A Snapshot Mini-Review: Rapid Fire

Scanning my reviews you’ll notice I use a lot of pictures. I like pictures. You can look at them and stuff. And because I was pressed for time when expressing my thoughts on this movie, I decided to up the ratio on visuals to accompany text. As they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Also, I’m lazy.
 
When most people recall the short lived legacy of Brandon Lee, they think of him in The Crow. I can understand the sentiment. It was the film that indirectly took the actor’s life. And not just any film, but a rock-gothic comic book fantasy about a musician who is killed then reborn – heavy on pathos and romance and spiritualism, with Lee’s ghostly image forever engraved in celluloid. In retrospect the film and its star seemed fated for one another. I really like The Crow. It’s silly but equally sincere and made stylistically memorable by director Alex Proyas. But I’m not here to talk about that film. In his brief career Lee managed a B-action movie called Laser Mission with Earnest Borgnine, which he then followed up with the homoerotic Showdown in Little Tokyo opposite Dolph Lundgren. After signing a multi-picture contract with 20th Century Fox, Lee’s first tailor made vehicle to stardom was the 1992 Rapid Fire.

Two apposing drug lords, Chicago mafia boss Antonio Serrano (Nick Mancuso) and Chinese opium kingpin Kinman Tau (Tzi Ma), go to war over power. Serrano makes the first strike when he and his goons pay a visit to Tau’s west coast associate in Los Angeles and assassinates him at a Chinese democracy pro-activist party. The murder is witnessed by Jake Lo (Lee), a college student attending the party who, after being rounded up by the FBI, is blackmailed to testify against Serrano in Chicago. Soon after his arrival to the windy city, Jake himself is targeted by corrupt federal agents turned hit-men. He kills one in self defense but none-the-less ends up on the run from local law enforcement, until he comes under protection by a hard-ass cop Mace Ryan (Powers Boothe). Jake is recruited by Ryan and his partner Karla Withers (Kate Hodge) to help bring down once and for all both Serrano and Tau.

I have yet to decipher the meaning of the film’s title. Lethal Weapon refers to Mel Gibson’s de facto registered status. Steven Seagal was Hard to Kill after waking from a seven year, gunshot induced coma, then later Marked for Death by voodoo Rastafarians. Wesley Snipes was Passenger 57 aboard a hijacked commercial airliner. How the title Rapid Fire relates to its plot or Brandon Lee’s character is beyond me. What exactly is being fired rapidly? Guns? I reckon that makes well enough sense, though considering the film’s weapon of choice is punching and kicking, maybe they should have called it Rapid Striking or Rapid Punching and Kicking or Delivering Foot to Guy’s Face Rapidly. Whatever. I have nothing to bitch about, because Rapid Fire is a pretty rad title. And you know what? This is a pretty rad movie.
 
There’s nothing quite like a no fussy streets of Chicago action flick where mobster thugs still sport ponytails, where boozy middle-aged detectives screech corners in their late ‘80s Ford Crown Victorias and where a foot chase eventually leads to someone jumping an ‘L’ track. The plot to Rapid Fire is crudely abridged and has more holes than something that has a lot of holes in it. But it also has a scene where Brandon Lee drives his motorcycle through an art gallery, so fuck you, Syd Field!

Lee does all kinds of cool shit in this movie. Of course, I’ve always thought tragic the actor’s untimely death, though usually on a more objective level. But only after revisiting this film and being reminded of his then potential does the tragedy fully register. The guy was a natural born action star – an incredible fighter on screen, charismatic, hansom as hell and quick with the one-liners. Lee was one of those rare birds who succeeded as an action hero with charming personality instead blank-faced excessive testosterone. The usual lead in these type films are ex-special forces or rogue cops, but Lee’s character is just this nonchalant art student who scores points with hot nude models by drawing them next to dragons.

Still, when the time comes to throw down, the guy is a one-man Jeet Kune Do factory, and his distribution is this:



Checkmate, motherfucker.

Rapid Fire has lots of guys pointing shotguns.

Within this recurring motif is a totally awesome scene where Lee dodges one 12-gauge blast by back-flipping over a stooge-turned-human-shield then delivering a pump action deathblow of his own.

  

Being the two coolest guys in the movie, Lee and baritone drawl Powers Boothe inevitably become conflicting buddies; the dutiful senior man against the iconoclastic youth. Rest assured, one ends up punching the other, but it all works out in the end.

Also throw into the mix Kate Hodge as the mediator. Lee doesn’t draw her any dragons but he does stop by her place to show her his venerable side (his paps got wiped out at Tiananmen Square) as ‘Can’t Find My Way’ by hair-rock band Hardline creeps up on the soundtrack. Rest assured, the deal is closed:

 

Let’s see, what else is there… Oh, yeah, action movie cult legend Al Leong plays Tau’s No. 1 hench, Minh, who announces the film’s biggest fight scene à la Darth Maul. Short compact Asian dudes are to be feared and, being one, Leong is not just sneaking candy bars from behind the counter or delivering electroshock sponge baths this time around. No, sir. The famed Fu Manchu-stached stuntman takes center stage and gives Mr. Lee a serious run for his money. These kinds of fight scenes are what it’s all about. The two men exchange a complex, blink-and-you’ll-miss vocabulary of inside strikes, blocks and counterstrikes, and they do so without ever saying a word.

What follows shortly thereafter is a game ender between Jake Lo and Tau that takes place on the Chicago ‘L’ track I mentioned earlier. Need I say more? It doesn’t take a psychic to predict the outcome of such a fight. One of two things will happen: 1) the bad guy is gonna get electrocuted, or 2) the bad guy is gonna get creamed by a train. Well, that’s what make’s Rapid Fire a real treat: we get both.

I'll let you imagine the rest.

This movie closes accordingly with a bunch of emergency vehicles gathered out front and where one wounded good guy, Boothe, gives a thumbs up as he’s loaded into an ambulance and the other good guy, Lee, throws his arm around the girl and the two share some quick banter and everything’s peachy – roll credits to ‘I’ll Be There’, yet another song from Hardline.

I really wish Brandon Lee hadn’t bought the farm so young. The ‘90s could have been for him what it was, up to that point, for chaps like Stallone and Seagal and Van Damn. But I think he, much like is father before him, had even more to offer in terms of acting talent and may very well have ascended to the ranks of weightier dramatic performances. Or maybe he would have burned-out on coke and inflated ego by ’95. Who knows such things? For what’s worth, Lee made his mark. RIP.