Kiss of the Dragon

Ten years ago a kung-fu flick as pea-brained and badly acted as Kiss of the Dragon would most certainly have starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. But nowadays Hong Kong staple Jet Li (Romeo Must Die) does the embarrassing honors himself, here as a virtuous visiting Chinese cop in Paris, framed for murder by a flagrantly crooked, preposterously evil police inspector (Tchéky Karyo), who runs a heroin ring and pimps on the side ("farmer's daughter from North Dakota" Bridget Fonda is seen here in a career nadir) with the aid of a handful of super-buff henchmen (who clearly aren't cops, but come and go as they please from police HQ). The biggest problem, however, is that Li has way too much acting on his plate and not nearly enough butt-kicking (and even when he does get to kick up his heels, the extra-bloody fight sequences are so generic as to defy description). Overproduced action trash aimed at the lowest common denominator, this is not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)