Fast-paced action that is very well done and without the clichéd Western jokes (not that I hate them, but I don’t miss them either). As for the cast, from the outset we get a taste of the beautiful Lucy, one of the members of the ‘Shadow’ mercenary team led by Captain Lin Lang, and together, like the Fantastic Four, they beat up some punks who got their hopes up about having a slender dominatrix delivered to their door and ended up getting a good thrashing instead.

Later we meet the fearful driver La Jie (or rather a complete hypocrite? Having washboard abs and hiding them until the end is like being a millionaire and living in a Brazilian shanty town) and the teenager Da Jien, impetuous but loyal to the core; they all rescue Hong Ya, a mysterious woman worth 2 million and wanted by several groups of bounty hunters.

The team is ambushed by the ruthless and eccentric Roy, leading his gang of hired thugs. Regarding Roy, um… remember Jim Carrey’s inexplicable sense of humour in Batman Forever (1995)? Add a schizoid personality like that of a Chinese Joker who smiles when he kills, and snorts with theatricality and frivolous rogue-like quips.

Roy and Lin fight the first round hand-to-hand in an elevator, but the rematch of the rematch will come at the end in a moving car. No spoilers this time.

Everything is complicated by (a) many mercenaries who want Song Ya rescued by Lin’s mercenaries, (b) Song Ya is not Song Ya but Wang Qien, her twin sister who sacrifices herself to prevent the real Song Ya from being caught, who has inoculated herself with a new ANNEX bacteria to keep the antidote to herself against the bad guys; (c) first they kill Da Jien’s brother and then on the way to Saiwan City they almost kill Lucy and her secret lover La Jien.

The characters are well defined and the action is guaranteed, although it is obviously a cliché, it is entertaining and serves its purpose because in the end, despite already knowing that it is not Song Ya, Captain Lin goes alone to rescue the twin sister and, unbeknownst to him, his three companions loyally follow him.