What makes it different from others?

Admirable film.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

After witnessing the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of a mysterious terrorist known as "the Doctor" (Kelvin Wong), a military officer named "Kit Li" (Jet Li) resigns and becomes a bodyguard/stunt man for a martial arts actor by the name of "Frankie Lone" (Jacky Cheong). The problem is, that while Frankie was a decent martial arts expert at one time, his skills have atrophied to the point that he is hardly able to defend himself—much less anybody else. So when he and a number of other rich and influential people are held hostage by "the Doctor" it falls upon Kit Li to essentially save everyone. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I thought that this was a really bad film due in large part to the bad acting, poor quality stunts and less-than-humorous comedy. Likewise, the fact that the director (Wong Jing) had an ulterior motive to discredit Jackie Chan didn't endear me to it either. In short, I found this film to be insipid and without cinematic merit and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

This was the worst piece of eastern garbage I have ever seen.I was hoping for a decent action flick, at least, when I bought the DVD for my wife, who is into martial arts.I WAS SO WRONG!It is a rip-off of "Die Hard" Movies, spiced with some Jackie Chan Seasoning - and jazzed up with some "Speed"It's a simple waste of time and patience. It's not thrilling, it's not funny. Check out your local zoo instead. You will be entertained a lot more

The words `no talent' and `wastes of skin' are not harsh enough to describe the Hollywood vultures who bowdlerized and rewrote High Risk, renaming it Meltdown. For example, the villain of the movie, called the Doctor, is having a meeting with his gang. In the 1995 Cantonese movie version, with English subtitles, he tells the gang one of them is a police undercover agent. That agent tries unsuccessfully to escape. In the 2000 version, dubbed in English, the Doctor orders the killing of this same gang member for incompetence. In another scene, Jet Li tells a reporter and her cameraman to leave, which they do in a rush by news van as German shepherds chase them. In the original, one of the dogs gets in the van and, off screen, you hear the van crashing. In Meltdown, the scene ends with the van driving away, the dogs chasing it. Whoever adapted this movie for English decided that they would `improve' the movie, with rewritten dialogue and new edits. Wong Jing, the director of High Risk, made an over the top action movie that borrowed heavily from Die Hard. Jet Li is good in this movie, and Jackie Cheung is even better, as a Jackie Chan type actor who is supposed to do all his stunts, but never does. I have read that the real Jackie Chan was upset over being made fun of in this movie. That may or may not be the case. What is true is that I am upset that High Risk could not have just been dubbed into English and the print cleaned up. Instead, the movie has new dialogue and a cheaply done remastered print for the American market.

If they had just concentrated on the Jet li character,who plays his part as if in a straight action movie,and forgot about trying to make a comedy at the same time(!!!!!)maybe this would have been a good action flick.Just imagine Die Hard with some characters in it behaving like they are in Police Academy.Thats about it.BAD.