Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

liam_donnaz The great tragedy of this film is that of Brandon Lee. While obviously this was t his last film, I feel this is the one that really sold everyone on what he could do, with the crow selling on how good he could do it. This movie is not without its faults, I'm not denying that, but Lee is undoubtedly one of the strongest parts. This might sound borderline blasphemous to say and I know I'm probably looking at it from a different outlook, but I think the fight scenes in Rapid Fire are as good as, if not better, than some of his father's. There's a genuine sense of energy and charisma to them and Lee makes it look easy. Every fight is well shot and directed (Dwight Little is a very underrated director and his style fits perfectly with this film), the action and sets allow for many creative outcomes and in a word, it just looks cool.I would be remiss if I didn't mention Powers Boothe in this movie. He's awesome, and always was, be he hero or villain. He plays the grizzled Dirty Harry cop perfectly and looks as comfortable with a shotgun as he does with a doughnut.I highly recommend this movie, if for nothing else than the fight scenes.

Leofwine_draca A well-made, well-executed action thriller which has more than enough violence, shooting, and explosions for the average male movie fan. While the plot may be a clichéd and familiar one, along with the characters and the senseless sentimentalising (they even throw in a couple of flashbacks), a better cast than usual makes this film more enjoyable than most and the extended action scenes are slick and never less than exciting.There are plenty of amazing stunts, car crashes, and shoot-outs to keep the casual viewer occupied, but this film really comes into its own with the hand-to-hand combat scenes involving Lee and various opponents. These are well-shot and choreographed (by Lee himself), fast moving but not so fast that you can't see what's happening. Weapons, poles, knives, guns, motorbikes, and even fridge doors are brought into play during this film's course. The timing is just right. The fights are all in varied locations, ranging from the typical (office, factory) to the unusual (kitchen, train track).As for the acting, well, it's not brilliant but it'll pass. The best of the bunch is Powers Boothe, who is pretty good as a sympathetic cop (love that scene where he takes out a speeding car). Brandon Lee is okay as the hero, but still wooden, even if he is less wooden than pals Lundgren or Van Damme. The actors playing the bad guys are wonderfully evil in an over the top way. The little bearded Chinese guy from DIE HARD, Al Leong, turns up as a chief villain and has an excellent martial arts battle with our hero at the end. If you're a fan of B action movies, then you're in for a treat with this one, as rarely are they as well polished as this is (check out any of Chuck Norris' movies if you want a clear example). When a film has more action and excitement than plot, you know you're on to a good thing, so check it out!

Paul Andrews Rapid Fire starts in Los Angeles where Chinese student Jake Lo (Brandon Lee) is invited to a fun raising party in aid of helping those in his own country, while at the party a drug trafficker named Carl Chang (Michael Paul Chan) is murdered by Californian drug lord & mobster Antonio Serrano (Nick Mancuso) which Jake is witness to. Jake manages to survive Serrano's attempts to kill him at the party & is placed in protective custody as the only living eye-witness, various Government agencies have been after Serrano for years & it is felt that Jake's testimony could put him away for life but after being handed over to the FED's in Chicago another attempt on his life is made but again using his wits & martial art skills Jake manages to survive. Unable to trust anyone & with nowhere to go a cop named Mace Ryan (Powers Boothe) manages to convince Jake to trust him. Ryan has been after Serrano for ten years & sees Jake as the key to nailing him & together they team up to being Serrano down & those who grow & supply the heroin...Directed by Dwight H. Little this incredibly formulaic action thriller is perhaps most notable for featuring Brandon Lee the ill fated son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee in his final completed film as he would be accidentally killed while shooting his next film The Crow (1993), to be honest Rapid Fire is completely unremarkable in every aspect & while it's not terrible it's pretty forgettable & far from special. Rapid Fire just feels like it has been thrown together using every action thriller cliché going, the fish out of water hero, betrayal, one good honest cop willing to do what's right while those around him are corrupt, an American mobster, drug deals gone bad, Chinese gangsters & lots of men in grey suits who walk around trying to look tough. The whole script feels like it has been cobbled together trying to use just about every action thriller cliché & stereotype that it all became a bit of a blur & it was all too familiar. On it's own the familiarity wouldn't have been so bad if the action made up for it but even this is routine & predictable. The dialogue is pretty bland, the bland character's do little to life Rapid Fire above average either, there are many better action films out there with even the generic sounding title Rapid Fire not inspiring much interest. The script does try to inject a little human tragedy & give it's main character a little bit of background as the massacre in Tienanmen Square is featured but this angle is quickly dropped as is Lee's quest to find out the truth about his dead father.I suppose the biggest disappointment with Rapid Fire was that the action scenes are so dull, virtually every one is not much more than people shooting at each other & no-one seems able to hit Brandon Lee obviously even though they are a few feet away. When Brandon Lee does get to show off his martial art skills the film livens up a bit but they aren't used enough & over too quickly. There's not much other action, a car blow's up, a truck overturns & there's a fire at the end but not much else. The best sequence is at the end as Brandon Lee fights the Chinese drug lord on train tracks which leads to an obvious death for the bad guy but it's as good as the film gets really. The film looks alright but has no great visual style or substance.With a supposed budget of about $10,000,000 this has decent production values but even back then that wasn't a lot of money for a big action flick. The acting is alright, Brandon Lee is watchable enough while Powers Boothe doesn't seem that interested.Rapid Fire is as routine & forgettable a 90's action thriller as there is, Rapid Fire is the type of film that you think you have seen before & you definitely have except with different actor's as there really isn't an original moment in the entire 95 minute duration.

