I love Rapid Fire. I’ll put it simply because I’ve seen it over two dozen times, and I enjoy it so much. I hadn’t seen it in over a decade and I caught things I hadn’t noticed before. I think this is a criminally underseen action movie. I think it gets overshadowed in Brandon Lee’s small filmography because of his tragic passing during the making of The Crow. Rapid Fire is a fun action movie with great fight scenes and touches on some heavy stuff.
Rapid Fire was directed by Dwight H. Little and written by Alan McElroy based on a story by McElroy and Cindy Cirlie. This was a movie written for Brandon Lee to help make him a star and it did that incredibly well. The movie plays to his strengths not only as an actor but as a martial artist. The way the fight scenes were shot helps it feel different than most action movies.
Like I previously said, Rapid Fire was Brandon Lee’s movie. While the fast pace of the plot gave the movie a breakneck speed it didn’t let him show enough of his natural charisma. While there were moments where he got to flex more than his martial arts muscles, there were far too few. Powers Boothe is so much fun in his role. He also has one of my favorite moments in the entire movie and if you can guess that moment, kudos to you. Nick Mancuso and Tzi Ma are fantastic as the two antagonists. Mancuso got to really flex his villainous muscles more than Ma did.
The stunt team/fight team did a great job with all of the fights in the movie. Brandon Lee and Jeff Imada were in charge of the fights in the movie. I recognized Imada’s name from working on several other movies. The music by Christopher Young is pretty cool. The way the main theme is used throughout the movie is interesting with it being a different being a different recording each time you hear it.
Rapid Fire is a great action movie that I want more people to see. I was glad to watch it again because I find it hard to go wrong with a fun action movie. You can stream this on Starz. I give Rapid Fire 9.5 bowling pins out of 10.