Rapid Fire (1992)

Starring:Brandon Lee, Powers Boothe, Nick Mancuso, Raymond J. Barry, Kate Hodge, Tzi Ma, Tony Longo, Michael Paul Chan, Dustin Nguyen, Brigitta Stenberg, Basil Wallace, Al Leong, FranÃ§ois Chau, Quentin O'Brien, D.J. Howard, Maurice Chasse, Walter Addison, John Vickery, C'Esca Lawrence, Donald Li
Director: Dwight H. Little
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

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Brandon Lee's penultimate picture isn't much on paper--a dour college kid, bitter over his activist father's death in Tiananmen Square, is targeted by a Chicago mobster after witnessing a gangland killing and reluctantly joins forces with brooding, obsessed cop Powers Boothe--but then who was watching this for the story? Consider this his screen test for the superior The Crow. Lee bites off bad dialogue with surly sneers, swaggers through scenes with the confidence of a movie veteran, and moves... well, his moves are the real reason to see the film. Nick Mancuso has a good time as the weasely mobster getting sloppy in his desperation, and Powers plays the father figure with less conviction than sheer tenacity, but Brandon Lee is the star-in-the-making of this production. This, unfortunately, is no star vehicle, but it provides enough bone-crunching, butt-kicking martial arts action for any action junkie. --Sean Axmaker

Description

In this explosive martial arts action adventure, college student Jake Lo is pursued by smugglers, mobsters and crooked federal agents, after he witnesses a murder by a Mafia kingpin (Nick Mancuso). Determined to survive, he single-handedly takes on Chicago's warring drug lords with the assistance of a renegade cop (Powers Boothe) and his beautiful partner (Kate Hodge).

Customer Reviews:

great fight sequences and screen presence of Brandon Lee elavate this movie.......2007-03-21

i watched this movie a long time ago,and remember it as being nothing short of awesome.i guess our tastes change as we grow older.anyway,after watching it last night,i found myself disappointed.don't get me wrong,i still think it's a fairly decent movie.the problem is that many movies of this genre are fairly decent.(and some of course are not so decent)i think there are 2 things that set this movie apart from others. one thing is how fantastic and spectacular the fight scenes are.the other is the charisma and screen presence of the late Brandon Lee.without those 2 components,this movie would be maybe a bit above average.as it is this movie gets 3.5/5

Great action movie.......2006-11-11

I saw this movie as a kid and like it to this day. Brandon was an awesome martial artist and had so much potential, it's very tragic he and his father were taken so young. What they left behind has paved the way for action movies and they will always be remembered. As far as movies go this one has intense action, good characters, strong plot with a dash of romance and decent acting for this type of film. This movie would be ok for teenagers but not for young kids, it has a LOT of violence, some cursing and a hot love scene! This can be a good movie night choice for couples, guys will like the action and women will like the bedroom scene featuring Lee's amazing ABS!

What would have been.......2005-10-05

Rapid Fire will forever stand as the movie that landed Brandon Lee the star making role of the Crow, which sadly as we all know, would be the last time he graced the screen. Lee plays a college student and martial artist with a tragic past who witnesses a mob hit and is soon on the run. Eventually he allies himself with an obsessed cop (Powers Boothe) to bring down the mob and the heroin smuggling drug ring it fronts, with plenty of greatly coreographed action along the way. Lee alone makes Rapid Fire worth seeing, not only because it was one of his last screen roles and a look at what might have been, but because he could have become the biggest action star of his time, much like his legendary father. Lee has all the right moves here, and his swaggering performance is reason enough to see the film. Boothe is great as well in one of his rare good guy roles, and the cast is rounded out by an ultra sleezy Nick Mancuso as a mob boss and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3's Kate Hodge. The story isn't always coherent, and the editing is a bit triteful, but for action fans and fans of Lee's short lived legacy, this is worth picking up.

GOOD MOVIE FLAWED DVD.......2005-01-21

AFTER READING EVERYONE ELSES REVIEWS, I DON'T KNOW IF THEY JUST DIDN'T NOTICE THE JUMP IN THE FIGHT SCENE IN MANCUSO'S BAR OR I JUST GOT A QUALITY CONTROL ERROR DVD. MY DVD LEAVES OUT HALF THE FIGHT SCENE, I KNOW, I ALSO HAVE IT ON VHS. IS THERE ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE WHO NOTICED THIS.

Now THIS Is What a Martial Arts Movie Should Be!.......2004-11-27

To the strains of sitar music, a lithe figure dressed in white moves in slow motion against a black background, his graceful movements funneling seamlessly into violence. One by one, opponents present themselves. One by one they're smashed aside. Slowly we segue into a close-up of an intense, handsome young man's face, and we see the words BRANDON LEE. Thus begins Rapid Fire. If you wanted to build a martial arts movie superstar - and obviously that was the goal - you couldn't have done it better than with that sequence.

Serious martial artists were aware of Brandon Lee's existence since his birth. They also knew he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as an actor. All across America - probably the world - untold thousands of people rooted for him. Brandon paid his dues in a few ultra-low-budget projects before co-starring with Dolph Lundgren in Showdown In Little Tokyo. Not a great film, but Brandon was good in it, and that got him Rapid Fire, his first lead role and, as it turned out, an absolute starmaker. (On the strength of Rapid Fire, Brandon got The Crow - and we all know how that turned out.)

