It can’t be denied that in the eighties and nineties, the action movies coming out of Hong Kong revolutionized the industry. Marrying the kinetic style of seventies grid house martial arts epics with the technological innovations and kinetic energy of the best American action movies of the era, directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam, and stars like Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat made a huge mark internationally. In the mid-nineties, and in the face of Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China, many of the biggest names from the scene found their way to America, and outside of Jackie Chan and John Woo, arguably the most successful transition was made by martial arts superstar Jet Li.
A former member of the Bejing Wushu team, Li’s arguably became the biggest martial arts movie star since Bruce Lee. Sure, Jackie Chan movies maybe made more money, but they, arguably, weren’t straight-martial arts films done in an old-school way. Jet Li movies were a different beast, with a string of hits that included the Once Upon a Time in China franchise, Fist of Legend, and many others, turning him into a legendary figure whose films started circulating around Hollywood screening rooms in the mid-nineties.
One person who sat up and noticed Li’s talents was Joel Silver, arguably the biggest producer of action films at the time. A Hong Kong action enthusiast, he produced The Matrix, which enlisted choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping to design the gravity-defying martial arts sequences. It was Yuen’s movie with Jet Li, Fist of Legend, which ended up having an outsized influence on The Matrix, and before that movie ever hit theaters, Li wound up making his North American movie debut as the antagonist in the Silver-produced Lethal Weapon 4.
As bad guy Wah Sing Ku, Li made a huge impression, with his intensity and ferocious command of martial arts making him an intimidating and even somewhat scary villain. Yet, what American audiences at the time didn’t know was that the movie had cast Li way against type, as he typically didn’t play bad guys and, in fact, was known as a laid-back, easygoing family man. With Li’s appearance in Lethal Weapon 4 having been a success, Silver, who was also basking in the afterglow of The Matrix, wasted no time crafting a star vehicle for Li, which would allow him to play a good guy more in line with the characters he played in Hong Kong action movies, and pave the way for his lucrative career as a leading man in American movies. That film was the 2000 release Romeo Must Die.
The movie would be a mash-up of two genres gaining traction at the North American box office. One would be Asian-style action flicks, and the other would be urban dramas, with hip-hop influences. Movies like Friday, Set it Off, and many others had proven lucrative—not only on the big screen but also as far as soundtracks went. It didn’t hurt that Asian action flicks had a major following in the black community, with the Wu-Tang Clan especially noteworthy in that regard.
Romeo Must Die would basically take the formula of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, where the children of two warring households fall for each other and adapt it to an action formula. Here, Li plays Po Sing, the son of a Triad Crime lord who eschews a life of crime for an honest career as a Hong Kong cop. However, he winds up in prison when he takes the wrap for his younger brother, only to escape when he learns his brother has been killed in Oakland, California. Once he makes it to the States, he teams up with Trish, the daughter of Isaac O’Day, another Oakland crime lord, in a violent rivalry with Po Sing’s father.
Trish wound up being played by Aaliyah, who was riding high on the pop charts at the time and proved to be a natural on screen. Furthering the movie’s hip-hop connection, rapped DMX, whom Silver was grooming as a future action star in his own right, would play a key supporting role, while vets Henry O and Delroy Lindo would play the duelling crime bosses.
The movie was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, the DP who’d shot Lethal Weapon 4. It would be the first in a string of similar movies he’d helm for Silver, with it followed by Exit Wounds, which would disastrously replace Li with Steven Seagal, and then Cradle 2 the Grave, which would re-team Li and DMX.
Granted, the plot for Romeo Must Die is thin. Notably, any hint of romance between Li and Aaliyah’s characters is downplayed, with a kissing scene having been axed at the eleventh hour, making the title a bit of a head-scratcher. Yet, it was jam-packed with action set pieces that would marry Li’s Hong Kong style with the elevated Matrix aesthetic, which divided action movie fans when it came out. Corey Yuen, who had directed several of Li’s best Hong Kong movies, served as fight choreographer, and some of the action sequences were pretty cool – if over-edited. The first big one, where Li’s character breaks out of prison, is the best of the bunch, with it utilizing a bone-breaking X-ray technique lifted from the Sonny Chiba grindhouse classic, The Street Fighter. However, many fans felt that way too much wirework was being used. This is especially notable anytime one of the heroes performs a physically impossible movie, such as a ludicrous bit in an early fight when Russell Wong manages to do a 180-degree flip – mid-air – while simultaneously attacking two opponents.
The fact is, Li’s prowess was so impressive that he didn’t need wirework to impress audiences, and his follow-up, Kiss of the Dragon, which Luc Besson produced, would make the fact that no wirework was used a key part of their marketing. Even still, audiences didn’t seem to mind, with Romeo Must Die being a significant box office hit. It made close to $100 million worldwide on a $20 million budget and happened to come out during the DVD boom, selling millions of units. It didn’t hurt that Aaliyah’s single from the soundtrack, “Try Again”, was a major hit.
Tragically, two main cast members would die prematurely. Aaliyah, whose career as an actress was on the upswing, died just over a year after the movie came out in a tragic plane crash. DMX, who made a few successful action flicks in the wake of Romeo Must Die, would also die young, at only 50 years old, after a long battle with drug addiction. Nowadays, Romeo Must Die remains something of a cult hit. However, the obvious Vancouver locations, where it doubles (badly) for Oakland, and the over-use of Wire-fu make it more of a cheesy, “so bad it’s good” hit than one of Li’s indisputable classics. However, it did its job, with Li spending much of the 2000s riding a big wave of popularity in North America and Asia, with him still a superstar, even if he’s largely pulled back from making movies in recent years.
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