skjam | Entries tagged with jackie chan

Mr. Nice Guy (1997) dir. Sammo Kam-Bo Hung

The place is Melbourne, Australia. Reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and her cameraman Richard (Peter Houghton) were secretly filming a drug deal between suit and tie mobsters lead by Giancarlo (Richard Norton) and the more street gang "Demons" led by Grank (Peter Lindsay) when the deal went very wrong and the ensuing violence revealed the presence of the press. Richard was wounded and captured, but Diana managed to get outside with the videotape.

During the ensuing chase through the city, Diana ran into television chef Jackie (Jackie Chan) who helped her with his martial arts skills. Not that he had much choice as the gangsters assumed he was her ally. The two finally escape, but not before Diana's evidence video was accidentally exchanged for a tape of one of Jackie's cooking show episodes. That tape is subsequently borrowed by the grandchildren of Jackie's foster father and cooking partner Baggio (Barry Otto).

Now the criminals are after both Diana and Jackie for the videotape, as well as fighting each other. And they're not too particular about who else they hurt in the process. Jackie may have to stop being Mr. Nice Guy for just a little while.

This action comedy is a bit more on the action side for a Jackie Chan movie. Jackie's martial arts skills are justified by having him want to be a cop growing up, and training for such, but this being forbidden by his late father, who wanted him to have a safer career path, and enforced by foster father Baggio. Baggio's own son Romeo (Vince Poletto) was more rebellious and became a police officer himself.

Side note: Despite having this direct line to the cops, Jackie refuses to get them fully involved until after his Chinese girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee) is kidnapped. At that point they become useless until the very end of the movie, easily being outsmarted by the criminals. Romeo eventually does find the videotape, but by that time both the mobsters and gangbangers have committed so many other crimes in public that it has become a moot point.

Good: Many cool action scenes and stunts. The location shooting is excellent and I suspect inhabitants of Melbourne appreciate the familiar local scenery. This movie is above average in the Jackie Chan filmography for female roles. While Miki is admittedly a shrieking damsel in distress, Diana and Lakisha (Karen McLymont), Jackie's production assistant, prove savvy and active for people not trained in combat. Also there's Sandy (Rachel Blakely), the most intelligent of the Demons and their second in command, who has a decently meaty role. However, the cut of the movie I saw just disappears Diana and Sandy towards the end.

Sammo Hung gives himself a funny cameo as a bicyclist who gets involved in one of the action scenes.

Also, just to change things up, the climax of the movie does not have Jackie Chan use his martial arts skills to resolve the plot, but a rather more spectacular method. (That got the production company banned from ever filming in that part of Australia again.) It's cathartic.

Less good: After the baddies lose track of the videotape the first time, they should have realized it was futile to chase after it. With the technology of the time, it would have taken less than an hour to make multiple copies (especially if you have access to a television studio as Jackie does). Only the fact that the tape has been misplaced keeps up the illusion that it can be captured. Cut your losses and run, fellas.

Content notes: Martial arts, gun and bomb violence; multiple deaths. Diana has to run around in her underwear for an extended period. Torture.

Overall, a decent martial arts action film, and Jackie Chan is excellent as always. Just don't think too deeply about the premise.

Twin Dragons (1992) dir. Ringo Lam

Boomer (Jackie Chan) was raised by a single mom who had a bit of a drinking problem but tried hard to give him a good upbringing in the low-income areas of Hong Kong. She never talked about his father. Now he's an auto mechanic and street brawler, with a sideline in street racing. His buddy Tyson (Teddy Robin Kwan, "Tarzan" in the Chinese) has developed a crush on lounge singer Barbara (Maggie Cheung) and asks Boomer along to help him woo her. This is because a mob boss also has his eye on the entertainer. If only Boomer could figure out why his fingers keep twitching.

What Boomer doesn't know that he's one of a pair of identical twins. He was abducted from the hospital as a human shield by a fleeing criminal, only to be lost by the criminal before he was rearrested. Boomer's brother, John Ma (Jackie Chan), has grown up to become a successful pianist and classical music conductor. John's in Hong Kong for the first time in 26 years to lead a concert. He's greeted by a friend of his wealthy parents, who wants to hook up his daughter Tammy (Nina Li Chi as "Tong Sum") with the Ma family for economic reasons. Tammy already has a boyfriend, the roughneck Rocky (Jamie Luk Kim-Ming) who is insanely jealous.

