Jet Li’s Superhero Movie Is Worth Revisiting

Jet Li is an interesting action star. He went worldwide in the late 1990s, around the same time as fellow martial arts legend Jackie Chan. His career brought him through every conceivable tone, subgenre, and level of quality in the industry. His starring roles in projects like Hero establish him as a fascinating actor, but his sillier pieces, like The One, keep him in strange territory. Black Mask was an early entry in his filmography, and though it predates his Hollywood debut, it’s an important step in his career.

Hong Kong was one of the dominant forces in the worldwide action cinema scene over the 90s and 2000s. It took years for Hollywood to notice and adapt the accomplishments of Hong Kong creators. A lot of those tricks and tropes only appeared to American audiences when they saw The Matrix. Borrowing material from the foreign market was the silver bullet that saved the genre, eventually leading to the more equitable and global take on the material audiences enjoy today.

What is Black Mask about?

Black Mask follows Jet Li as Tsui Chik, a humble librarian who just wants to live a quiet life. His mild-mannered day job belies a strange past. Tsui Chik is one of many secret test subjects of a government super soldier program that ended years earlier. The government aborted the project and hunted down most of the experiments, leaving Tsui Chik to help the remaining survivors escape capture. Years later, as Tsui works to maintain his easy life, a huge mass of Hong Kong drug dealers turn up dead. The killing spree is too substantiative for any normal criminals, leading the authorities to suspect the surviving super soldiers. Tsui tries to stay out of it, but when a friend nearly loses his life in an attack, Tsui dons a black mask and hat to bring his fellow experiments to justice.

Black Mask is an unorthodox superhero movie, blending the tropes of the genre (circa almost 30 years ago) with the power of Hong Kong action cinema. It would fit more comfortably with The Matrix than with most MCU projects. The 90s were a weird and interesting era for superhero cinema, relying heavily on the same grim and gritty wave that seemed to consume all nerd media. Blade, Darkman, The Crow, Spawn, and The Guyver stand out as enjoyable examples. The same decade also dropped troublesome entries like Batman & Robin, Steel, or The Phantom. It was a world of ill-fated misfires and wildly varied tones. Black Mask isn’t as good as Blade or The Crow, but it still deserves some attention as one of the most enjoyable dark superhero movies of the era.

What inspired Black Mask?

Black Mask was adapted from a manhua of the same name by Li Chi-Tak. While American fans may be more acquainted with manga, manhua are the Chinese equivalent. Li Chi-Tak is a respected artist with a long list of notable series under his belt. Most of his comics are still fairly obscure outside his native country, but Black Mask is one of his biggest characters. He started his career in the 80s, but the film adaptation brought a lot of attention to his work in the late 90s. Li Chi-Tak created Black Mask with writer Pang Chi-ming, who would go on to create many political satire strips.

Fans of the comic may notice that Jet Li’s outfit doesn’t look exactly like the character he’s based on. His mask is notably different; he wears a hat a lot of the time, and his outfits are all black. While the comic was generally black and white, the covers frequently depicted him with a variety of colorful suits or coats over his form-fitting bodysuit. The film gave Jet Li those unique alterations to his outfit as a reference to Kato, Bruce Lee’s character from The Green Hornet. Kato helped to bring awareness of martial arts cinema and Lee specifically to American audiences. Li looks a lot like Kato in Black Mask.

Where can you watch Black Mask?

Black Mask isn’t available to stream through the traditional legal methods right now, at least not in the United States. A thorough search might reveal other means of seeing the film, including ordering the DVD online. The 2002 sequel, Black Mask 2: City of Masks, is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, though Jet Li didn’t return to the lead role.

Black Mask is a weird and charming martial arts superhero movie. Today, that combination of genres borders on an assumed inevitability. Almost no superhero movie hits the screen without some notes borrowed from Hong Kong and its descendants. Black Mask is a worthwhile trip back to an earlier era that many still remember fondly.

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