User reviews

ROMEO MUST DIE is one of those rare films which, while not particularly good for its genre, is surprisingly good for other reasons. Most of the black characters, even the villians, are sympathetically portrayed, even though the hero is Asian. Aaliyah is wholesomely sexy and quite beautiful. Russell Wong is phenomenal is a very short role. This guy has the looks, style, and presence of Russell Crowe. Jet Li, however, is very humane and appealing, though his character is underwritten. Most of the asian characters are shortchanged dramatically. However the white (primarily Jewish) characters are shortchanged the most. They receive the brunt of the ugly stereotyping. The kung-fu sequences are nothing special. They are too fast and too confusing to be completely effective. Though neat, the Xray effect detracted from the "realism," sort of like the old split screen and slo-mo effects of the 1960s films. Bone-crunching is far more effective; and, would someone please dispense with this "flying" nonsense? I don't want to see anything up there or the screen that is not physically possible. Special note must be made of Francoise Yip, the Female bike / fighter. If Ms. Yip did all her own stunts, she's not only stunningly beautiful, she is also awesome. One quibble, which I feel follows a disturbing pattern in motion pictures. Though Jet Li and Aaliyah are quite obviously in love at the close of the film, they never kiss. In a film which shows two beautiful asian dances french kiss, and one bares the other's breast and kisses her erect nipple,would it have been too much to ask to have to people of different races who are obviously in love share a romantic kiss?

Let me start by saying I adore the late Aaliyah. For her first role, she did a pretty good job. She played the part well and this part was made for her. However, I enjoyed the soundtrack more than the movie itself. Not saying it was a horrible movie, it was just OK. I wish the fight scenes were more authentic. You could tell they were choreographed. When I watch a movie like this, I want it to look like people are really fighting each other. I also felt that Jet Li and Aaliyah lacked in the chemistry department. Sure, they look good together as friends and/or partners in crime, but nothing more and I mean nothing. Anything beyond that seemed forced. I actually felt the entire cast lacked in chemistry. There were a couple of twists that were unexpected and the plot was OK, but nothing to really knock your socks off. It is entertaining if nothing else is on TV, or if you just want to watch the beautiful Aaliyah in action. For me, it is a bit nostalgic for that reason. Also, I was still a teenager when this came out and this was the movie to watch at that time. Again, not the worst movie, but not the best. I will admit that I have probably watched this at least 5 times. Sometimes, I just can't say no because although it is not perfect, it is still entertaining.

Romeo Must Die is the 1st and in my opinion, the better of the two hip hop/martial arts action films directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. The movie is pretty nicely shot and slick looking and actually is really well performed by the cast. The plot is loosely based off Romeo And Juliet, but don't expect anything artsy fartsy, this is an action movie with two warring crime families(one Chinese and the other African American). Aalyah is beautiful and gives a fine performance as love interest for Jet Li. Delroy Lindo and Issiah Washington give pretty solid performances as well. Russell Wong is a cool villain and comic relief Anthony Anderson is actually funny. My problem with the movie is the crazy wire fu sequences don't really work as well here as it would in Jet Li's movies from Hong Kong. I don't think Corey Yuen's fight choreography is bad, it just is out of place and not really suited for this movie. Thankfully DMX only has a cameo here, he was top billed in the other Andrzej Bartkowiak/Jet Li collaboration Cradle 2 The Grave and he was terrible in that movie. Overall, this is a pretty decent action movie that introduced Jet Li to new audiences, but I prefer his work in China/Hong Kong to his action movies made in the United States and Europe.

"Romeo Must Die" is definetely the most violent "interpretation" of Shakespeare I`ve ever seen. Okay, interpretation is not the right word to use, but that is nevertheless what this movie at some point wants to be. I really liked Jet Li in this movie, and I`ve liked him since I first saw him in "Lethal Weapon 4" a couple of years ago. Fighting and betrayal is what "Romeo Must Die" is all about, and the fighting is very entertaining, although sometimes a bit cheesy, because some of the "Matrix-scenes", which is out of place outside the world of science-fiction. Still, "Romeo Must Die" is an actionflick you wouldn`t want to miss. It manages to be interesting enough, but the fighting is what makes it really good. 8/10

There seems to be several films in this one. A story about corruption and property deals, a story about fathers and their children, a tentative Romeo and Juliet romance and of course martial arts and guns. The actors acquit themselves well. One hoped for more of Michael Wong and less of Anthony Anderson (his constant 'Dim Sum' refrain being quite irritating) but the actors act, the plot moves and the film is enjoyable enough.

