Reviewed by: AV1979 Date: 09/25/2008 What was orignally thought to be a prequel to the original 1996 Jet Li film BLACK MASK (due to the Chinese title translating as "Legend of Black Hero") is nothing but a blatant rip-off of the film. Fan Siu-Wong (credited as Louis Fan) stars as Fu Tien-Ming, a young man who becomes known as a masked hero called Shadow Mask. When his fated arch-nemesis Red Goddess (Cheng Pei-Pei) escapes from prison with the help of her henchmen, she has plans to get rid of Shadow Mask for good. One can only wonder why after the success of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON would Ms. Cheng play the villainess in this film. Perhaps she did it just for kicks. Meanwhile, Fu has been asked to protect a biogeneticist, Sandy Sheung (Japanese actress Ritsuko Nagai), who has stumbled onto a major breakthrough in her research. In fact, this information can be very useful to Red Goddess, who sends her cohort Blood Eagle (Gwennie Tam) to distract Fu by seducing his best friend Jacky (Samuel Leung). When the truth is revealed, Jacky has already been brainwashed and turned into a henchmen complete with hair that looks like it came from one of the KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE. Fu, whose identity is revealed, must stop Red Goddess and her cohorts once and for all to save Sandy before she ends up dead. Fan Siu-Wong seems to be the only factor in the film worth watching as he shines in his action scenes as well as show his acting talent as a man who suffers from his dual identity. He longs to want to get out of being Shadow Mask due to constant pressure from his mentor, Mr. Iron, the original Shadow Mask. However, he soon learns that it is his destiny to become Shadow Mask. Philip Ko, who also produced the film, doesn't have much to offer in the action department, a far cry from his glory days as one of the 1970's most prolific kung fu actors. What could have been an amazing battle of generations between Fan and Ko is marred by the fact that Ko's aging seems to have caught up to him with Fan outshining him. This should be clearly seen by fans who love seeing Fan Siu-Wong and those who literally like comic books coming to life as these characters definitely have the one-dimensional features of just that...a comic book. Reviewer Score: 3