Grade: B-

Verdict: Charging tiger, heathen dragon.

Details: Starring Jet Li and Bridget Fonda. Directed by Chris Nahon. Rated R for strong violence, profanity, some sexuality and drug content. One hour, 38 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: Ang Lee turns martial arts into a visual tone poem. Jackie Chan douses it with humor. And Jet Li? He just kicks butt.

With Paris as his personal playground, Li's latest action flick, "Kiss of the Dragon," makes mincemeat of the City of Light. He trashes a floating restaurant on the Seine. A fancy-schmancy hotel gets pummeled. And a city police station hasn't seen this much terror since Arnold Schwarzenegger donned "Terminator" leather.

"Kiss" is one violent blast of action after another. When fists aren't furiously flying, bullets are. Lots of 'em. Innocent bystanders appear in this film at their own peril. Bombs go off. Chopsticks land in some poor boob's throat. Just try keeping an accurate body count.

If you dig this kind of movie, you're gonna love it. It's smartly edited, with sometimes breathtaking carnage.

Li's flick is one persistent, mesmerizing visual flurry. It packs much more punch than his popular "Romeo Must Die," even though the overly melodramatic plot of "Kiss" is about half as involving as that earlier box-office wonder.

In "Kiss," Li plays a Chinese supercop sent to Paris to help out in an international drug case. But the French police don't really want his help. That's because they're evil. As in foaming-at-the-mouth evil.

It's no giveaway to tell you that the lead Paris cop--Jean-Pierre Richard (played by Tcheky Karyo of "The Patriot" )--is the flick's devilish culprit. You realize that the instant Li meets him in the kitchen of that fancy hotel. At that moment, Richard is whipping some poor dude's face to a bloody pulp.

The plush digs are the site of the film's first brawl, instigated when surveillance of a drug lord suddenly turns brutally bloody. Suffice it to say that the French are out to pin everything on Li as a renegade cop.

He then goes underground in Paris and is constantly chased by Richard's law enforcement brutes. On the lam, Li meets a prostitute with a heart of gold (Bridget Fonda), who just happens to be Richard's moll.

Her story fuels much of the movie's melodrama. Richard, you see, is keeping her hooked on drugs and is holding her young daughter hostage. Why? Well, that's never really made clear.

Actually, there's not a whole lot about this movie's story that's clear. You can wonder all day about why nobody in the French government seems to be concerned that, while the cops are chasing Li, plenty of bystanders are winding up dead meat.

Wondering those kinds of things isn't the point. What matters here is the violence. The perceived mystery. The dramatics in the moment just before those chopsticks get thrust into that guy's throat.

Moments like that made an early screening audience gasp. They squirmed, knowing that many of the brawls would end with some weird, way-out exhibition of carnage.

It may not be great moviemaking, but it sure keeps your eyes glued to the screen.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service