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16. Lethal Weapon 4 - Unwelcome Guests

“Hey, Bruce. Nice pajamas.”

There are some action scenes that surpass the films that spawn them. Richard Donner’s 1998 final (?) installment of the seminal buddy cop franchise isn’t the best action film you’ll ever see nor is it the worst (it actually has some of the best set pieces of the series). But what it does have is one of the most important moments in chop-sockey history:

The American introduction of Jet Motherfucking Li.

You know how I know Jet Li is a bad-ass? While Mel and Danny are taking out his entire strike force, he just stands at the top of the stairs. Watching. Waiting. Smiling. He’s probably not even planning strategy at all. He’s done that already. He’s probably wondering if he left the stove on. Or if he remembered to TiVo Battlestar Galactica.

The last thing he’s thinking is, “Oh, shit. They’re taking out my crack tactical assault squad and I’ll have to fight them both myself.” He’s probably thinking, “I sure hope they take out my crack tactical assault squad so I get to fight them both myself. And then I’ll have to figure out what to do with the rest of my day because that will only take 40 seconds.”

That is exactly how long it takes him to smack down three armed police officers.

When Mel goes for the gun, it’s all over. Jet Li gets this look on his face like, “Jet don’t play that gun shit,” and jumps down one story and disarms Mel with his legs. You could have cut off Jet’s arms and he STILL would have disarmed Mel.

(By the way, he really don’t play that gun shit. During the entire course of the film, he never once fires a weapon. He pistol-whips some punks with an automatic rifle and he dodges a bullet, but he never shoots.)

Before we go any further, let’s step back and appreciate that Richard Donner had to take Jet Li aside and say, “Jet, baby. Love the kick-ass moves and the whole hardly-speaking thing, but my camera can only capture 30 frames per second so could you, you know, slow it down a bit?”

That’s right. His moves are so fast that even if you watch them 1/30th of a second at a time, you will still miss them.

A great way to establish someone, especially a villain, as a bad-ass is to make them better at something the hero is already good at. The first three Lethal Weapons establish Mel’s character as an adept martial artist. Here, he doesn’t get in a single punch. It’s a straight-up spanking.

It’s practically to the point where you have to ask yourself the same question you ask about the T-1000. You can’t shoot him. You can’t kick his ass. How are you going to stop him?

This scene builds to two Holy Shit moments. The first is what I call The Move. Jet does a brief hand-stand and, while inverted, kicks Danny in the chest and grabs a gun. (I think all I could accomplish while inverted would be to think, “I’m going to fall down.”) He comes back up into a three-way Mexican standoff. The music, very wisely, stops.

This all happens in about two seconds.

This is the kind of move that shocks the audience into a stunned silence minus the one guy in the back yelling “Whoo!” (literally what happened when I first saw this film). This is also the kind of move that Donner had to slow down artificially (note the semi-slow-mo) just to make it coherent. Also note that, during the standoff, Jet’s the only one not breathing hard.

Which brings us to the second Holy Shit moment. Normally, at this point, our villain would be down for the count. Two guns on him at point blank range. He only has one, which he drops. But then he flashes that “You don’t know it, but I’m about to fuck you up” smile and we have what I call The Other Move in which he not only disarms Mel and Danny, but takes Mel’s gun apart.

Let me say that again. He takes the gun apart. And it’s not like he sits down with a screwdriver and shit. No. In the course of doing other things like kicking both of them unconscious and knocking the other gun out of Danny’s hand and I think doing his taxes, he takes the gun apart.

(This move, apparently, is totally doable with that model of gun, but a couple of steps were removed to make it a little more jaw-dropping.)

Now do you understand why I say this?

Finally, as an afterthought, he knocks out armed Renee Russo without even looking.

The role of Wah Sing Ku was originally offered to Jackie Chan, but he refused because he doesn’t play bad guys. Truth be told, Jet brings a completely different vibe, and makes for a more formidable adversary. If Chan is the more slapstick, Chaplinesque martial artist, Li is the more deadpan Keatonesque performer.

Donner’s take on Li in this scene? “He’s only in first gear.”

See also: The rest of Lethal Weapon 4, all of Fist of Legend, all of Romeo Must Die.

Next: As we’ve already seen on this list, sometimes it’s best when the good guys fight each other.