A review of Black Cat  from Amazon.com If you thought La Femme Nikita was tough, then you haven't seen Black Cat in action. Shamelessly and aggressively ripped off from the sleek French action classic, this outrageous Hong Kong action melodrama stars Jade Leung as a surly, hot-headed Chinese drifter in New York (actually Vancouver, Canada, subbing for the U.S. location). After killing a couple of macho trucker slimeballs and a cop in a brutal, bloody fight at a roadside diner, she's "killed" by a mystery man and reborn as a stealth assassin for a super-secret high-tech government agency. Director Stephen Shin goes for broke in a series of bizarre action scenes, but none tops the protagonist's graduation exercise, an outrageous assassination at a Jewish wedding that explodes into gang warfare when every guest suddenly pops up armed with semiautomatic weapons. That kind of logic guides the entire film: Leung's character is never told why, only who, and she slickly takes out her heavily guarded targets with everything from ice bullets to steel girders. Leung pouts and sneers her way through her film debut, all attitude and sass even when she falls in love with gentle environmentalist Thomas Lam (who wins her heart with his syrupy harmonica playing). Simon Yam (the suave assassin of Bullet in the Head) plays her sensitive but steely mentor, secretly in love with the woman he plunges into heady mind games. Leung returns in Black Cat II: The Assassination of President Yeltsin, an even more insane action logic-bomb. --Sean Axmaker

The Last Chapter Michael Ironside, Roy Dupuis, Marina Orsini and Frank Schorpion star in this raw, testosterone-fueled, six-hour mini-series about the world of bikers that is practically ripped from the headlines. The Last Chapter is a carefully researched dramatization about a sub-culture that is as complex as it is brutal, fascinating and repellant. The Triple Sixers is one of the largest outlaw biker gangs in the world. Its business is loansharking, prostitution and drugs. The gang's domain stretches from Halifax to Vancouver, with one important exception - they have no chapter in Ontario. Zip O'Connors, head of Montreal's Triple Sixers Chapter, is determined to move the gang into Ontario. Michael Ironside plays Champagne, the man picked by O'Connors to spearhead the campaign to take over the province. Champagne sees the advantage of joining the Triple Sixers, but his lifelong partner and friend, Ross Desbiens, does not. They make a secret deal - while Champagne establishes the Triple Sixers chapter, Desbiens will organize all gangs opposed to the Sixers. The territory will be divided, the members will stay in line and the two men will share the profits. But their carefully conceived plan falters. The murders begin and it becomes clear that Champagne and Desbiens can't control the bloodshed. Their longtime friendship begins to shatter as hostilities mount and the circle of killings comes very close to home in an all-out biker war. In a bizarre convergence, both the police and the tradition-minded Mafia greet the mounting hostilities with alarm. Each in their own way, and each for their own reasons, struggles to keep a lid on the warfare that threatens to spill from the back streets onto main street, catching innocent citizens and "honest businessmen" in the crossfire. The Last Chapter, set in Toronto and Montreal, looks at the world of outlaw biker gangs from the inside - portraying the strict codes of behaviour and the hierarchies behind them with unprecedented clarity. The story takes us into the homes of the men and their families, as well as their clubhouses, the bars where the drugs are sold and the streets where their victims are dying.