Boomer and Tyson manage to extract Barbara from the mob-controlled nightclub, but manage to make enemies of the underworld gang. John is pursued by the wrathful Rocky, who completely misconstrues the situation between John and Tammy. A series of near-misses happens, and the brothers are mistaken for each other, interacting with each other's supporting cast in utter confusion.

Eventually the brothers meet and discover the resemblance, but that doesn't solve any of their problems. Boomer must lead a concert, and John has to drive the getaway car for the mobsters' imprisoned boss. It all ends in a big brawl at the Mitsubishi testing facility.

Good: Jackie Chan shows off his gift for physical comedy and funny martial arts. The brothers discover that they can affect each other's movements, which allows for some hilarious moments, especially when a mobster figures out only one of them can actually fight, but that's not completely true. Most of the jokes land, and it's fun figuring out how the filmmakers did certain shots.

While the female characters have less to do, they do get in some comedy moments of their own. Also, the useless "damsel in distress" role gets taken by Tyson, who really strains his friendship with Boomer (and doesn't end up with the girl or the money--Barbara makes her lack of interest in him clear early on.)

Less good: Some of the lechery jokes fall flat, the twin mixup has some creepy moments, and why is Boomer friends with Tyson again?

Content note: Martial arts violence, car crashes, what is essentially rape by deception. (Parts of the movie were cut for American release so we don't see if this is ever admitted.)

Overall: A perfectly good Jackie Chan movie that hits on most cylinders. Best not to think too carefully about that sex scene though.

Dragon Lord (1982) dir. Jackie Chan

Dragon (Jackie Chan) is a boy in his late teens who is a talented but undisciplined martial artist, and disappoints his wealthy father (Feng Tien) by blowing off his literature studies to hang out with his buddy "Cowboy" Wa (Mars). Cowboy's father (Paul Chang Chung) is also wealthy, and a bit foolish with his money, buying expensive items for his collection without thinking of utility. The boys like participating in sports (four-team rugby and shuttlecock soccer) and have an interest in pretty girls, though they are inexperienced at interacting with the latter.

When Dragon and Cowboy fall for the same girl, this causes friction between the two and damages their friendship. While they are engaging in romantic comedy shenanigans, a band of rebels is stealing cultural artifacts from the local temple to sell to Mr. Wa so that they can then buy weapons to overthrow the government. Naturally, these two plot threads collide, so that Dragon and Cowboy must fight the rebel leader (Ing-Sik Whang) to protect themselves and others.

Good: Fun stunts and action throughout, especially the brutal fight in a barn at the climax. Jackie's ability to play a skilled martial artist who is also a goofball is always appreciated. Some good foreshadowing.

Less good: Jackie Chan was still in the early stages of learning to direct, and it shows. The rugby match was originally written for the end of the movie, to show the repaired relationship of Dragon and Cowboy, but was moved to the beginning so the story could start with an action scene, where it just kind of sits there with no characterization or plot and if you didn't know who Jackie Chan was, you would have no idea who to root for.

The girls in the movie are there to be pursued, and have little characterization beyond "hard to get", and for all their plot relevance could have been replaced with any other desirable group. Several of the comedy beats don't land properly.

Content note: martial arts violence, a little blood. Early body function humor. Slapstick of girls hitting boys for being jerks.

This is relatively low grade Jackie Chan, but like pizza, low grade Jackie Chan is still pretty good. Worth checking out if you've run out of the top Jackie movies.

Supercop (1992) dir. Stanley Tong

After two spectacularly successful cases, Chan Kar Kui (Jackie Chan, "Kevin" in the dub) has acquired the nickname "Supercop." And now there's a new dangerous assignment on the horizon. His superiors trick him into volunteering by letting overhear a conversation about how they feel the case is too dangerous even for Kar Kui. Since it's a secret assignment, naturally Kar Kui has to keep his tour guide girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung) in the dark, making it sound like a milk run courier task.

The actual assignment is to infiltrate a prison camp in Communist China and free Panther (Wah Yuen), the brother of drug kingpin Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang.) This will, in theory, allow Kar Kui to get inside the drug smuggling gang and take them down from within. The escape goes off mostly well, despite some hiccups. Panther and his new best friend head to Wu Han(!) where they are joined by Red Chinese/Interpol agent Jessica Yang(Michelle Yeoh), posing as Kar Kui's sister.

