Summer Movies: "Black Mask" by ZACK NGUYEN Tuesday, May 18, 1999 Since the success of Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx," "SuperCop" and "Mr. Nice Guy," Hong Kong cinema has found an open door to American audiences. This has led to several Hong Kong action stars importing their films to America, including Chow Yun-Fat ("The Replacement Killers" and "The Corruptor") and now Jet-Li, who stars in his latest film, "Black Mask." Most Americans will arrive at "Black Mask" hoping to see martial arts demonstrated with the rhythmic, balletic grace of a Jackie Chan film. However, what they will get is a horrifically violent, warmed-over American tough-guy movie done with a lot less flair, direction, and pizzazz than the horrifically violent, warmed over American tough-guy movies they are used to seeing. In other words, you can find this same basic movie, done with a bigger budget and neater explosions, at your local video store.

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Even the martial arts are disappointing, mainly because too often the movie displays its violence by other means. The filmmakers would much rather provide blasting machine guns, immense explosions, stacks of grotesque dead bodies, and a little sexual perversion thrown in for good measure. Most of us can get that every night on cable. "Black Mask's" creators also waste our time with a plot, which, from what I can tell, has never been the strong suit of kung-fu films. Still, the characters are never truly developed, as this movie's 90 minutes are most often devoted to the exhibition of acts of murder and destruction . Because the characters in question are superhuman, most of the hand-to-hand combat is enhanced with the use of cables to hurl Jet-Li and others back and forth across the screen. You can actually make out the cable in a few of the scenes, which is unforgivable in this day and age of film making. The obvious use of staged techniques and spiffy camera angles really ruin the effect. You won't find yourself mouth-agape during the kung-fu sequences very often, because you will be wondering if it is Jet-Li or the trick photography. The violence is constant and grotesque. The body count in this movie is amazingly high, but the film doesn't invite you to care one way or the other. The violence is shocking for a moment, and then quickly forgotten as another building blows up or someone's face gets peeled off by acid. A quality filmmaker such as Steven Spielberg grabs you by the lapel and, by golly, forces you to care when his characters die. In "Black Mask", people you've hardly met drop off like flies, and further carnage becomes merely gratuitous. For those who want a quick run-down of the story, it involves a special unit of the Hong Kong police force formed to stop drug dealers. Group 701, as it is called, is engineered to be superhuman and immune to physical pain. They get double-crossed by the government (surprise, surprise) and are now killing drug dealers and running the Hong Kong police force ragged. Somehow, we learn halfway through the movie that the medical techniques used to make 701's superhumans will kill them within a year. But, as it turns out, the Hong Kong government has the antidote (surprise, surprise, again). Why did the Hong Kong government behave in such a barbaric fashion? This question is hardly considered at all. It is merely understood that the forces of law and order are evil because they are evil, and therefore EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG. To American audiences, turning the traditional guardians of freedom into the Bad Guys is done so often that it has become the norm rather than the exception. Anyway, Jet-Li has escaped the clutches of the renegade 701's and is living quietly as a librarian. But then he finds out what the 701's are up to and begins to fight his former friends with the help of a surly, hard-nosed cop who likes to bust heads. Sound familiar? To give credit where credit is due, Jet-Li is a decent actor, and could doubtless find a niche in the American market, much as his comrade-in-celluloid Jackie Chan has. His character had possibilities that no one bothered to develop. But then, who comes to see "Black Mask" for the Academy-Award caliber acting? Ultimately, the acting in this film may be better than "Mr. Nice Guy," but it isn't nearly as much fun to watch.

Send your comments to Coffee Shop Times columnist Zack Nguyen.