Jet Li is as usual very watchable and apart from his skill at martial arts (quick and effective but always graceful) he acts OK. His cab scene with Aaliyah is charming and funny and one wanted more of that but their relationship is underdeveloped in the script. It is a pity as Aaliyah is luminous and sassy. Her untimely death in real life was a tragedy.

Not as good as 'Kiss of the Dragon' but better than 'The One' and 'Cradle 2 the Grave' but inferior to Jet Li's Hong Kong movies.

3 February 2015. There is plenty of action in this martial arts movie along with a convoluted plot that plays out in a mirror-image of Lucky Number Slevin (2006) with Josh Harnett. The cultural Asian and Black atmosphere is rich with suspicion and the raw performances are steeped in dramatic flare. The actual martial art fighting, though seemed a bit overly manipulated and artificial, even considering the more artistic display of Crouching Tiger, Flying Dragon (2000) or the more sharp and crisp physical encounters found in Bourne Identity (2002). What makes for the above average score of this movie is Jet Li and his persona and substantive nature of the storyline.

The good of this movie was when Aaliyah was on the scene. The rest was rather senseless violence about gangs trying to out do each other. Jet Li was okay, but I don't think he's a good actor although he 's a very prolific one starring in over 60 movies. Although this was her acting debut, I think Aaliyah brought the goods to the table. She was just great as Trish. The play between Trish and Han (Jet Li) as an accidental cab driver was priceless, and the way they contrasted each other on screen with younger Trish actually in somewhat of a protective role to Han really added interesting plot twist to the story. Executive producer Joel Silver had lots of original ideas about movie making, and this one I would say is one of them. I don't go too much for the violence, but the movie was entertaining and original.

I must say right off the bat that I was very disappointed with this movie. Jet Li is one of the most amazing fighters to ever hit the silver screen, with credentials (in martial arts, not acting) that rival the late great Bruce Lee and easily surpass Jackie Chan. He can do things with his body that I can't even do in my dreams.

Having said that, I sat through this movie wondering to myself, "Why did they feel the need to CGI enhance these fight scenes?" He can do amazing things by himself! By inexplicably making him jump 30 feet in the air while kicking in 9 directions at once, they serve only to discredit his true athletic ability. And not only did they meddle with his fighting talent, but they did it so poorly. The tampered scenes are very obvious, with more visible seams than a tailor shop. Granted, the x-ray effects were a welcome change, but that was about all this movie had to offer in terms of fresh ideas.

The plot is drawn out at great lengths, with fight scenes a little too few and far between for my tastes. Also, I felt the black gangsters were over-developed, while the asian gangsters were under-developed (Russell Wong's character is barely on the screen for 10 minutes of the movie, while Isiah Washington's incessant melodrama drowns out a good portion of the flick).

I think most of the problem comes from the over-ambitious screenplay. The premise is a good one: asian mafia versus black gangsters. However, there are two roads this premise could have taken. Either A) they could have turned it into a hardcore action pic about gang violence, with lots of guns, fighting, double crossing, etc., or B) they could have made a romantic tragedy focusing on the struggles between the two lovers because of their opposite backgrounds. This movie strives desperately to do both, but the end result is that neither aspect is fully explored, leaving a mediocre-at-best storyline for the cast to work with.

So, on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd have to give this movie about a 4. It had a lot of promise, and I was hoping to see Jet Li showcased to his full potential, but it appears that his ship has yet to come.

I think this movie was overshadowed a bit by the 1996 Romeo+Juliet. For some time I associated "Romeo Must Die" with DiCaprio's face. And even when I learned it's a different movie altogether, I still thought that it's about the story of Romeo and Juliet so it can't be good. (I don't like tragedies, I think they're pointless.)

But it's actually a good action thriller. In the first half the plot seemed a bit confusing to me. I didn't get the motives of the characters. But later it unfolds more. And what's more important, I didn't find even the first half boring. Cool scenes with nice acting, thoroughly entertaining. Some fight scenes were great but there was one that looked like the cheapest computer editing. But mostly good. My favorite was the football scene. If you ever want to see american football with martial arts, well, that's there...

Not the best movie ever but it's my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet story. If it even counts as that. Probably not. Just an action movie that distantly resembles the same themes.

Anyhow, I'm going to watch it again at some point. Ok stuff. Check it out!

Have you ever felt cheated because you never got to see a movie before that includes X-ray POV footage of a person's spine being severed, a football game that turns into a Three Stooges episode, a part where a Chinese crime lord has his colleagues chained up in a refrigerated boxcar before they're murdered and dismembered with meat-cutting instruments (thankfully off-camera), and mentions that the Oakland Raiders moved again? Fear not, once you see ROMEO MUST DIE.

