Once again, if you do plan on watching this movie, I would suggest that you stop reading here as there are definately going to be alot of spoilers.   I really enjoyed the twists and turns that this movie had although it did can not compare to the movie The Prestige, it was still very enjoyable.

I watched this movie with mom yesterday and found it very interesting. Also I saw some interesting themes which may or may not be in the movie and I just interpreted it that way.  This movie revolves around the FBI agent Jack Crawford (Jason Statham) and the ex-CIA turned assassin named Rogue (Jet Li).  At the beginning of the movie, it shows how Jack and his partner Tom Lone (Terry Chen) were investigating an incident which involved the rogue assassin.  A gun fight broke out and they rushed in to see what was happening.  When the assassin almost killed Crawford, Lone's stepped in and shot Rogue in the face.  Later in the movie, Rogue breaks into Lone's home and executes him and his family.

As the movie progresses, we see how Rogue works for both the Chinese Triad (leader Chang [John Lone])  and the Japanese Yakuza (leader Shiro [Ryo Ishibashi]).  I found that his actions really embodied those of the saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".  Hence I thought that Rogue was vying for the combined leadership of both the Yakuza and the Triads.  To tell the truth I was very impressed with his strategy.  But here I saw how easily Mankind can be manipulated to serve the will of others when given a push.  Such was the case when Rogue dressed up like a Yakuza biker and drew the rest of the Triad bikers into Yakuza territory where they were duly executed.  The brother of the Triad leader's right hand man was murdered by Rogue with a Katana and he left it there for all to see.  When the Triad learnt of this, the brother demanded that Chang declare war on the Yakuza, but Chang was unwilling to.  Rogue on the other hand was listening quietly behind the wall and when they were outside, Rogue passed a box of matches to the right hand man.  The matches were from the Yakuza bar.  Later, this Triad member took a number of gang members and did a shoot out in the bar.  This was the beginning of the Triad / Yakuza war.

As the movie progressed, we see how Rogue took orders from Shiro to execute Chang and his family.  With the help of some ninjas, Rogue executes Chang and his bodyguards around the house.  When it came to his wife and daughter, all we see are gun shots from outside the house.  When the ninjas demanded that her head be brought back to Shiro, Rogue fires on them and helps Chang's family escape.  Here it started to look a little funny to me as I remembered that Rogue had no problems in executing women and children before, so why change now?  When Shiro learns about this, he calls Rogue in and informs him that he knows of this trechery.  He then orders his execution.  On the way, Rogue finds an opportunity to put his guards to "sleep" and blows up the room that he and Shiro were previously in with a bomb that he had set earlier.  He then engages Shiro in a sword fight and wins in the end.

Towards the end of the movie, we learn that Rogue is actually Lone.  That he did not die in the assassination attempt but managed to kill the original Rogue and take his identity.  We also find out that Crawford was the one who was working for Shiro and gave Lone's address to him.  The reason was because Shiro told him that they wanted to "rough him up abit" and "teach him a lesson", but Crawford never expected that they would kill his family.  Here I see the idea that the police authorities are actually quite naive in that they would actually believe the words of the violent Yakuza.  Of course, it could be different as well since Crawford was working for Shiro and was compelled to follow orders.  In a way I think this actually reflects in real life.  Alot of poilce authorities believe that some form of crimes can be allowed to be carried out as long as they know who is in charge, so that if anything goes wrong, they know who to look for.  But then again, won't it be easier to actually just close them down?  Or would this jeapordise some form of undercover activity that they are actually carrying out.  It's quite difficult to know nowadays.

Another idea that I found fascinating in this movie is how the twist happened.  Throughout the movie we see Crawford being obssessed with finding Rogue and we think that he is our protagonist when in fact it is because of him that Lone and his family were killed.  Rogue managed to eliminate the two major gangs in the movie, the Triad and the Yakuza, which was much more than what the authorities could have done.  This brings me to my point, Crawford worked within the Law and could do nothing while Rogue acted outside the Law and brought down Chang and Shiro.  Sometimes I wonder if our Law has "evolved" so much that justice can never be found.  When Rogue invited Crawford to Chang's warehouse, Crawford couldn't do anything to him because they had nothing against Rogue.  This is exactly my point, criminals that can afford good lawyers are allowed to walk the streets free of any convictions and the authorities are made to look like fools.  Therefore one wonders if the Law nowadays actually protect criminals more than it can presecute them.