DVD: War

War stars Jet Li and Jason Statham and is directed by Philip G. Atwell.

During a mission two FBI agents Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) and his partner Tom Lone (played by Terry Chen) are attacked by Rouge (Jet Li), an assassin/hit man. Rouge eventually escapes from the two, which later leads to Rouge getting revenge and killing Tom Lone and his wife and child. Three years later, while Rouge has been off the grid he appears again this time he has killed some Yakuza's, the gang he was working for before. Jack Crawford and his team break up the San Fransisco polices investigation and puts his priorities on finding the man who killed his partner, Rogue. We find out that Rouge, who now has the name Victor Shaw has switched sides and joined the Triad boss Chang (John Lone). Victor Shaw skillfully kills of Chang's most loyal man Wu Ti's ( Mark Cheng) brother Joey Ti (played by Johnson Phan) and make it look like the Yakuzas did it. As Jack Crawford puts it best, "Lets get ready for a war." A war is now enviable between the Triads and the Yakuzas. Wu Ti and some of his men are first to strike and attack some Yakuzas at a tea restaurant. As the story unfolds we learn why Victor Shaw is making this war happen and is attacking on both sides of the war, all awhile Jack Crawford get closer and closer to take down Victor Shaw.

From the start of War I was really interested with the movie. I've always thought that this was a great casting one side of it you have Jet Li from some great martial arts movies like Once Upon A Time In China, and the most recent Fearless and Warlords and on the other side Jason Statham who has some great fight scenes in his other movies like the Transporter and the Transporter 2. I was really looking forward to be seeing the two of them fight like crazy throughout this movie. Yet I found myself quite disappointed with that because the two of them actually fought only one time and that was nearing the end of the movie and only for a brief time.

Aside from those two from fighting you have the plot. For me the plot I felt was sort of predictable, much like any other revenge movie that involves one of the main character that's a cop, or in this case an FBI special agent. Its basically the bad guy kills the good guys partner so the good guy wants to get revenge throughout the movie. Even at the end I thought was very predictable.

The action through War, even though its mostly put in towards the end was good. I would have liked to see more martial arts scenes from Jet Li. The action choreographer was Cory Yuen who has choreographed a lot of Jet Li's movie as well has done the action direction for Jason Statham's movie both The Transporter and The Transporter 2. He has done many more too. With War I was not disappointed, he did a great job and the action was very entertaining.

War, while I'm not recommending it does have its moments. Maybe my expectations were to high, because I was wanting awesome fight scenes between the two lead actors Jason Statham and Jet Li. Overall I would say that War is a Skip.

DVD

The DVD of War has two different Commentaries, one by the Director Phillip G. Atwell and the other by the Writers Lee Anthony Smith and Gregory Bradley along with a featurette on the Scoring of War (the music) and Deleted/Extended Scenes, Gag Reel and a Trivia Track and lastly "The Action Of War' - 9 Behind-The-Scenes Vignettes.

The only thing on this DVD that is remotely interesting would be "The Action of War" Featurettes which clocks in around 70 plus minutes long and it talks about certain scenes through the film from the action, editing and scoring. The Gag Reel too was funny, but overall I would have to say that the movie is a Rent.