There isn't much else to say about how this movie's tone jumps all over the place. It's a predictable but decently engaging movie. What makes it worth renting is the presence of Aaliyah, Jet Li, and especially Delroy Lindo. There's little doubt this movie did well off the marquee value of those first two--and they're both good here, separately and together--but Lindo is a great actor and invests Isaak O'Day with a dramatic presence that insists we take him seriously.

It's a huge tragedy that Aaliyah died so young, and a great loss for the movies she would have been superb in; she saves her thin, poorly developed character from being useless and makes Trish interesting. Jet Li shows he can be tough or funny, whatever's needed at the moment, and it's nice to see an action star who seems to LIKE doing action film roles. Note: I have to agree with Roger Ebert that seeing Li doing FX-aided fight scenes was pathetic; Li's a fighting FX just by being himself, and we saw that in LETHAL WEAPON 4 and hopefully will again in the future.

For all that, this and GONE IN 60 SECONDS were the quintissential average films of 2000. As far from great as awful, both got 5 out of 10 from me.

It was four years ago on August 25 that Aaliyah was tragically taken from us and the life of another great musical talent cut short. I decided to watch Romeo Must Die with Jet Li in her memory as it has a lot of her music(Come Back in One Piece", "I Don't Wanna", "Try Again" and "Are You Feelin' Me?"), and it is one great movie that I watch over and over again. DMX was also in the movie and he joined Jet Li again in Cradle 2the Grave , another movie with great action and great music. Thanks, Aaliyah, for the music you gave us.I never get tired of watching Jet Li in action and look forward to many more movies with him.

Han Sing is being held in a Hong Kong prison when he learns of the death of his little brother and travels out to the San Francisco to find the killer. However what he finds is a supposed gang war between Chinese and Black businessmen looking to build a water front stadium. Han teams up with Trish to find the killers.

This was Jet Li's first big lead role in the US and unfortunately it's a disappointment. The story is OK but almost everything else is a letdown. First the fight scenes - where are they?! Jet Li is hugely talented but here he isn't allowed to shine - a lot of his scenes uses (very obvious) CGI, why? The CGI takes away from his own ability, put him on wires and make it look natural! Secondly, to keep the black audience, Li isn't allowed to fight any black character seriously (or kill any of them!) so most of his fights with Lindo's goons are handled for comedy effect. The only decent fights in the film are the one where Li uses Aaliyah as a weapon and of course the final showdown between Li and the Chinese lieutenant.

The second problem is that the film makers clearly didn't want to upset the black audience by having too many unsympathetic black characters in the film. For example all the Chinese mobsters are bad guys who get their fate, whereas Lindo leads the black gang but isn't a bad guy and only one of the black gang turns out to be bad, and any black person who gets killed only gets killed by another black person. This is part of the reason why Li's fights feel so muted - check out the `comedy' touch football or the fact that the fat black guy always seems to have a good line to deliver while being kicked.

This is a few steps away from the black-ploitation films of the 70's, where producers deliberately made films to get the black-dollar. I don't mind that if it creates good films. The black cast are good, Washington is good even when he's playing a cartoon character like here, Lindo is always good and even DMX is alright. The R n'B soundtrack is also great but the problem is that no one wants to upset the audience and the whole film feels like it's trying to be some sort of PC black movie. Hence the black gangsters are either comedy figures or are good people at heart, while the Chinese gangs are money grabbing murders. It also explains why Aaliyah and Li, despite having a romantic involvement, never get to kiss or anything else. I don't want to appear that this is a big deal, but to me this PC-ness ruined everything from the fights, the characters right down to the romance between Li and Aaliyah.

Li and Aaliyah are both good. Aaliyah is a surprise as I thought she'd just be another hiphop/Rn'B star making an ill-advised jump to films, but she was good. Lindo and Washington are as good as ever, but both are better than comic-book bad guy roles. The Chinese roles are never developed and only remain bad guys till the end. However the cast shouldn't matter - we should have been blown away by the action - just like in all Li's Hong Kong movies. Why did the producers get such a great martial arts actor only to waste his talents by having poor fights that rely on CGI?

Overall the film is just about enjoyable, but it's hard to watch it without seeing the wasted opportunities at every step.

Seeing Jet Li star in his first original Hollywood film is a delight, as he is arguably the most amazing martial artist in cinema right now. His skills are shown entertainingly here, and people who haven't been exposed to his earlier Hong Kong work will love it, but for experienced HK fans and people who have seen any of Li's older work would notice this dosen't even show half of his potential. First of all the camera work is atrocious. In the fight scenes, the angles are too close and there are too many cuts during them. Second, the totally unnecessary wires Li used was too obvious and frustrating. It seems as if the makers of the film didn't go with Li's skill and instead went for style over matter. This was a big mistake. If the director saw any of Li's work he would know he could handle uncut 15 minute fight scenes against 20 men with no wires or doubles. What was keeping him from doing it here? The only fight scene I really liked was the one where Li plays football for the first time and that wasn't even a real fight scene.

