WHEN Hong Kong action movie meets Baz Luhrmann's modern-day kitsch classic, any thoughts of Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet must be banished in the ensuing comic-book bloodshed.

In the wake of Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat, Hong Kong action man Jet Li completes a trilogy of Asian superstars making the big-money transfer to Holly-wood - and we know what flicks and kicks he can do from Lethal Weapon 4.

Li is not a man of many words: usually that would be a problem in a Shakespearean drama but Romeo Must Die is very much a third cousin removed from the original, and so the kung fu is mightier than the pen in Andrzej Bartkowiak's loud and noisome movie.

Jet plays the terse Han, and Han is solo and stuck in prison until he escapes by knocking out five guards: no mean feat when you are hanging by one foot from your ceiling cell. Once in America, he sets about trying to find out who killed his loose-cannon, flashy younger brother, the latest addition to the carnage caused by a feud between two gangland families, one Asian (and inscrutable in the clichd Hollywood tradition), the other black American (and dressed up to the Wesley Snipes/Eddie Murphy/Will Smith max).

Into his vision comes hip and hot Trish (singer Aaliyah) to fill the Juliet role - in case you were beginning to wonder when that side of the Shakespeare deal would show up - and she just happens to be the daughter of the black American gang boss (Delroy Lindo) busy scrapping with Han's father over a waterfront project till death do them part.

The suits, the facial topiary, the shades, the flash cars, the motorbikes, the hardware have all been seen before, and the dialogue will never be quoted again, but Jet Li has the chance to go through a repertoire of new fighting manoeuvres. Ever the righteous hero, he never uses a gun where a fire hose will do, and he puts Aaliyah's fast-rotating body to knock-out use in one wild scene.

Bartkowiak directs by rote, save for his party piece of using X-rays to accompany the act of dying on a couple of occasions. Don't expect a sequel, a Romeo Must Die Harder, but do expect the business-like yet amusing Jet Li to fly higher.