expensive and bombastic, and IS FUN, nothing else matters. Sometimes it's cool for the audience to just turn of their brains, sit back and enjoy a stupid action film.

DL: You got that right! All right Mike, thanks for the pointers, I better get started. Oh hey, do you know Steven Segal's phone number? I need him to be an executive producer.

MB: Sure, it's...

When big-league triad boss Tiger Duen is arrested and put on trial, a team of young Interpol agents from around the globe (as well as a couple of local rookies) are assigned to give testimonies for the case. On its way to the courthouse, the convoy transporting Tiger is attacked by a well equipped terrorist team and Tiger escapes at the cost of numerous cop's lives. Seeing as how they witnessed the ambush, the Interpol team are keen to try and track the men responsible but the local authorities don't want them involved so they are placed in the care of veteran cop, Kong Long (Hung). As the case unfolds, it turns out that the gang are made up of international terrorists known to Long but due to personal issues, he is reluctant to get involved. However, as the body count rises and the Interpol agents continue to harass Long, he decides to strap on his guns for one last time and lead his newly assembled team into the thick of the action.

'Dragon Squad' is one of those bizarrely concocted films that attempts to target both Eastern and Western audiences by utilising languages, stars and a crew from both sides of the globe. In the past, this combination has normally proven to be a recipe for disaster and sadly, 'Dragon Squad' is not the film to buck that trend. On this occasion, most of the angry finger pointing and filthy stares can clearly be aimed towards director Daniel Lee who is the main culprit responsible for spoiling the film's real potential. First and foremost, this is due to his awful approach towards shooting and editing techniques that range from the shaky handheld camera to an over reliance on the supposedly stylish black and white slow motion shots. Used in moderation, these effects can give a movie an edge but Lee never allows the camera to stay still long enough for the audience to settle in and the overall look of the film is nothing but a distraction from the very beginning. As if this wasn't bad enough though, Lee also spoils the films quintessential gunplay sequences by concentrating on close ups of the actor's faces rather than show where the bullets are flying. This might be okay if the scenes were short lived but in this world it would appear that no one is able to shoot straight and the action drags on for long periods of time so it ultimately becomes tiresome.

However, we can't let Mr. Lee suffer alone on this one as the assembled cast of actors must also shield some of the blame. In particular, I'm going to single out Vanness Wu here (and at the same time, face the wrath of a thousand screaming teenage girls) as he truly is a terrible choice for the leading hero. Beyond his pretty boy looks and grasp of the English language, the man brings absolutely nothing to the acting arena and his line delivery is so bad that even an extra on 'Baywatch' would be blushing. Fans of Wu will be pleased to hear he is not alone though as every single one of the leading characters manages to put in a bland and totally uninspiring performance whilst even the supposedly established Western star, Michael Biehn, looks nothing but old and tired throughout. The award for "worst lines" though must surely be given to Li Bing Bing and Xia Yu for their cringe inducing romantic banter that is nothing but unintentionally amusing and if the filmmakers expect the audience to buy this forced dialogue, they are kidding themselves. Talking of which, the script and storyline cannot sneak by unmentioned here as not only is it heavily clichéd but it also opts to give every single character a background that is littered with plight (brother killed in action, mother shot by criminals etc etc) and this removes any hope of realism that the film ever possessed.

Okay, now here is the really strange and nonsensical part of my entire analysis of this film that will have you all scratching your heads - there is still something about 'Dragon Squad' that made me enjoy it! Call me crazy or just a desperate action junkie but somehow I still managed to come away from this train wreck of a film thinking to myself "well, it wasn't all that bad" so now I have to try and justify that. My first reasoning is a simple one and that is the presence of the legendary Sammo Hung who really can do no wrong in my eyes. This year, with the aid of this film and 'Sha Po Lang', Hung really has returned with a vengeance and proven once again that he can still cut the mustard in both the action and acting departments. Alongside him, credit must also be given to Huang Sheng Yi for her brief yet moving appearance and the excellent Maggie Q who, despite a distinct lack of actual lines to deliver, is probably one of the most convincing characters in the entire film. It also has to be said that Chin Kar Lok does do an admirable job with the action (even if the camera angles do manage to spoil it) and the knife duel between Sammo and Huh Joon-Ho along with some of the slickly produced gunplay proves this.

In summary, I feel I can't give 'Dragon Squad' the complete thumbs down as even though it is a heavily flawed production, it is one of those films that could easily pass for a guilty pleasure. Whether or not you should take a chance on it depends on your tolerance for motion sickness inducing camera angles and pop stars pretending to be actors. Or in simpler terms, if its cheap then get it but if 'Sha Po Lang' is available, then opt for that instead.