Bleeding Steel is story about a cop, played by Jackie Chan, who is trying to protect a witness who has created a metal heart that is the key to his genetic research into creating genetically enhanced soldiers called bioroids.

The fact that I actually had to use the term “bioroid” without currently being in the year 1996 is kind of the fun charm that this movie brings to the table. Unfortunately for our hero, a pale man dressed in his discount Sith cosplay comes along with some of these bioroids and attempts to kill the doctor. And what is this mysterious mans name you may ask? Well let me tell you my dear reader, you and all of humanity will tremble at the intelligence and raw, malevolent power of…

Andrew!

No wait, really? That is what we are going with? Okay fine. Anyway, Andrew (Wow! I can not take that name seriously) manages to kill most of the police escort but our hero Lin Dong manages to blow him up along with himself. Also it seems Lin’s young sick daughter has also died that very same night. But, the Doctor Lin was protecting manages to save her with his metal heart before dying himself.

Unfortunately, we cut to 13 years later where Andrew (For real tough, were all the cool names taken?) has survived by becoming a cyborg and he wants the metal heart by any means necessary. And to top it off, Lin is also alive, but seems perfectly fine and not a cyborg even though he was caught in the exact same explosion. He even seems to now posses super physical abilities that he did not have previously. (Or I should say Jackie Chan’s stunt double possess them as a lot of the fights in this movie have Lin in some sort of mask so they can hid the fact that Jackie is getting a little too old for this kind of thing)

Are you confused yet? Because this is only the first 20 minutes! And here in lies the flaw with this movie. There is just too much going on. Too many characters. Too many plot points. Too many surprise reveals that are not as surprising as the movie thinks they are. I am the first to admit that I am an easy lay when it comes to these kinds of movies.

I love the Power Rangers level of unironic cheesiness that these types of movies usually bring to the table. And there are some good action set pieces in here where people in silly costumes fight each other with laser guns and kung-fu. But even I have my limit, and this movie pushes past it and then some. By the end you will be wondering if there were any action movie cliches that the film “didn’t” end up using. It is also sad to see a legend of the stunt based kung-fu movie genre struggle to keep up with some of these action sequences. Shout out to Na-Na OuYang who really sells her physical presence in the few action scenes she is in. It is a shame they shove her off to the side for the majority of the film.

Overall, Bleeding Steel is fun for a little while but overstays it’s welcome with and inconsistent tone and some cliched writing. But if this sounds like your kind of thing or you are just a big Chan fan, you may find a rental worth while