Rating: 
Summary: This is not a Jackie Chan movie.
Review: This is not a Jackie Chan movie. Jackie Chan is in it, that's for sure, but the extended cast of various action stars makes him just another character.He's not the main character, not that there really is a main character, it seems. The plot, tangled as it is, seems to be about some prison that pretends to execute people and then uses them as assassins. But we only hear about this during the first few minutes and then at the "climax" at the end of the movie where Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau and that other guy run around an airport shooting a bunch of people with not much reason. Most of the movie deals with innumerable subplots that serve only to drag out this ordeal. Yes, Jackie Chan shoots people. So we have here a movie with Jackie Chan where you only see Jackie Chan fight a couple times (the highlights of this movie) and then a bizarre climax where pretty much everyone dies. This movie seems far, far longer than the 96 minutes of my life it has stolen.
Rating:
Summary: Not a typical Jackie Chan movie
Review: This is not your typical Jackie Chan movie. It is not a comedy, Jackie Chan is not the star and he actually dies at the end. This is a prison movie that steals a lot from Paul Newman's 1960's movie "Cool Hand Luke", only without the humor. I suggest anyone born in the 70's or 80's rent "Cool Hand Luke" for comparison. Paul Newman's version is a lot better. "The Prisoner" also steals a scene from Burt Reynold's "The Longest Yard" Even though this movie isn't very good, (it has all the prison movie cliches) I liked seeing Jackie Chan expanding his range, he can do serious work.To me, the most interesting thing about this movie is recognizing the scenes stolen from other movies.
Rating: 
Summary: Island of Fire
Review: This movie is actually an older HK movie called ISLAND OF FIRE. I saw it in SF Chinatown many years ago. I agree it is not a good place for new Jackie Chan fans to start. It is a grim movie with a very downbeat ending unless they have changed the ending for this DVD version. Still it is a good example of the different types of the movies being produced in HK's "Golden Days".
Rating: 
Summary: Enter at your own risk
Review: This movie is not what you'd expect at all, and unfortunately I don't mean that in a good way. All of the characters (and there are a lot of them) have small roles, and there's no visible plot at all-which isn't unusual for Hong Kong Cinema; however, there's usually some kind of direction a HKC film will travel in, but in this case, it was just Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and Andy Lau among others acting out and simply redoing scenes from every prison movie you've ever seen. While redoing Hollywood ideas is business as usual for Hong Kong Cinema, the Cantonese usually put a different spin on what they take. No such luck in this film. An experienced movie goer will recognize scenes from Bad Boys with Sean Penn, Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robins, and especially Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman, but that's as far as it goes. There are a few good fight scenes and some other elements that keep it going, but overall, if you have a choice between this film and something else, you'd probably be better off with something else. The end itself was unusual to an extreme, and while this film will probably be fine for a hardcore Jackie Chan follower, the last 10 minutes will leave them more than a little surprised. I rated this film 3 stars only because I'm a Sammo buff, and his escape scene involving the guard dog made worthwhile (for me anyway) the...rental fee I paid to see it. Still, I don't think this film will be on many top ten lists.
Rating: 
Summary: Very , very disappointed
Review: To be kind , this is not, by very far, Jackie's best movie. First: Jackie appears in the movie for less than ten minutes. Second : fights are not as good as his average movie.Third the story could have been developed better. Fourth , the quality of the image is quite low . To finish , the end of the movie is quite sad , like the whole movie, where there's no trace of Jackie's humor.
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