Rapid Fire (1992) 20th Century Fox/Action RT: 95 minutes Rated R (violence, language, sexuality, drug material) Director: Dwight H. Little Screenplay: Alan McElroy Music: Christopher Young Cinematography: Ric Waite Release date: August 21, 1992 (US) Cast: 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, Francis Chau. Box Office: $14.3M (US)
Rating: ***
Let’s save all talk of Brandon Lee’s tragic accidental death for my review of The Crow. Let’s instead focus on Rapid Fire which was his first starring role. In it, he plays Jake Lo, a college student dragged into the middle of a drug war between Italian and Chinese mobsters.
As far as action movies go, Rapid Fire is pretty good, especially for a movie released in late August. I went to see it with a group of friends on a Saturday night, the best time to view an action movie in a crowded theater. We all enjoyed it. I remember thinking that Lee was at the start of a promising career in the genre. He was a charismatic actor with decent fighting skills. I expected as much given that he’s the son of Bruce Lee, a true martial artist if ever there was one. Looks like talent and skill run in the family.
Jake is an art student in L.A. who actively avoids political activism as it relates to establishing a democracy in China. He witnessed his father being killed at Tiananmen Square in ’89 and doesn’t want to relive it. A beautiful girl tricks him into attending a Chinese pro-democracy party where he’s expected to tell his story. While there, he witnesses Antonio Serrano (Mancuso, Under Siege) murder an associate of rival drug lord Tau (Ma, Rush Hour). He barely escapes with his life. The feds bring him to Chicago to testify against Serrano. He’s met at the safe house by corrupt FBI agents who immediately try to kill him. He once again manages to escape. He almost walks into a third attempt, but is saved in the nick of time by Lt. Mace Ryan (Boothe, Extreme Prejudice), a hardened but idealistic detective who’s been trying to bring down Tau for 10 years. Jake reluctantly agrees to help Ryan and his team put Tau and Serrano out of business.
It’s a fairly standard storyline as you can see. There’s even a romance between Jake and Karla Withers (Hodge, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III), one of the cops in Ryan’s unit. The action scenes are well-mounted. There’s a scene early-on where Jake, trying not to be killed, drives his motorcycle through an art gallery, running down goons with guns and smashing priceless glass objects into millions of pieces. The fight scenes, many of them choreographed by Lee himself, are also well done. There’s no shortage of action and violence in Rapid Fire. That’s always a plus.
Director Dwight H. Little (Marked for Death) adds some nice touches like Ryan’s team working out of an abandoned bowling alley that still has all its equipment (i.e. balls and pins). He scores in the casting department as well. Lee does quite well in the lead but he has a lot of help from a solid supporting cast. It has one of my favorite character actors Al Leong (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard) who typically plays heavies. The Chicago setting gives the movie an extra dose of cool. Rapid Fire is a perfectly good action flick. Is it predictable? Yes, right down to Ryan becoming a surrogate dad for Jake. Is it fun? You bet it is! It may not be an action classic but it knows its job and does it well. It’s a solid three-star flick.