StrayButlerReturns Designed and constructed as nothing more than a kick-'em-up action vehicle for Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee), Rapid Fire is satisfying patchwork genre film-making. It's a highly entertaining, albeit painfully generic pastiche of Mafioso politics, crooked FBI machinations, perpetual mayhem and an array of awesome action sequences. No elements are incorporated into Rapid Fire to hoist it above the territory of the strictly ordinary, but it remains fulfilling as a mindless action flick.The plot, naturally, has a clichéd ring to it: in a typically contrived way, Jake Lo (Lee) witnesses a mob execution. Jake agrees to testify against the Big Powerful Bad Guy No-One Has The Guts To Mess With, and the FBI places him in the witness protection program. Since it's an unwritten law in the world of action flicks, this witness protection program proves rife with corruption, and Jake - once framed by the FBI - is forced to take matters into his own hands. On the run from the law and caught in the middle of a battle between two feuding drug lords, the Jake is faced with only one way to clear his name: team up with a renegade cop (Boothe). Nothing new here, folks.Alan McElroy's screenplay (from a plot conceived by himself and Cindy Cirile) seems culled from about 15 television movies concerning witness relocation, unjustly-accused heroes, and cops so devious it's impossible to tell who to root for. The plot twists are all quite predictable, the love interest (in the form of a female cop played by Kate Hodge...is there any other kind?) seems rudimentary, and the villains are comprised of stock B-movie bad guy clichés. Point is, there's no narrative innovation, and characterisations are nothing unprecedented. But why watch such a motion picture on the basis of anything other than action? You shouldn't. Rapid Fire is an action movie; plain and simple. Sure, the world already has enough action movies, but Rapid Fire manages to do something that other action movies failed to achieve: showcase the amazing fighting skills and general agility of Bruce Lee's son. The film never breaks out of the B-movie mould, but Brandon Lee (who helped choreograph the fighting) is given multiple action scenes to work with, ensuring the movie is worth sitting through despite the recycled plot and characters.As for Brandon Lee, he's not as wooden as one might expect. It was to his advantage that his acting didn't suffer from the exasperating eccentricities of his action star peers - such as Steven Seagal's egocentric mumbling or the preening style of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Or, for that matter, he wasn't marred by any of their accents either. Lee could act; he emitted a charming screen presence of good looks and genuine cool. His fisticuffs are fluid and exhilarating, and boast an inventiveness rarely witnessed outside of Hong Kong kung-fu cinema - not only does Lee use his hands and feet as lethal weapons, but he also defends himself by improvising with nearby objects. Lee's sudden death (due to an on-set accident during production of his next movie, The Crow) is a true tragedy - the young lad had a promising career ahead of him. As for the rest of the cast, there's a solid, if routine performance courtesy of Powers Boothe playing the grizzled, single-track cop, in addition to Nick Mancuso who's passable as the villain, and Kate Hodge who's likable but nothing special as the love interest. Al Leong makes a brief appearance to battle Lee at one stage, too. During the '80s, Leong's played background henchmen in several action films (like Die Hard and Action Jackson), and it's terrific to see him here.As far as standard, mindless cookie-cutter action movies (with little redeeming values) go, you could certainly do far worse than Rapid Fire, though that's hardly a ringing endorsement. Those who enjoy balls-to-the-wall action movies will find enough to enjoy within these fast-paced 90 minutes, but others need not apply.