Our heroes manage to convince Chaibat to let them join his gang in Hong Kong, but it's soon time to head off to the Thai border, where Chaibat uses an elaborate plan involving a bulletproof vest with dynamite plates to corner the market in heroin. But to pay for it, Chaibat will need access to his Swiss bank account. And the codes are in the possession of Chaibat's wife, who is about to be sentenced to death in Malaysia.

Time for another prison break, but at this point May shows up in Malaysia and mistakes Kar Kui's fake sibling relationship with Jessica as dating. Sparks fly, and this leads into the final exciting action sequence.

This was the third in the Police Story series in Hong Kong, but retitled for the American market (and a theme song by Devo!) With the handoff of Hong Kong from Britain to China a few scant years away, the theme is cooperation, even though the mainland officers are straitlaced and are irritated by Kar Kui's more casual ways.

Jackie Chan plays Kar Kui as someone who may be "super" in some ways, but is still very human and flawed. He's far too easily distracted by a pretty face (and his initial behavior towards Officer Yang is unprofessional.) And while he's good in a fight, Kar Kui has some bad luck and is certainly not invulnerable.

Michelle Yeoh's Jessica Yang is a cool, competent professional, though she does lighten up a bit when in disguise to tease Kar Kui as a sister should. While the movie goes ahead and points out she's pretty, it doesn't waste time playing her as sexy or have the camera ogle her body. The character was popular enough to get her own spinoff movie.

Wah Yuen and Kenneth Tsang do a good job as the villains, with the latter chewing the scenery as he arranges for more and more death. Maggie Cheung's May has a more thankless damsel in distress role, and is off camera for most of the movie.

As always with Jackie Chan movies, there's some top-notch stunts and fight scenes, including a traintop battle.

I note that this is one of the movies where the cops committing a number of crimes (grand theft auto, aiding in prison breaks, murder) is supposed to be justified by the criminals being just so much worse. The good news is that none of these shenanigans will come out at the villains' trials because there's no one left to arrest.

Recommended for Hong Kong action fans--this movie works fine as a standalone, but purists may want to see the first two movies beforehand.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: "Kung Fu Fighting"

Project A 2 (1987) dir. Jackie Chan

Sergeant "Dragon" Ma (Jackie Chan) may have smashed the pirate fleet menacing Hong Kong a few weeks ago, but a policeman's lot is not a happy one. It seems that Superintendant Chun (David Lam)is suspected of being heavily corrupt. Organized crime in his district operates freely, and periodic spectacular arrests by Chun have done little to stem the tide. Indeed, a planned arrest goes wrong when a civilian accidentally dies and Chun is forced to gun down the arrestees in the street to keep them from talking. This raises questions, and Ma is sent into the district to try and get the goods on the superintendent.

Sure enough, Ma and his handpicked squad discover that the local cops are raking in bribes and ignoring real crime while harassing flower girls. Only one officer at the precinct house proves to be honest. With a little help from his old Coast Guard buddies, Ma is able to arrest the district's top gambling czar. This raises Chun's ire, and the crooked cop schemes against his unwanted underling.

Multiple factions come into play: crooked cops, honest cops, gangsters, revolutionaries (one of whom is Maggie Cheung), imperial agents hunting the revolutionaries...and the last few survivors of the pirates, who have sworn vengeance against Ma. Can the Dragon unravel this twisted knot of fate and bring justice back to Hong Kong?

This sequel to the very popular Project A film is missing Sammo Hung and his character, who is never mentioned, but manages to be a lot of fun anyway. There's a good mix of action and comedy. A long section in the middle is about too many people trying to hide from each other in a small house, there's a pretty hilarious chase scene where Ma and Chun are handcuffed together while pirates attack, and then a very long fight scene that involves several innovative environments is the big climax.

Don't miss Jackie Chan singing the theme song over the closing credits while the bloopers play!

Content note: In addition to the expected martial arts violence, there are a few scenes of women in fin de sicle undergarments, which is racy in context. The female characters are otherwise treated as competent, especially Maggie Cheung as an idealistic revolutionary.

Topical: Sergeant Ma makes a case for the necessity of the police being apolitical; Maggie's character points out that she's known very few police officers that actually live up to his principles. (And indeed, we see what normally happens to good cops that try to expose bad cops.)

Overall, a fun martial arts film for Jackie Chan fans.

