Bullet Points: China Strike Force

I can’t remember the last time I found a movie on Netflix that I had never seen before and was absolutely blown away by it. But that is exactly what happened when I checked out China Strike Force.

This movie has it all. Great characters. A solid story. And some really awesome and innovative action scenes. They even successfully manage to work some humor into the movie. The cast also has great chemistry.

Mark Dacascos’ involvement is what originally caught my attention, not to mention the fact that Coolio was in it too.

• The Premise: Two cops, Darren Tong (Aaron Kwok) and Alex Cheung (Leehom Wang) team up with sexy Interpol agent Norika (Norika Fujiwara) to take down a drug cartel that is looking to expand their business into China. Dacascos plays Tony Lau, an ambitious young man who works for his uncle, Ma Lau. The family business is organized crime, but much like Don Corleone before him, Uncle Ma wants nothing to do with the dirty drug business. Coolio plays Tony’s friend and business partner from America and the man with the plan to sneak the drugs into China, where Tony plans on distributing the drugs whether his uncle likes it or not.

• The Bad Guys: I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about one of my personal favorites, Mark Dacascos, playing the bad guy in this one. But I have to say he delivered. Just how evil does Dacascos get? He shoots a woman and her baby in the first few minutes of the film. He also worked well with Coolio, who himself did a decent job as the hot shot big mouth American looking to score big in China and making it his Gangsta’s Paradise!

• The Action: There are two really great chase scenes in the film, one involves a motorcycle that drives on top of a van, the other involves a Formula One race car.  We get to see some Dacascos kickboxing action. And the big action finale has to be seen to be believed. It was one of those scenes where I am in awe of how these scenarios are visualized and then brought to life.

If you haven’t picked up on the fact yet…  I really enjoyed China Strike Force. You can enjoy it too as it is still currently streaming on Netflix, if you are reading this six months from now or if you don’t have Netflix, track it down. I will not be surprised if I’m adding this to my ever expanding movie collection in the near future. It really is that good!

Here are a few more China Strike Force Bullet Points…

• Say Yes To The Dress: The dress Norika wears to the fashion show leaves little to the imagination. And while I pride myself on having a pretty vivid imagination, it is nice to give it some time off now and again.
• The Name Game: At first when I realized that Coolio’s name in the movie was Coolio, I thought the makers of the movie didn’t think he was a good enough actor to answer to any other name but Coolio. Or if Coolio was playing himself he was basically admitting he was a drug kingpin. (Chris Rock said O.D.B. couldn’t have committed all those crimes). But upon further review of the cast I noticed a trend of the actors and actresses sharing the same name as their characters. Norika Fujiwara is Norika. Ruby Lin is Ruby, the man who plays her father is Paul Chun, but his character is Sheriff Lin. Ken Lo plays Ken Low.

• Not That Strike Force: China Strike Force had to be a good movie, because I enjoyed it even after I was disappointed to learn it was not a movie about one of the most underrated tag teams of the 1980’s, Tito Santana and Rick Martel, touring China.