The plot was overdone and unnecessarily complex for a film like this. Isaiah Washington and Delroy Lindo's characters aren't that important and they take up most of the screen time without Li in it. What would have increased the film's quality MUCH more was more of Russell Wong (Vanishing Son, Prophecy II), an amazing talent who can give off electric charisma, handle the fight scenes and certainly act. It would have been a much-needed boost to the film if his mysterious character was explored more (and the end fight scene was say, five times longer?) instead of giving us 15 minute speeches by Lindo and Washington. Aaliyah is impressive in her debut but watching her while listening to her songs in the soundtrack is a bit distracting.

Overall, Romeo Must Die would be enjoyed by most but hardcore Li fans would know Li hasn't gotten his true breakthrough film yet.

This is ANOTHER gang war film, this time Black vs.Chinese Its confusing at times, as most of the people are new to this reviewer Jet Li is the star & since he is a martial art expert, there are plenty of well staged & exciting choreographed fight scenes,Exciting chases,even a romance between him & a Black actress (not sure of her name) but she is quite good. Delroy Lindo as usual excells in his role as her father, I was

not too fond of the musics score, as the lyrics were hard to understand. over all I did like the movie & give it ***. It is good entertainment & well worth a rental or cable viewing

as always

jay harris

This movie is so bad it would not be out of place on Best of the Worst

This was a pretty bad movie. Which is unfortunate because Jet Li is fantastic and whoever choreographed the action sequences screwed up - they are very muddled and not very impressive.

The story itself is not bad but is not executed well and the dialogue is pretty cheesy. You can expect a cheesy script in a lot of Hong Kong films but at least they have some spectacular action sequences to make up for the crappy story. This film could have at least had some good action but it did not.

It is not worth the time - don't bother - even on video.

Not usually a fan of this type of all-out Action movie, "Romeo Must Die" knocked me off balance when I found it to be one of the best films I have ever enjoyed. Producer Joel Silver (Who also produced "The Matrix") describes the film as an "Urban rendition of Romeo and Juliet" and although this is a very simple way of looking at the film, it's not far off the mark. Like the great Shakespeare work, there are two opposing families in this film, each looking to make big commercial gains in the world of real estate development. Caught up in their lies, greed and violence are Trish O'Day (Played by Aaliyah) and Han Sing (Played by Jet Li). The story revolves around their quickly blooming relationship and the opposing families around them.

The film boasts some serious eye candy with some of the best special effects you'll see. Luckily, this is not the only good thing going for the movie as the eye candy is wonderfully supported by some fantastic performances from the cast. In her first feature movie, Aaliyah is absolutely breath taking as Trish O'Day. Showing the kind of charm and 'x' factor that few will ever have, she alone makes this film a must see. Jet Li's performance is, as always, about his skills as a martial artist but his scripted acting continues to improve. Another stand out performance for me was that of D.B. Woodside who plays Trish O'Days brother - Colin. Although not such a major role, D.B. excels in this role. High end production values mean the film has a real style and "gloss" to it and everything fits in place and the story moves along at just the right pace. In fact, "Romeo Must Die" is a shining example of how good story telling does not need to be lost in a sea of special effects and glossy American values. Jonathon Ross describes the film as "Fast, Furious, Fun", which is definitely true, but there is more to this film that the audience can take away with them. The reason the film works is that it works on two levels - storyline and action. You can enjoy both aspects and take from them what you like. This is a brilliant film and I highly recommend it.

If you're able to sit through this more than once, I salute you. You obviously have seen something in this flick I haven't. 'Romeo Must Die' is an action movie that is strictly vanilla and there's nothing real euphoric to feel about it.

It doesn't go anywhere you haven't seen five or six times before. Jet Li's got the stuff, but his Americanized stuff has been iffy. After a wasted appearance in Lethal Weapon 4 and now this, I can only wonder what next so-so project he'll be involved in. He deserves better material. He brings his moves and some nice screen presence (ditto Aaliyah), but everything else is basically a demerit.

The story is a complete dud . Predictable at every point and there is certainly no room for brilliant acting in a cookie cutter product of this type. Delroy Lindo adds his respectability while Isaac Washington chews on the thinly written turncoat role. Worst of all the fighting pieces have no visceral energy. When they start to they're ruined by liberal sprinkles of noticeable CGI tinkering and wire work. I'm talking inhumanly jump kicking someone in mid air. Yeah that kind of silliness. It drags down the stunt choreography and the fights are likely why you bothered to see this movie in the first place.