The life of a stuntman in Hong Kong is often one with a lot of pain with little in the way of glory. Bruce Law has worked with most of the top stars in action films, such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and made them look good, but has received next to no credit for doing so. However, for all their faults, the local industry does (at least for the most part) reward hard work.

And so, after several years of hurting himself in front of the camera for the viewer's pleasure, Law was granted a spot behind the scenes in the director's chair with Extreme Crisis. Unfortunately, the result was a box office flop that was panned by critics.

Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20, and looking at Extreme Crisis now some nine years after its' initial release reveals that it's actually a damn fine action movie. Sure, it's dopey. Of course, it's derivative. And it's a given that none of the acting is going to win any awards. But is it fun? Hell yeah.

Most of the harsh criticism of Extreme Crisis points to the script, which I will agree with for the most part. For some unfathomable reason, it took six people to sit down and look at the newspapers of the time, see stories about religious cults setting off sarin gas attacks in Japan, and then decide that combining them with a standoff between the cops and criminals with hostages in a building ala Die Hard would equal boffo box office.

Aggravatingly, Extreme Crisis also subscribes to the multi-lingual mish-mash that Hong Kong productions were favoring at this time, supposedly to entice foreign audiences. So we get stuff like Japanese people speaking in their native tongue to Chinese people, who then respond to them in Cantonese, to which they talk back in English -- which, of course, everyone seems to understand, but no one really ever speaks it, except at pivotal plot points. And somehow this is all supposed to keep making sense.

And even if every actor was speaking the same language, there would still be a hell of a lot of problems. Julian Cheung is absolutely uninspiring as the lead, and, more disappointingly for most of the straight male readers out there, Hsu Chi was still in her full-on "annoying eye candy" mode here.

This wouldn't be such a bad thing necessarily if she was allowed to be well, you know, hot. There's actually a bit where Julian tells her to not be so "sexy" by not having her top button undone. What a tramp! The Japanese actors involved seem to try and do a good job, but since they're forced to deliver cheeseball lines in English for the majority of their work, it's hard to judge their output.

But despite all its' problems, Extreme Crisis still warrants a recommendation based on its' action scenes. Bruce Law might be a screw-up of a "real" director, but he sure as hell can make some good old-fashioned ultra-violence.

And yeah, it might be because of the relatively tepid recent output -- not just from Hong Kong, but pretty much everywhere else in the world -- but there is a certain grittiness to the action scenes (ie, no overuse of CGI) present here that gave the action sequences a bit of punch that is much appreciated.

The bottom line is: if you're looking for a movie that is conducive to just kicking back with a few adult beverages and having a good time with, then Extreme Crisis is something right up your alley. It might ultimately be put in the "guilty pleasures" file, but at least you won't be itching to hit the fast-forward button halfway through.

RATING: 7