I hate it when I get the wool pulled over my eyes. Like the time I thought the Spice Girls were going to be on a talk show to discuss how to kick your meals up a notch with garden herbs. Or the time I visited "Spider-Man" at the Two Guys store and he turned out to be nothing more than my brother's buddy Leo.

I had that same horrible feeling while I watched THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS with Chow Yun Fat and Mira Sorvino. I'm a huge fan of the seminal 80s power-trash band, The Replacements. In fact, they're easily my favorite band of all-time and the ONLY bad I've interviewed that I requested an autograph from (being a fanboy sorta kills the whole journalistic integrity angle).

So, I figured -- from the ads AND some highly suspect plot synopsis delivered by now-former friends -- that the flick was about some cool-ass Hong Kong motherfucker trying to stop a great 80s power-trash band from being assassinated! Cool! A wicked mix of Scooby-Doo and THE KILLER, right?!

WRONG!

Unfortunately, THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS is a C-grade Hong Kong-wannabe flick directed by a guy that does videos (Antoine Fuqua). And while the presence of an Oscar-winning actress (Sorvino, remember?) might make you pause for a moment and think this is gonna be some kind of highbrow endeavor, don't be fooled. The plot, as it were, involves Chow seeking a passport because he wouldn't pull off his final hit, the one that would clear his markers with the local bad guys, including Jurgen "Can't I Play a Good Guy Just Once?!" Prochnow. Sorvino plays a hip counterfieter who dresses like Madonna in DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN.

Despite Chow's presence (a cool mutha even in a bad flick) and an uncredited Al "Endo" Leong, TRK is an unmemorable mish-mash of obligatory dialogue scenes sandwiched between chase sequences and gun battles ripe with attempts at John Woo-like symbolism.