Romeo must die - 2000

Well, I liked every scene with Jet Li, but everything else was barely watchable. I mean, not only it hasn't got a surprising finale, but one gets to a point where it actually doesn't matter all that much. There are so many gangs in one city it's just a matter of what door you should knock at. There's black-mob, with boss Isaac O'Day (Delroy Lindo) and his 'second in command' Mac (Isaiah Washington) who would have really surprised me had he been for real the faithful, loyal servant/friend Isaac thought he was. There's Chinese-mob, with boss Chu (I think, that's what I understood at least) who I didn't like a bit, the way he talked and how he looked and acted and everything. His second is Kai (Russell Wong) who does for him everything that needs to be done (just like Mac...) and he also should protect Chu's son Po. But it turns out he doesn't.
Anyway, apparently there are other Chinese families sharing the territory, and white people in for a big, huge business of some kind that requires both O'Day and Chu to sell him a big part of territory, I think the white guy wants to build something over it all, I don't know.
Anyway, he's willing to pay a lot of money if Chu and O'Day can deliver. O'Day has Mac handle all things, trusting him completely... yeah, right, good move, and in the end he acted all surprised at the 'methods' that Mac used.
Anyway, it's nothing special, nothing new, nothing actually of any interest at all, but there's more. That's basically the background.
The main story is that Chu's son Po is found dead, murdered. His brother Han (Jet Li ♥︎ )learns of this while in prison. He's a good guy, of course, he's our hero :-D but he had accepted to go to prison to protect his father, who very happily accepted this sacrifice and went to America with Han's younger brother. Now Han breaks out of prison in his own lovely-funny style and comes to America to find Po's murderer. He meets Trish (Aaliyah), O'Day's daughter, and asks her help hoping she can talk to her brother (D. B. Woodside) and discover something, but she doesn't get the chance to do that because Colin is killed too. It's not that big surprise that Po was killed by Chinese people (Han's surprised, I'm not) and more specifically by Kai under Chu's orders. Han takes care of Kai then he lets his father kill himself.
Another not-surprise (again, O'Day's very much surprised, I'm not) was that Mac was behind Colin's death, and here the only little surprise: Mac had Trish prisoner to gain power over O'Day but when O'Day throws himself at him Mac shoots him (we're not sure he'll make it, but probably he will) and Han doesn't arrive in time to save her, on the contrary when Han confronts Mac it's Trish that saves Han by shooting Mac dead. Nice, she avenged her brother and he avenged his. This is the story.
The 'Romeo' in the title is caused by Han and Trish's friendship, although it never becomes a love story. They like each other and spend time together (mainly about the investigation, though) and their families are sort of enemies. Mac is the one who calls him Romeo when he's about to shoot Han, right before Trish shoots him. The title though is not "completely justified" because yes, they like each other, they care, but they also share a personal tragedy and the hate towards their family's business, so it 'could' be just that. There's nothing that proves they have romantic feelings. Well, the way they look at each other smiling, yes, but that's it. I can't help thinking that the same story between two Americans would have been filmed quite differently. Anyway, I liked Trish and I love Jet Li, always, he's just so cute and sweet and cool. I love every scene with the two of them together - not just when he 'uses' Trish to hit a girl that's trying to kill them  because he 'can't hit a girl' :lol: but all of them, and when they dance :-) I thought it would have been weird or embarrassing, but it was nice, she was nice and his smiles were so sweet and adorable :-)



ITA Romeo deve morire