This is another action-packed movie starring Jackie Chan, where he plays expert mechanic Chan Foh To who runs a small business in Hong Kong with his father and two sisters. He also helps the police weed out cars that were illegally upgraded, including one driven by street racer Warner Krugerman (Thorsten Nickel). After escaping jail, Krugerman seeks revenge on Foh by trashing his business and kidnapping his sisters, betting to race with Foh.

The acting was OK and the movie features an all-star cast, including cameo appearances by Coren Yuen, Collin Chau, Fui-On Shing and Kar-Lok Chin. Anita Yuen plays a great leading lady opposite Jackie Chan and Chan himself did some of his wildest and adrenaline-pumping martial arts moves, taking on one bad guy after the other. The most wild, and what I thought overkill, action scene is when Krugerman and his goons literally upends Foh's business while he and his father and sisters are caught in the mayhem. Lots of action follow afterward, including a long and somewhat drawn-out race car scenes.

There a little chemistry between Chan and Yuen, but it wasn't elaborated upon much. There are some drama here and there about Chan struggles in trying to overcoming the odds in defeating the villain and getting his sisters back.

Despite much of the exciting action sequences, overall, there isn't much of a suspenseful plot in the film and the story is somewhat predictable.

Grade C+

An atypical Jackie Chan production in that it features substantially less of the martial arts and comedy that we have come to expect from the Chinese star. Instead this feels like more of a Stallone film, as a sports mechanic must prove himself against a criminal on the track in a life or death race to the finish. The production is a lot more serious than most Chan movies and the comedy is kept to a bare minimum, so consequently some scenes do drag and appear a little dry.

Another change is that for the fight scenes, Chan mainly uses a double rather than fighting himself. The reason being that due to injuries he was unable to do the required moves. Although this does detract from the realism of the production it certainly doesn't detract from the realism of the fights, which are as fast and frenetic as usual. My favourite occurs when Jackie goes mad with a sledgehammer in a pinball arcade, fighting through and on top of the machines and acrobatics. The finale of this sequence involves a huge cascade of metal ball bearings which makes for a nice spectacle.

Unfortunately the few other fight sequences ring a little false, and some are filmed in some rubbish artistic slow-motion so you can't see what the heck is going on. Being a film primarily about fast cars, there are the requisite number of passable car chases, the best occurring at the finale where lots of vehicles crash, explode and fly through the air in style. Also watch out for a moment where Jackie gets a rude awakening after his bedroom is hoisted into the air with a crane! Only in Hong Kong. The acting from Chan and his co-star Anita Yuen is strong but less so from the other cast members, particularly Thorsten Nickel as the laughable European bad guy Cougar, although this may be a result of the English dubbing rather than a problem with the actor himself.

Sadly the lack of comedy, decent Chan martial arts and the sudden seriousness (a bloody shoot-out is fairly decent but doesn't sit well within the film's 'family' template) with dollops of morality and sentimentalising make this one of the star's less entertaining productions. For slicker and generally better films check out either RUMBLE IN THE BRONX or FIRST STRIKE from the same period.

This is one of the only pre-Hollywood flicks with Jackie that I've seen, so forgive me if I comment on anything that is a staple of them. Whilst offering absolutely nothing new to the genre, this does manage to, in spite of some rather abusive use of slow-motion, a lot of really cool and, at times surprising, action. As is Chan's usual style, props are used, and there is a general comedic tone to the well-choreographed martial arts sequences. The plot is fine. I can't say I got into it all that much, perhaps because I'm just not that big on looking at cars driving. Even if they do go by fast and make that vroom-noise. It does not appeal that much to me. I'm not a race-ist, though. OK, granted, that was a terrible pun. I'm giving myself a time-out. For anyone still reading this, however... with a couple of questionable angles and edits being all that stand out to the way this is shot and cut together, this simply does not have a lot to offer other than the shoot-outs, chases, and of course, especially, fights. This is in at least two languages, but all of it is subtitled. Well, the version I saw, anyway. There is violence in this. I recommend this to fans of the star. 6/10