		Year: 1998 Director: Yuen Kwai Starring: Shannon Lee, Michael Wong, Jordan Chan, Anita Yuen, Benny Urquidez Genre: Action/martial arts Literal title translation: 'And Now You're Dead'

Martin (Michael Wong) is a professional thief. He brings his three new assistants Walt, Casper, and Janice to see Karloff and his men at Castle Hill. Martin offers to steal the Czar's Prism, the largest diamond in the Republic from the Museum. In order to strengthen his power, he invites Mandy (Shannon Lee) to work with him...

Most people will be drawn to this film to see how Shannon Lee fares in both the acting and fighting stakes. The answer is quite well. She has never been a fighter but the choreography and use of clever angles makes her look more than capable. As for the rest of the film it certainly manages to keep the attention and has one of the biggest budgets I've seen in a Hong Kong movie in a long time. Shannon lee's role is substantial enough to have her name above the title but Michael Wong also has a very large part in this film. This is probably his best role to date and he is much less annoying than usual. Shannon Lee also looks to be an extremely good rising star and her performance compliments the film greatly. Jordan Chan and Anita Yuen are both very accomplished character actors in Hong Kong but here they seem to be acting in a different film than that of the rest of the cast. Perhaps that is because they speak in Cantonese whereas everyone else speaks English. Some of this (especially the action) is directed with the gusto that you would expect from Yuen Kwai. However, certain segments do tend to look a little choppy (ie. Shannon Lee's end fight with Benny Urquidez) and the plot has some moments which are not explained properly. A nice touch is the soundtrack. It has a real adventure movie quality about it.

Overall an eminently watchable action adventure film that shows Shannon Lee has great promise as a lead. Fans of Yuen Kwai's work will not be disappointed and the European locations do definitely make the film stand out from the rest. Shannon Lee gets the most action scenes and some of the stunts also look like a lot of care was taken in their filming. And of course main bad guy Benny Urquidez (from Jackie Chan's 'Wheels on Meals') turns in another fine performance and shows that even though he may look a bit older he can still throw a mean punch!