THE most colossal goof of all was in casting Jet Li in the first place. He lacked the screen presence of Arnold Vosloo who managed to be an interesting character you could both dislike and feel sorry for. His expressive eyes and full command of his facial and body language would have been at home in the silent film era, considering he did not speak a single word of English in the film ( but Stephen Sommers had the decency to subtitle his dialogue, whereas Rob Cohen did not seem to find it necessary for the Emperor. )Big mistake !
Li was the dud of the film, not Fraser who as usual gave his all while dealing with a new leading lady,a miscast son too old to be believable as his,( not to mention no physical resemblance to either parent), a convoluted script and a wooden and rather limp "villain". Chow Yun Fat or Jason Scott Lee would have been so much better as the Emperor. They both have the size, bearing, and screen presence and Lee's eyes are so expressive. Also, he had already worked with Cohen on Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
"I say,open this door at once! We're British !"
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