My Review of "The Art of War"

The Art of War is a Wesley Snipes action movie that came out back in 2000. When watching this you're going to have to throw out some logic in your head knowing that it's an old Hollywood action flick. If you're able to throw away your logic you're in for quite a treat. There's a lot of fun little twists and action sequences that will have you thinking, "oh yeah they could only have done this at that time and get away with it."

This movie starts off with a bang. It's Chinese New Years and everyone is celebrating with a renown Chinese billionaire by the name of David Chan. He's a huge entrepreneur and it seems as though China and the US are going to broker a huge trading relationship. Seeing this play out and knowing it was back in the year 2000 shows that there was some really forward thinking in the parts of the writers of this movie.

Our main protagonist goes by the name of Shaw. He's pretty much a bad ass UN agent that could pretty much be the equivalent to James Bond. In some ways he's superior. He is suave and can kick but but he's also able to blend into different types of crowds by being able to change his mannerisms. This guy is a pretty smart cookie too. It's clever how they give him clues throughout the movie and he's able to piece some of them together without seeming as though he's just some sort of genius figuring things out right away.

Shaw happens to work for a team of other undercover agents. They help him out with each of the cases he's on. They seem to be pretty close to him. They work pretty much like a family.

One of the assignments that they're given is to look after a Chinese ambassador as he is trying to help out with a trade agreement with the US. All of a sudden there's a group of assassins that terrorize the place and assassinate the ambassador.

Shaw quickly identifies the culprit and goes on the chase. In a spectacular chase down scene Shaw tries to track down this suspect. It turns out to be some sort of double cross. The police corner Shaw and they detain him for questioning.

Of course Shaw isn't to stay in imprisoned for long. Things happen that lead the police to suspect Shaw of wrongdoing. Meanwhile there is corruption within the ranks that the authorities themselves have to snuff out.

There's tons of cat and mouse chases and movies kind of miss out on nowadays. I'm not sure why we don't have these types of movies anymore. Perhaps it's because they're somewhat predictable but in a way there's a sense of comfort in these movies because of their predictability.

I love the cat and mouse chase that Shaw and his pursuers constantly undertake. Shaw isn't only being pursued by the police but by the Chinese triad as well. There's backstabbing and counter backstabbing going on all over the place. Luckily it's not to the point of confusion. I was still able to keep up with what was going on throughout the each double cross. I was even able to follow what Shaw's mind was going in terms of plotting against his enemies.

The action sequences were done pretty nicely as well. Today we still have a lot of dark action sequences but the resolution is a lot better now. It's easier to decipher who's who in today's action films. Back in the day you'd see two stars both dressed in dark clothing in lower resolution and were still able to distinguish who was who. I don't know how they did it. It's like their movements made us understand who it was. Watching those action sequences kind of blew my mind trying to understand how I understood who was fighting.

This was one of the earliest movies that I could remember that catered to having specifically a Chinese theme to the movie. I don't know why I didn't watch it back in 2000 when it first came out. Watching it today I realize how ahead of its time it really was. I'm able to appreciate it now.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would probably suggest this to a few people that I know that are into action movies. If you love Expendables type of movies you'll love this because it really harkens back to the 90's action movie style. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. This movie really was a pleasant surprise for me.