“Romeo Must Die” Review

Alexia Williams

Genre: Action, Crime, and Thriller

Context: An avenging cop seeks out his brother’s killer and falls for the daughter of a businessman who is involved in a money-deal with his father.

Actors:  Jet Li, Aaliyah, Isaiah Washington, Anthony Anderson, and more

Director:  Andrzej Bartkowiak

Producer: Mitchell Kapner

Box office (gross income): $91 million

Awards:  

  • ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards (2001) Winner
  •  Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures (Timbaland) 
  • BET Awards (2001) Nominee
  • Best Actress (Aaliyah)
  • Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (2001) Nominee
  • Favorite Soundtrack (Internet Only)
  • MTV Movie + TV Awards (2001) Nominee
  • Best Female Performance (Aaliyah)
  • Breakthrough Female Performance (Aaliyah)
  • Best Fight (Jet Li)
  • MTV Video Music Awards (2000) Winner
  • Best Video from a Film (Try Again – Aaliyah)
  • Teen Choice Award (2000) Nominee
  • Film – Choice Drama
  • World Stunt Awards (2001)  Nominee
  • Best Fight

 

Your review:

From my understanding, Jet Li plays as Han Sing, an ex-cop who has been serving time in Hong Kong prison for a crime he didn’t crimmit and while in prison, he finds out that his brother has been killed and breaks out to travel to America in order to avenge his brother’s death. He unexpectedly collides into Trish O’Day’s (Aaliyah) life and the pair begin to fall in love while trying to find out who murdered Han’s brother and why. As the story develops, we find out that Trish’s father (Isaiah Washington) and brother (D.B. Woodside) may be involved in Han’s brother’s death and things take a turn for the worse since their love is now in the middle of a war between their two family’s affairs.

 

There is a lot of fight scenes, such as when Han beat up Maurice (Anthony Anderson) and his crew outside of Trish’s aparment or when Han and Trish got chased by killers on motorcycles and Han had to used Trish to beat up one of the motorcyclist because they found out that the motorcyclist was a woman and Han was afraid to hit her (because he respects women) and we can’t forget when Han fought Maurice’s henchmen with a water hose. But there were some unrealistic scenes, such as the fight between Han and Kai (The Sing’s bodyguard) at the end of the movie because how they both acted like they were in a mortal kombat scene,  they went up at least 6 ft in the air several times to kick and punch each other to death. Which I thought was pretty silly to see because realistically, something like that wouldn’t happen in real life but I knew that some movies do a lot of extra stuff in order to get that dramatic effect so I digress.

 

But overall it was a fun movie to watch since you get to see the two main characters’ develope as the movie progresses, as well as the love that Han and Trish had for each other. As well as a lot of twists and turns which keeps you glued to your screen to see what happens next. And overall it had some of the top stars in there at the time, some comedic lines, some good tearjerking scenes and some edge of the seat ones, and it just had fun energy radiating from each character, regardless if they were good or bad.