Sporting tons of bad CGI, incessant Ekin Cheng smarminess, and one of the stupidest titles ever, For Bad Boys Only is a prime example of why many people thought Hong Kong cinema was dead in the late 1990's and early 2000's. Fans of cheeseball action movies might squeeze some fun out of this if they take it on ala Mystery Science Theatre, but be warned that, like the great Wesley Snipes says in Blade, getting any true enjoyment from a viewing of For Bad Boys Only is akin to trying to ice skate uphill.

Ekin, Kristy Yeung, and Louis Koo play King, Queen, and Jack (get it?) who are the Bad Boys, an investigative team who specialize in finding lost loved ones. Why they're called the Bad Boys when there's a female member and about as threatening (and annoying) as the Snuggle bear is just one of this film's many mysteries. Anyway, they're contracted by a rich businessman to track down the daughter of a woman he had a relationship with when he was a young man. Both the mother and daughter are played by Hsu Chi, because it turns out that -- ta-da -- the "daughter" is actually a clone. If you think that was a spoiler, don't worry. For Bad Boys Only is the sort of movie that telegraphs any and everything in the plot far in advance.

For Bad Boys Only's weak story and plot development is only one of its' problems. Please, dear readers, don't doubt me when I say that this movie presents some of the worst acting you'll see in a mainstream "big" budget Hong Kong production. Hsu Chi does okay as the "mother", but her portrayal of the "daughter" is as annoying as having every channel on your TV stuck on a Shamwow infomercial. The fact that she's playing someone with the intellect of a child makes Ekin's romantic interest in her even creepier, especially since he seems to be channeling Don Johnson by not wearing a shirt under his suit jacket and looking constipated. Combined with Ekin's syrupy Cantopop songs jackhammering your eardrums several times during the movie, sitting through the exposition scenes in For Bad Boys Only might become your own personal white whale.

So you might be thinking that ultimately the story and acting doesn't really matter for an action picture. And you'd be right, at least to an extent, since there are plenty of releases where the action can overcome many obvious shortcomings and turn a B-movie into something that's actually fun to sit down and watch. That is definitely not the case here, unless you happen to be a fan of poorly-coordinated fisticuffs punctuated by gunplay so "inspired" by The Matrix that the Wachowski brothers should have gotten residual checks. Like the movie as a whole, the action scenes alternate between bland and annoying, and are just the garish barely-digestible icing on this semi-digestable cinematic cake.

RATING: 4