Current Mood: hot

The Armour of God (1986) dir. Jackie Chan

Jackie (Jackie Chan) used to belong to a pop singing group called The Losers. But his best friend Alan (Alan Tam) and sweetheart Lorelei (Rosamund Kwan) fell in love and the group broke up. Jackie switched careers entirely and became a soldier of fortune codenamed "Asian Hawk." Recently, Jackie stole a large sword from an African tribe to sell to the highest bidder.

It turns out that this sword is special; it's known as The Sword of God, part of the regalia known as The Armour of God. On this alternate Earth, King Arthur led the Crusades against the Satanists, supposedly using this set of armor to vanquish the dark forces. A remnant of the Satanists, posing as a monastery in Yugoslavia, have two of the pieces, and based on Jackie's success with the sword, decide he's a good candidate to acquire the remaining pieces so that they can plunge the world into darkness again.

One of the Satanists sensibly suggests simply paying Jackie a large sum of money for the task, but this approach is immediately shot down as not evil enough. Instead, the Satanists will kidnap Lorelei and force Jackie to fetch the armor for them.

By the time Jackie learns of the kidnapping from Alan, he's already sold the Sword. But he knows the other two pieces are in the possession of millionaire antiquities collector Bannon (Bozidar Smiljanic), so he and Alan head there to try to persuade that man to help them. It turns out Bannon's daughter May (Lola Forner) is the one who bought the Sword on her father's behalf. After some silliness, Bannon agrees to lend his parts of the Armour of God to our protagonists in hope of capturing the missing pieces for himself, so May is now on the mission too.

Can this unlikely trio infiltrate the monastery, rescue Lorelei and secure the Armour of God?

This is a lighthearted action film, full of spectacular stunts, including a chase scene with a tricked out Mitsubishi Colt. The full on martial arts scenes are concentrated at the end.

Good: Spectacular stunts and self-deprecating comedy are still Jackie Chan's strong suits. Jackie's directing skills are well-shown. Oh, and professional singer Jackie Chan gets to sing the song over the closing credits!

Less good: Seeing the movie again after many years, it occurs to me that Jackie's character is an outright thief. He's not even collecting for a museum, just money! And the opening sequence treats Africans poorly for what is supposed to be "the present day"; I can only assume they were deliberately dressing down and not using modern weaponry because it was a religious ceremony.

Lorelei is a useless damsel in distress type; May is bossy but not actually competent as a sidekick, as her marksmanship medals turn out to mean nothing when the targets are moving. May's only consolation is that the cowardly and weak Alan is no more use than she is. Some actual competent women, black women at that, do show up towards the end, but they have no actual lines and their outfits are impractical. And yet, this movie still feels less hostile towards the female characters than the sequel, Operation Condor.

There's a waiter who's a pretty obvious gay stereotype, but other than being comical he's not treated negatively.

Overall, a fun movie with a lot of good points, but it is sorely dated, which may make it less attractive to younger audiences.

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: "Flight of the Dragon"--Jackie Chan

Project A (1983) dir. Jackie Chan

In the fading years of the Nineteenth Century, the waters off Hong Kong are infested with pirates. It's the duty of the Hong Kong Coast Guard to deal with said pirates, and they haven't been doing a very good job. Sergeant Ma Yue "Dragon" Lung (Jackie Chan), the most competent member of the Coast Guard, would dearly love a victory. Especially as there's friction between the Coast Guard and the land police, who have had to fund the sea-going disasters at the price of their own salary budget. While many cops and Coast Guard members are individually friends, there's a strong inter-service rivalry. The tension comes to a head with a restaurant-smashing brawl started by the arrogant Captain Tzu (Biao Yuen), nephew of the police captain.

This disgrace could be wiped out by the Coast Guard's next mission against the pirates, but all their ships are blown up while still at anchor. It's almost as if someone told the pirates exactly where and when to strike! The Coast Guard is disbanded, and the troops reassigned to the land police under the direction of Captain Tzu, who tries to give them some disciplined spit and polish, but is an ass about it.

Captain Tzu gets a hot tip that a notorious gangster is holed up in an exclusive club owned by the wealthy shipping magnate Chao, and brings along Sergeant Ma Yue and a couple of other undercover officers to make a quiet arrest. Things quickly go south as the club employees refuse to cooperate, and the higher-ups in the police force seem more interested in not upsetting Mr. Chao than in bringing in the criminal. Dragon turns in his badge in disgust (and Captain Tzu is not pleased either.)

