What makes it different from others?

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The 8 stars is for Christy' s boo-ya, b!#(#es. At any rate, this is a Die Hard/Under Siege rip off HK action movie. But what separates this film from those aforementioned films is the fact that Red Wolf is very very dark as rather than the hero trying to save everyone he can, he pretty much let's everyone die. Well, a majority of them die, I think. Well, whatever. This movie is filled with misery and suffering, regardless.I loved Red Wolf. I know it's a rip off and very unoriginal, but I don't care what you think. I was very pleased with the action which was bloody and well choreographed. The story works for what it is, the acting is silly and above all Christy's butt is nice. And the hopeless and futile moods was happy fun.

To say that this movie is a let down would be a tremendous understatement. Sitting on the shelves of various high street DVD outlets, resplendent in its Two Disc Special Edition packaging and with a back cover blurb that brings up director Yuen Woo Ping's work as fight choreographer on The Matrix Trilogy and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, you have to give credit for the packaging department for luring you into a false sense of belief that this movie is a hitherto overlooked milestone in HK action. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.I've heard it compared to the similarly disastrous Speed 2. In truth, the only link between the two is the setting on a luxury liner. Unlike Speed 2, where the task of slowing the out of control vessel was central to the plot, here, the ship is little more than something big, large and isolated for Kenny Ho to run around in. And speaking of Ho, his role as lead action hero leaves a lot to be desired. While he can handle the gun play and martial arts with as much flair as his contemporaries, his facial expressions remain largely unchanged throughout. There is a back story involving his dead wife which could have granted him more sympathy, but it is so woefully mishandled it feels like something that was tacked on for no particular reason. Twenty minutes after the credits roll, it's unlikely you'll remember anything about him. Besides, how can you feel any backing for a man who is supposed to be a security chief, yet fails to stop the villains from massacring nearly every passenger on the boat?However, his co-star Elaine Lui really stands out. Not because she's a good actress you understand, but because her role as the comic relief slapstick foil backfires spectacularly as she becomes one of the most irritating screen heroines to appear in the Hong Kong Legends catalogue. A little bit of comedy in action films is okay now and again, but considering the ridiculously high bodycount and number of innocent people murdered in this movie, she seems very out of place. Her fight with Christy Chung for example is extremely tasteless, as Lui imitates martial arts stances and goes through a bumbling slapstick routine, mere minutes after a young girl watched her mother machine gunned before her eyes.All in all then, not worth the effort. The action sequences are decent enough, but a bland leading man, immensely irritating heroine and a complete absence of emotion result in a film that Yuen Woo Ping would most probably want to forget.

Nope, this didn't cut it by a long shot. For some reason, we accept a lot of flaws in Hong Kong-movies that we otherwise wouldn't, but there's just so much in this movie that we actually laughed at it quite a few times. The story is boring, the jokes are lame and the action is sometimes clever but mostly just falls flat on illogical actions or bad props. The 5.1 surround sound was anything but surround - the only things I heard in the rear speakers were some weird sound effects (check the drumming sequence for example). So what was good? The video on the Hong Kong Legends UK DVD were fantastic, and the extras section just leave most DVDs way behind. But, deconstructing the cover slogan: "Tense" (ordinarily people shooting people can be intensive but when that's all they do, you tend to not react much after a short while) "and dynamic" (as in "all actors expand their one-dimensional characters by having their one facial expression throughout the movie") "with elements of black humour," (yes, slapstick is VERY dark) "Red Wolf is an unstoppable martial arts showcase" (except for the 80% of the movie where people talk or shoot guns) "in the best tradition of action-master, Yuen Woo-Ping." Well, I'll make sure to never watch one of his movies again.

The red wolf is basically a remake of ''die hard'' ,starring Bruce Willis, but this time the action is set in a cruise ship and not in a building. There is a good amount of action but the action is separated in little sequences(1 or maybe 2 minutes each) and the climactic fight does not even last 5 minutes. But the action is good (what else do you expect from Yuen woo-ping?) and Christy chung is looking better than ever(she even has a catfight in this one!). This is a fairly entertaining movie to rent but don't buy this one, buy Yuen woo-ping's masterpiece ''Iron monkey'' instead. This movie deserves 7,4/10