BLACK MASK (1996)
(HAK HAP) (1996)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Hong Kong movies were standard part of cinema theatres' repertoire
in 1970s former Yugoslavia. In 1980s, like almost any non-Hollywood
films, they all but disappeared. Return of Hong Kong films to
Croatian cinemas happened in late 1990s, following the Tarantino-
inspired craze for everything related to Hong Kong. The first among
those titles was BLACK MASK, 1996 action film directed by Daniel
Lee.
Protagonist of the film is Tsui Chick (played by Jet Li), mild-
mannered geeky librarian burdened difficult and violent past. Some
time ago he was part of 701, special unit of soldiers who had had
their nerves removed in the effort to suppress pain and remorse. Tsui
Chick has rebelled against his masters, deserted and tried to find a
way to restore human emotions. Along the way he befriended Shek
(played by Ching Wan Lau), police inspector who didn't have a clue
about librarian's past. Tsui decides to help Shek when Hong Kong
drug dealers start getting killed by a gang of particularly vicious
assassins. Tsui sees that the killings are work of 701, led by evil Hung
(played by Kong Lung). He decides to confront their former
comrades and starts wearing the mask to protect his new identity,
friends, including Tracy (played by Francoise Yip), fellow librarian
who loves him.
Rather complicated plot of BLACK MASK, just like in many Hong
Kong action films, doesn't make much of a sense. One-dimensional
comic book characters also don't require much of the acting ability.
But those aren't reasons why the audience would appreciate films
like BLACK MASK. The most attractive aspect of the film is the series
of incredibly elaborate and exciting action scenes, all staged by
legendary martial arts co-ordinator Yuen Woo-ping (of MATRIX
fame). Jet Li, Hong Kong action star known for his great martial arts
talent, shows that he is able to use firearms as well as his fists and
legs. But the most entertaining scenes are those in which Jet Li's
character gets involved in hand-to-hand combat. Director Daniel Lee
shows many innovative ways to put various household appliances
and other seemingly innocent object to murderous use. BLACK
MASK, unlike Hollywood films of the same genre, doesn't shy away
from graphic displays of gore and violence. Some of those scenes
even border on perversion. The greatest problem for this film is awful
dubbing and poor editing in the version for Western markets - many
things in BLACK MASK simply don't make sense and the plot has
large holes. Thankfully, the film is relatively short and action scenes
are spectacular enough to distract audience's attention from such
shortcomings. Because of that, BLACK MASK is a solid piece of
entertainment.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Review written on August 12th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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