- Overview
College student Jake Lo is pursued by smugglers, mobsters and crooked federal agents after he witnesses a murder by a Mafia kingpin.
- Release Date
21 August 1992
- DirectingDwight H. Little
- Budget
$10,000,000.00
- Revenue
$14,356,479.00
- Stars
Videos
User Reviews
See moreReb_Brown
23 June 2021
This ranks alongside **KING OF NEW YORK** as a spiritual not-quite-sequel to **YEAR OF THE DRAGON**. Let's put a few of the same characters in Chicago, with Raymond J. Barry in essentially the same role (though now even more overtly crooked and with the FBI) and swap out that Thai drug baron John Lone visited with Tzi Ma and now throw in Bruce Lee's son into the mix. Bring in horror director Dwight H. Little (fresh off his other successful action outing **MARKED FOR DEATH**) and see what we get? Well, the results are a bit of a mixed bag for sure. While the action sequences are largely okay, the plot doesn't really throw us any surprises. The romance between Brandon and a female police officer falls flat on its face and the surrogate father-son dynamic he has with grizzled cop Powers Boothe feels similarly forced and awkward. Also, why is a big Chinese drug shipment being brought in via the Port of Chicago when anywhere on the West Coast would be 1000x more convenient? Plot contrivances galore, plus a really goofy Tienamen Square flashback make for just a little too much dumb writing to take seriously. That said, Brandon Lee, though still a bit rough around the edges, is tremendously charismatic as the lead. His character seems very much a humanized fish out of water and his handling of the numerous martial arts sequences makes us lament his untimely passing that much more. Dwight's action highlights come near the start with a very John Woo inspired shootout in an art gallery and reach their crescendo mid-movie with a hapless gang of Italian wannabe mobsters turning their besieged restaurant HQ into a fortress. Nick Mancuso, the primary antagonist of the picture, really shines as a somehow likable pathetic wimp of a mob boss. He's a lot of fun to watch, and its unfortunate that his character leaves the film prior to the third act, which turns into a straight-up dig on John Woo with a very low-stakes cliched battle in a Chinese... laundromat / factory (???). Both Tzi Ma and Al Leong get in some quality martial arts time with Brandon, but it's still so much more fun to see him in a fisticuffs match with giant brute Tony Longo in that mid-movie restaurant scene. As it is, **Rapid Fire** has a lot of fun 80's/early-90's-style action in it and sits comfortably next to the likes of **RAW DEAL** and **HARD TO KILL** in terms of quality. Had it not been saddled with a lame script that plays its cards way too soon, it could have been a lot more. Leave it to Brandon's final film **THE CROW** to finally deliver the action goods to end up defining one of Hollywood's most tragically brief and promising careers.
More Like This
The Big Sleep
Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by wealthy General Sternwood regarding a matter involving his youngest daughter Carmen. Before the...
See more
Lethal Weapon
Veteran buttoned-down LAPD detective Roger Murtaugh is partnered with unhinged cop Martin Riggs, who -- distraught after his wife's death -- has a...
See more
Lethal Weapon 2
In the opening chase, Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh stumble across a trunk full of Krugerrands. They follow the trail to a South African diplomat...
See more
Lethal Weapon 3
Archetypal buddy cops Riggs and Murtaugh are back for another round of high-stakes action, this time setting their collective sights on bringing...
See more
Lethal Weapon 4
Officers Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh of the Los Angeles Police Department must stop a dangerous crime lord from China from getting his brother...
See more
Heat
Obsessive master thief Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective Vincent...
See more
1888
When Demonetization (currency ban) is announced in India, 3 unlikely characters come face to face for a bag of cash. After that a car journey...
See more
Xtreme
Two years after the murder of his son and father, a retired hitman sets in motion a carefully crafted revenge plan against the killer: his own...
See more
Romeo Must Die
Two warring gang families (one African-American, the other Chinese) maneuver for bragging rights to the Oakland, California, docks. Hang Sing and...
See more
Nick of Time
An ordinary man is suddenly forced into a plot to kill a politician in exchange for his kidnapped daughter's freedom.
See more
Rush Hour
When Hong Kong Inspector Lee is summoned to Los Angeles to investigate a kidnapping, the FBI doesn't want any outside help and assigns cocky LAPD...
See more
The Storm Riders
Heeding a prophecy, a warlord trains two orphans after killing their parents. But the skills he teaches could lead to his downfall.
See more
Kiss of the Dragon
Liu Jian, an elite Chinese police officer, comes to Paris to arrest a Chinese drug lord. When Jian is betrayed by a French officer and framed for...
See more
Cop Land
Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers...
See more
The Driver
The Driver specializes in driving getaway cars for robberies. His exceptional talent has prevented him from being caught yet. After another...
See more
Parasites
A group of friends get lost in the seedy streets where they encounter a crazed gang of homeless derelicts that seizes them and kills them one by...
See more
Kebab Connection
In Hamburg, Ibrahim "Ibo" Secmez, of Turkish descent, wants to direct the first German kung-fu movie. For now, he makes commercials for his uncle's...
See more
Training Day
On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.
See more
Man Against the Mob
In 1930s Los Angeles, a police detective leads an elite squad against a vicious organized crime ring.
See more
2 Fast 2 Furious
It's a major double-cross when former police officer Brian O'Conner teams up with his ex-con buddy Roman Pearce to transport a shipment of "dirty"...
See more