It's fascinating to compare Brandon as a martial artist in Rapid Fire to his dad. Bruce Lee started out a highly skilled martial artist with real-world capabilities who became an actor. Brandon by contrast always wanted to be an actor, thus his martial arts training was geared toward flashy techniques that would look good on-screen. What the hell, they DID look great. Brandon, though obviously a fine athlete, didn't have his father's explosive speed and power. But then, who does?

So many martial arts movies are dumb chock-socky. By contrast Rapid Fire is well-written and directed, and decently acted, especially by Brandon, Powers Boothe as Detective Lieutenant Mace Ryan (God, you gotta love that name), and Nick Mancuso in a cheerfully over-the-top performance as a crazed mob boss. On top of that, Rapid Fire fulfills the greatest requirement of a martial arts flick: the sense, as you watch the actors in motion on the screen, of "Oh my God, I didn't know human beings could DO that." This is not a love of violence per se, but rather a love of watching hard, competent people push the human body's design parameters in violent conflict.

The fights in Rapid Fire were choreographed by Brandon and Jeff Imada. The standout scene is a fight to the death between Brandon and Al Leong (probably best known as Endo, the torturer from Lethal Weapon, and Uli, the chocolate eating terrorist from Die Hard). All the fight scenes are top-notch, though several stunts, like using a motorcycle to drive a bad guy through a row of glass display cases, and employing a clothing rack to trip an opponent during a fight, were lifted from Jackie Chan's Police Story. However (a) in all honesty I have to say that both these moments were done better in Rapid Fire, (b) in 1992 in the US only a handful of hardcore kung fu movie buffs had ever seen a Jackie Chan film; even those few recognizing the influence probably smiled at the homage rather than considering it a rip-off.

There are other smile-making moments in Rapid Fire, like comments on how Jake Lo's (Brandon's) deceased father was such a great martial artist; Brandon's summary clocking of a bad guy dramatically swinging nunchukas, his dad's most famous weapon (obviously this fellow had watched way too many Bruce Lee movies); Brandon using as a disguise an outfit incorporating the same sort of Coke bottle glasses his dad used for the same purpose in The Chinese Connection; and I laughed out loud at the scene where Jake explodes all over a treacherous FBI agent, beating him like a red-headed stepchild, leading Mace Ryan to comment, "Jake, why don't you take those fists of fury of yours outside?" That little in-joke requires no explanation to any Bruce Lee fan.

So for Brandon a handful of crappy roles led to Showdown In Little Tokyo (so-so) begat Rapid Fire (a truly, deeply enjoyable action adventure flick) and then The Crow (an absolute masterpiece). And that's all we're ever going to have of Brandon Lee.

The Martial Arts Collection (Return of the Dragon/Rapid Fire/Kiss of the Dragon)

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The Martial Arts Collection (Return of the Dragon/Rapid Fire/Kiss of the Dragon)
Starring: Martial Arts Collection
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Rapid Fire: A Revolutionary New Approach to Women's Self Defense

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Rapid Fire: A Revolutionary New Approach to Women's Self Defense

Manufacturer: R.F. Productions
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0002V7S3E
Release Date: 2004-08-31

Disasters of the Century - Episode 26 - Deadly Elements

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Disasters of the Century - Episode 26 - Deadly Elements

Manufacturer: Partners In Motion
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
ASIN: B000QCQ8JO
Release Date: 2007-05-07

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The Matheson Forest Fire: On July 30, 1916, high winds blowing through the forests of Northern Ontario turned a small fire into an inferno that destroyed nearly 800 square miles of forest. The settler towns of Matheson, Cochrane, and Nushka Station were no match for a wall of flame that levelled villages in minutes. One survivor described the experience as being "at the bottom of a sea of fire thousands of feet high". The death toll reached an unheard of 223, although the actual number was probably much higher. The fire led to the passing of tougher fire safety laws for northern Ontario. The Rapid City Flood: Every summer, storm clouds gather in South Dakota and sudden heavy rainfalls can be expected. On June 9, 1972, Rapid City witnessed the worst storm in South Dakota's history. 14 inches of rain fell in less than 6 hours, causing creeks in the Black Hills to overrun their banks and wash out farms and highways. On the night of the 9th, the storm waters reached Rapid City. Exacerbated by the failure of Canyon Lake Dam, a wall of water roared down Rapid Creek into the heart of the city. The creek burst its banks and washed homes, cars, and businesses away in its wake. By sunrise, the waters had returned to normal, but Rapid City was marked by a swath of devastation. 238 people died from the flood. The city and the state responded by introducing adequate storm warning services and rebuilding to make Rapid City better able to protect itself from future flooding disasters.

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Rapid Fire [Region 2]
Starring: Brandon Lee , Powers Boothe , Nick Mancuso , Raymond J. Barry , and Kate Hodge
Director: Dwight H. Little
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005K267

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Rapid Fire
Starring: Roy Abramsohn , Walter Addison , Raymond J. Barry , Powers Boothe , and Brandon Lee
Director: Dwight H. Little
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000LC4Z7Q
Release Date: 2002-05-21

Description

Average customer rating:

great fight sequences and screen presence of Brandon Lee elavate this movie
Great action movie
What would have been
GOOD MOVIE FLAWED DVD
Now THIS Is What a Martial Arts Movie Should Be!

Rapid Fire [Region 2]
Starring: Brandon Lee , Powers Boothe , Nick Mancuso , Raymond J. Barry , and Kate Hodge
Director: Dwight H. Little
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Thrillers | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video