Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Zandra
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.
dbborroughs
A Hong Kong action film about a wanted fugitive who is to be extradited who is released and chased by the police. I've been watching a good number of Chinese martial arts and police action films lately and to be honest most of them have blended together. Most of the films simply copy from each other in a weird daisy chain of generic action. This is a film that is different enough that I know I will actually remember it a week or three down the road. This has some wild action and several good scenes you're not likely to see else where including what has to be a unique way to remove a bullet- have the injured person be distracted by having sex. Its a trip. Worth a look if you run across it.
gridoon2018
There is nothing in "Cheetah on Fire" that you haven't seen many times before (except for a bullet-removal during sex, perhaps!); the "attack on the villain's jungle camp" part that takes up the last 30 minutes or so has been done so many times it could evolve into a genre of its own. Script and production-wise, "Cheetah on Fire" is about on a par with a low-budget straight-to-video American action film starring, say, Dolph Lundgren; with that said, the execution does have a certain made-in-Hong Kong energy. I particularly liked the 3 women in the film: Cheung Man, Fujimi Nadeki, and Carrie Ng. They are all strong, fearless, and equal to the men in both giving and taking hits. Cheung Man, in particular, makes a great action heroine and it is unfortunate that she is written out of the second part of the movie. I also liked (once again) Michael Woods, who looks and acts like a comic-book creation (you could call him "The Black Hulk"). On the other hand, Donnie Yen fans will probably be disappointed, since he has very few fight scenes, the last of which (against Gordon Liu) is so often intercut with action happening elsewhere that there is no flow to it. (**1/2)
Mary Kae
*Mild Plot Spoilers* Quite frankly, I found the plot of "Cheetah on Fire" pretty confusing. Whether this is a fault in the movie itself or an indication of how bad the dubbing was, I'm not sure. In either case, the dubbing is horrible. Of course, given the general quality of dubbing, that shouldn't come as a big shock to anyone.From what I could glean of the story, the Hong Kong police are chasing a man named Tom Yang, who has stolen a valuable microchip. The CIA is also after him, and they send some of their people after the baddies as well. There's an inevitable culture clash between the Hong Kong police and Donnie Yen's character, a hotheaded American police officer who doesn't play by the rules (TM). Eventually, there's a showdown in the jungles of Thailand, which is somewhat confusing given that both armies are wearing dark green and at times it's difficult to tell who's who. It's not a particularly inspired movie, but it's certainly not terrible either. There's a rather uncomfortable sex scene towards the beginning which, well, wasn't my cup of tea, but maybe other viewers will feel differently. The usual cop-buddy "witty banter" isn't great, but thankfully, it's kept to a minimum. Donnie Yen gets his own theme music, which is funny in that it is reminiscent of softcore porn music. With regard to Yen, his acting is reasonably good, and yes, he definitely looks good in this one too. The fights themselves are good, but rare. There's quite a bit of gunplay, and actual martial arts is given short shrift in its favor. Almost everyone gets to show off their skills a little, though. Other than Donnie Yen, Man "Peggy" Cheung gets some of the better beatdown opportunities. Of course, it's no surprise that the best fight scenes in the movie belong to martial arts master Yen. His climactic fight sequence is an incredible display of his talent and speed, and Donnie seems to barely break a sweat as he lays it down. One fight scene in particular is very disappointing because it takes place in a forest at night. The lighting is terrible and it's difficult to see what's going on. From what I could see, it actually looks like it was a very good fight sequence. You could TELL that people were kicking ass, but you couldn't really SEE it. I hope if they ever remaster this movie they somehow fix that problem, because it looked like a real gem of a fight, with several of the main characters involved. Overall, "Cheetah on Fire" was fairly unremarkable. If you're a Donnie Yen aficionado, if you have a thing for gunplay movies, or if you just want to kill some time, there are a lot of worse ways you could do it. I'd give this movie a 4.5 out of 10.
tamhien_le
The producers of "Cheetah on Fire" probably got together and said "Let's make a movie with Donnie Yen, a lot action and fight scenes, and some sex; all we need now is a plot and some music to go with it". The result is an awfully bad movie. Of course, one should not expect a lot of realism from the fighting scenes of HK action movies, but the ones in this movie were so gratuitous, confusing, and boring that even fans of the genre will be disappointed.
