Have you ever found yourself watching another absolute lemon and wondering how bad a film can be? Well, this offering answers the question. I would like to be able to critically evaluate its plot but I don't have the stomach for it. To describe it as infantile would be unmerited flattery. The dialogue? I can only assume it was written by a six year old afflicted with severe learning difficulties. The acting? I haven't seen anything as bad as this since .... actually I don't think I've ever seen anything as consistently and uniformly dreadful! Seeking desperately for something positive to say, I would accept that the martial arts sequences are reasonably well choreographed - but really, your time would be far better spent hiring an old Jackie Chan or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. I've seen some real howlers in my time but this is without doubt a contender for the title of "Worst Film of All Time". Avoid it at any cost.

Silver Hawk is such a great movie, not overly dramatic or drudged up with too much blood or sex. In fact I don't remember seeing any of either. Michelle Yeoh is so cute and smart and funny, it's not dumb fun but it's so great to see a character who actually has lots of fun kicking butt, something which is usually seen as burdensome and depressing by most superheroes in movies and comics nowadays. Don't listen to anyone who says Michelle Yeoh is too old for this role, she doesn't look her age at all and she could've fooled me! I hate it when people think forty is over the hill, they are gravely mistaken; I think it's more of a sign of maturity and talent than the overpaid up-and-coming sluts on our silver screens today. The character is original, the costume is beautiful and not at all immodest. The music is just right and we are finally allowed the luxury of enjoying the fight scenes, totally real, beautifully choreographed and filmed so we can see it without getting a headache or feeling ripped off with up too close choppy filming. I think some of the voices are dubbed over but it doesn't bother me at all, they're all English speaking anyways. The bad guy isn't the most sinister, but he's bad enough for me, it's been so long since we've seen a villain with the classic motives of world domination and a viable method of doing so. Bad guys and superheroes don't have to be overdramatized for me to be entertained, they just have to have clear motivations and a simple sincerity. As far as any of the humor or lines coming off stale or lame-I've seen MUCH worse in movies made by people who speak English every day of the week. Silver Hawk is beautiful, strong, original, well made and modest. Ten stars and my recommendation if you like superheroine or superhero movies, martial arts and sci-fi.

Silver Hawk is an enjoyable Cantonese take on the superhero genre. As such it's much more enjoyable than recent US additions like Spiderman 2 or Daredevil, taking a very Blade-like 'Good vs Evil in a knock-down drag out fight' approach as opposed to going for the 'tortured hero' take on things American directors seem to dig. If you want depth you are firmly looking in the wrong place (go for the original 80s Batman maybe?), but if you want action, humour and incredibly sharp fight choreography, you've come to the right place.It's similar in style to both Blade and Sam Raimi's Darkman, also taking cues from recent Hong Kong movies like Twins Effect. It has a fantastic look, good strong characters and a simple but effective plot that keeps you glued to your seat. Additional praise must be heaped on leading lady Michelle Yeoh. Much like Jackie Chan, despite many would-be successors coming and going since her debut in the 80s, she still has what it takes to front an action movie in spades. She not only makes Silver Hawk a genuinely likable and unique presence, she's also still a mesmerizing fighter to watch. The fights in this movie are really good, some of the best non-period kung-fu I've seen since the likes of Versus. They're played with humour by Yeoh, with Silver Hawk cockily dancing around baddies before kicking their teeth in, but they're still imbued with an impact missing from many similar films.So why the 6? Firstly, Silver Hawk is incredibly lightweight. If it wasn't for the balletic and convincing fight scenes, this movie could probably have been a 12A or even a PG, it's like a Bond movie only with a female lead. Get boy, send bad guys home with bloody nose, end. It's simple, and that's why it works so well, but it doesn't have much depth, and I'll mainly re-watch it to enjoy the great fights and Yeoh being cool as she always is.Then there's the dub. It's not, as I originally thought, an entirely Americanised dub. It's like Gen X Cops 2, in that it's dual language, always has been, and was intended for dual release. However, much like a lot of Jackie Chan's movies and Jet Li's earlier films, it's dubbed in quite a slapdash fashion, in a sloppy manner that makes it obvious all the actors except Yeoh and Luke Goss have been re-dubbed by voice-over actors, and that Yeoh and Goss voices were added at post-production instead of using the original recordings. It's not awful, and it compares favourably with some more suspect re-dubs, but it's still glaringly obvious that most characters are not being voiced by the original actors, and that the voice-over wasn't done in sync with the film, it was done off in some studio somewhere with just a script. If you think you can put up with that better than I did (I couldn't help wincing during certain scenes, such was the complete disconnection between dialogue and on-screen action) add a point to the score, and if you don't watch subs, add two. That's the best way to approach it really.Basically Silver Hawk is really good fun, a cool superhero movie with a great heroine played by a great actress. It's fast, funny and has really good fight scenes, but you could get put off by the awkward dub. It's good enough that I think it's worth the effort, and I'll definitely be watching it again soon.

OK, this movie starts out with an action scene. The scene is horribly performed and directed, with slow-mos and stop-frames in the weirdest moments. The hero is like a comic-book hero, cape and weird bat-man like devices included, only female. She beats up an entire group of trained guards in order to get to their cargo: pandas, probably illegally smuggled. Her sidekick is a "smart" motorcycle which comes on command and can be remotely controlled. Come on! How lame is that? Hi Oh Silver, away! all over again. Silver being the key word :)The film continues much like the first scene, with a lot of bad dialog, repetitive action moves and cliché bad guys. (translated into Chinese: arrogant Europeans with a black American henchman). I did wonder why Michael Jai White and Luke Goss accepted to play in this movie. They probably needed money badly.I give this movie a five, because it is a very bad movie, but that actually doesn't surprise me. I expected that from the very first scene, so at least it was an honest movie.