Wushu kung-fu champion/superstar "Vincent" Zhao Wen-Zhuo (Jet Li's THE LEGEND, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA IV-V) plays the lead to deliver his combat specialties under the choreography of legendary action director "Tony" Ching Siu-Tung who provided lots of knockout fights that will appeal to fans of Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen.

Vincent Zhao plays Arthur Dong, a Chinese military agent who gets transferred to Lavernia (a fictional Eastern-European country) as a punishment for disobeying orders on a previous mission. His new assignment is to track down Japanese criminal, Keizo Mishima (Andrew Lin- NAKED WEAPON) who's wanted for multiple murders and has a plan to wreck havoc around the country with his group of terrorists. During his mission, Arthur accidentally runs into his ex-girlfriend (Shu Qi- THE TRANSPORTER) and try to settle their differences while avoiding the corruption that surrounds them.

The movie takes off like PASSENGER 57 and THE DELTA FORCE where a group of terrorists (led by Xiong Xin-Xin- ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA II-VI, action director of THE MUSKETEER) hijack an airplane filled with groups of military forces and other passengers. Arthur and his partner are sent in to stop the terrorists but his partner is gunned down during the process. This fuses rage in Arthur and he uses his own brand of justice to save the hostages. As for Xiong Xin-Xin, he limits his martial arts when fighting Vincent Zhao with only a few knee attacks while Vincent gets the upper hand to pull off elbow attacks, angle kicks, spinning kicks and rapid-fire punches.

The movie would be no more than just another 9/11 influenced flick(even though it was "originally" made before the tragic incident) for people to sleep on if not for Tony Ching's expert choreography and Vincent Zhao's kung-fu skills. The recycled plot and solid acting may hurt the film but viewers will get a kick out of the kung-fu fights that saves this movie from being trashed completely.

My downfall with the film were the fights going from kung-fu to wire-fu. The combination of the two in this kind of modern flick doesn't fit in with the material properly. The fights are also thrown in for the wrong reasons like the scene where Arthur's new partner giving him a "sneaky" welcome greeting in the subway. His partner taps him on the shoulder from behind and Arthur reacts by grabbing his hand to counter him. The two would then attack each other with punches and flying kicks before they recognize each other. That's a little unrealistic in my book. The writing in the film was also limited because it basically relied on the same old thing with kung-fu thrown into the mix. Our hero starts off taking out terrorist, then he travels to another country for a new mission and encounters a deja vu.

Overall, the fights are worth watching because they all delivered something different from a MATRIX-incarnated subway battle, a nicely choreographed bathroom brawl, a rooftop shootout & kung-fu fight to the ultimate fight finale set inside a large building. During the finale, Tony Ching used one of his greater strengths and trademarks in fight choreography by crafting a stylized sword fight that will appeal to fans of swordplay fantasy classics like HERO, Jet Li's LEGEND OF THE SWORDSMAN (aka SWORDSMAN II), DUEL TO THE DEATH and BUTTERFLY & SWORD.

The physically talented Vincent Zhao delivers enough fight moves to impress Jet Li and make him a future action sensation. Unlike some actors, Vincent can deliver the goods as a brave hero (ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA IV-V, Tsui Hark's THE BLADE) and a villain (THE LEGEND) with his acting talent and kung-fu. Andrew Lin did a good job with his performance as the villainous Mishima with his straightforward characteristics, facial expressions and sadistic attitude. He's not a top martial artist but the strength in his acting performance could possibly make him a worthy film star in his own right.

The "real" star of this movie was Tony Ching because he incorporated lots of basic kung-fu and grappling moves to make the movie a great stand out as an action flick. He also proves that even in a bad movie, he won't go down without a good fight. His work in HERO and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS should be enough proof to show international audiences what he's capable of when it comes to action. Hopefully, this will open the doors for him to work in future Hollywood projects.

The American release of this film was given some misleading advertisement. It was given the title, ANOTHER MELTDOWN as a way to pass it off as a sequel to the Jet Li movie, MELTDOWN (also distributed by CTHE and was originally released in Asia as HIGH RISK). The two films are unrelated and was probably given this title due to the acts of terrorism in both films. CTHE also made other misleading moves on this film where the DVD cover features Vincent Zhao posing like Bruce Lee with three scratches on his chest. This is coincidence that the ones responsible had ENTER THE DRAGON in mind. They also printed Andrew Lin's (the film's main villain) name above Vincent Zhao's picture.

I wouldn't consider ANOTHER MELTDOWN to be classic material from a storytelling viewpoint but I definitely recommend that people to check it out on DVD to witness the kung-fu magic of Vincent Zhao and Tony Ching.