Bovie Movie

Action star and goofball extraordinaire Jean-Claude Van Damme returns in this gritty tale of revenge between the Los Angeles mob and an invading Chinese Triad. The “Muscles From Brussels” stars as Ben Archer, an ex-mob tough guy whose wife is savagely murdered after she brings home an orphaned child who happens to be a Chinese kingpin’s daughter. Racked with grief, Archer is forced back into the mob life as Van Damme stacks up the dead bodies until he finally comes face to face with his wife’s killer in an explosive match to the death.

The narrative of The Hitman unfolds following the assassination of a sleazy Japanese businessman in Hong Kong. Various groups come together at a meeting held by the administrators of the dead man’s Revenge Fund, which offers a $100 million reward to find the killer. Fu (Jet Li), a penniless mainlander, walks into the meeting by accident and is taken under the wing of Ngok Lo, a smooth-talking agent for professional hit men who proposes Fu help him track down the killer. Some of the funniest scenes are when Ngok Lo buys Fu new clothes and coaches him in Hong Kong ways. Ngok’s daughter, a young lawyer who is unhappy with her father’s background, seems to fancy Fu. Fu and Ngok are busy trying to stay one step ahead of the psychotic son of the murdered man, who is also after the assassin — a reputed mythical Killing Angel. A genre film reflecting the current zeitgeist in Hong Kong following the Chinese take over, The Hitman was screened as part of the International Forum of New Cinema section of the 49th Berlin Film Festival, 1999.

This sequel to the 2001 hit video-game adaptation Lara Croft: Tomb Raider finds Jan de Bont stepping in for director Simon West, helming his first feature since 1999’s The Haunting. From a script by first-time scribe Dean Georgaris, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life finds Angelina Jolie once again portraying the titular curvaceous adventurer. But where the first film saw Croft in a race against the Illuminati to acquire an elusive relic that offers control over life and death, this entry in the series follows the heroine as she ventures to an underwater temple in search of the mythological Pandora’s Box. Unfortunately, once she secures the legendary artifact, it is promptly stolen by the villainous leader of a Chinese crime syndicate. It is then up to Lara to get the box back before an evil mastermind gets hold of it and uses it to construct a weapon of catastrophic capabilities. Gerard Butler, Djimon Hounsou, and Noah Taylor head up the supporting cast.