Dragon is contacted by his shady old friend Fei (Sammo Hung), who's been hired by the pirates to obtain some police rifles. Fei doesn't care if the pirates get the rifles or are captured by the government, as long as he gets his payday. What follows is a complex series of plans, counter-plans and doublecrosses as Dragon and Fei try to achieve their not-always-congruent goals.

This action comedy is one of my personal favorite Jackie Chan movies, and was successful enough to spawn a sequel Project A 2 and have its title parodied by one of my favorite animated films, Project A-ko. You can see the strong Buster Keaton influence in the physical comedy, particularly a running chase/battle scene on bicycles, followed by a clock tower battle, and then a spectacular falling stunt from the clock tower. (So spectacular that the movie uses two different takes so as not to waste them.)

There's a bravura scene where Dragon gets to call out the venality of the British consul and not only not get punished, but trusted with the concluding anti-pirate mission, which was probably a favorite of native Hong Kong residents at the time.

I watched the American dub this time, which skips a couple of comedy bits and has ordinary credits, rather than the set with outtakes from the film. This may have caused the verbal humor to suffer a bit; some of the minor characters' voice acting didn't quite hit.

Isabella Wong has a pretty thankless role as Winnie, the daughter of the Coast Guard Admiral, who is sweet on Dragon. Her primary function is to be useless during the bicycle chase scenes so Dragon has to rescue her several times.

Jackie Chan plays to his strengths here as a hero who's more competent than most of the people around him, but still prone to miscalculation, pratfalls and pain. (A nice bit in the first fight scene is Jackie and Biao Yuen breaking off combat with each other to hide and express how much each other's blows hurt.)

This is a fun film that melds martial arts action and comedy well.

Current Mood: lonely

Operation Condor (1991) directed by Jackie Chan

Back during World War Two, a large shipment of gold was concealed at a secret German base somewhere in the Sahara. The officer in charge of the mission, and the eighteen men assigned to assist him, mysteriously vanished, and anyone who knew the exact location of the base died one way or another before the end of the war. It sure would be nice if the United Nations was the first to find the gold so it could be used for peace. And that's where the man codenamed "Asian Condor" comes in.

This action-comedy movie is a sequel to 1986's Armour of God, but due to import shenanigans came out in America first, so most of us know the latter movie as "Operation Condor 2."

After a failed mission in the Amazon, treasure hunter Jackie (Jackie Chan) is recruited by the UN to lead an expedition into the Sahara to look for the Nazi gold. The dub I saw carefully avoided saying the word "Nazi" though. He's teamed with a geography expert named Ada, who manages to pull rank on Jackie once and then is overruled for the rest of the movie. They are soon joined by Elsa, the granddaughter of the German officer who hid the gold, who is trying to prove that he didn't just steal it.

There are other parties after the gold too, a pair of bumbling Arab bandits, and a more competent group of mercenaries led by a mysterious man in a wheelchair.

Once in the desert, our heroes are joined by Momoko, a Japanese drifter in the desert to consider philosophy, and her pet scorpion. Shortly thereafter, a random band of Arab slave traders (what, again?) abduct Ada and Elsa, so Jackie and Momoko must rescue them. While they're away, the mercenaries slaughter the rest of the expedition, so it's up to Jackie and the girls to find the hidden base, defeat the mercenaries, and confiscate the gold. Two out of three ain't bad.

The good: This is how you make an Indiana Jones-inspired movie. Keep the action and comedy, and the basic idea of a treasure hunter, but have the main character be entirely their own person rather than a Harrison Ford imitation.

The comedy mostly hits, especially when Jackie is being self-deprecating, and the action is excellent, with Jackie Chan as always doing his own impressive stunt work. I especially liked a fight sequence on moving platforms.

Less good: The roles for women in this movie are...less than good. After a fat-phobic joke in the opening, the women in the story exist for being rescued, comic relief and fanservice, including being forcibly stripped and ogled. (The audience only sees rear nudity.) None of the women seem competent (Ada even noticeably fails at her supposed expertise), though they sometimes manage to distract Jackie's opponents.

The dub I watched flattens out many of the characters' voices. Some of the accents are over the top vaudeville stereotypes.

Overall: It's a very well-produced movie, and Jackie Chan shines in it. But take a star off if you prefer competent female characters.