PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGICAL TRIBE (2026)

This may be the worst Jackie Chan film I've seen. It's aimed at the under fives and has deep message from the Mainland Chinese government.

The plot of the film has Jackie and his panda getting transported to the land of a lost tribe by magical means in order to help stop some foreseen apocalypse.

Seemingly aimed at the preschool crowd, this film looks like it's a bunch of adults playing dress up to amuse the diaper crowd. Jokes fall flat. Things are made cute or warm and feelie. The action sequences are fine but itwas clearly done via CGI or through editing. (And to be fair Jackie is 71 and it's amazing he's still doing these sort of things, but we had decades where it was all before us so I am spoiled)

It all comes off as incredibly dumb and juvenile. I know the trailer looked like that- but the trailer for the first film did too, but it turned out to be a great deal of fun. This is the sort of thing you grab the remote and surf away.

I do have to say that there has been a lot of talk about the influence in Mainland Chinese films by the government and this film actually is the most blatant I've seen. There is a point late in the film where the panda god tells the little panda that he was brought to the tribe to show them that we must all work for the greater good and that no one is above the community. It's a sweet message that feels like it the government warning everyone not to sell out to capitalism and being out for just yourself. Its an out of left field teaching moment.

I can't recommend this film unless you are under 5 or must see every film with CGI pandas in them

Shadows Edge (2025)

 Possibly the least interesting Jackie Chan film I've seen. Yes he's made some stinkers but this is the first time I was largely bored.

Cobbled together from any number of better techno thrillers, this film has a bunch of bad guys lead by a ghostly former government assassin trying to run a couple of robberies in order to get the required tech and passwords to still billions in cryto. When the police find that their systems are compromised they bring in a retired "hunter" to bring the crooks down the old fashion way.

This film is a mess. From a script that doesn't explain anything either at all or well, to action sequences that make no sense (the 20 minute opening sequence has the bad guys peeling off disguise after disguise after disguise despite having nothing under the clothes they were just wearing), to long periods where nothing happens (The training in the streets sequence), this is a film that cries out for a new editor who is willing to remove stuff. One that can actually match up the action in a sequence so it actually flows and doesn't have to be helped along by our imagination and letting things slide.

Yes, Chan is fine, but he isn't given much to do until late in the game (hell, he doesn't come into the film until almost the laf hour mark).  The rest of the cast is equally good but they to are not given anything to do. We don't know who anyone is so early sequences fall flat, and we aren't clued in until almost a hour in when we start to get long monologs that fill us in. That would be okay, except it's so late we don't care.

The film also isn't focused. is it about the cops at the start? The bad guys? Chan? the daughter of Chan's dead  partner? What is everyone's relationship? The film doesn't know and doesn't do anything until it needs to pull something out of its bottom to drive things forward again.

This isn't bad as such, but it isn't anything we haven't seen before (EYE IN THE SKY any one? MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?  How about any other recent techno thriller with a hacker who can get into anything? How about any film where a young cop is trying to make their dead parent proud while watched over a misunderstood ex-partner?)

I was bored and kept reaching for the remote.

A LEGEND, debuting on Digital, Blu-ray & DVD January 21

Billed as a sequel to the 2005 film THE MYTH, A LEGEND is really closer to a remake (though don't quote me it's been long enough since I saw THE MYTH that I could be overstating it) . The film is the story of a professor, played by Jackie Chan, finding some ancient relics that mirror ones in his dreams. His dreams tell the story of the battle between the Huns and the Hans and a beautiful woman tasked with keeping the land safe.

I know a lot of people are getting upset that they used AI  to make Jackie tat look younger, but the truth of the matter is that the film has a more serious problem and that is a wildly uneven script. Drifting erratically from grand action to soap opera and back again the film feels like it doesn't now what it want to be. The film feels like it is trying to make a point about the glory of China instead of being an entertaining action film.

I know I have been admonished by some of my friends for covering films from China owing to their crack down on artists and dissenters, but the truth is the Chinese government intervention in the making of films is going to do more damage faster simply because no one is going to want to see the films or the art produced. A LEGEND, like several recent other films from China, has the feel of a film that had the government crawling all over it, making it less enjoyable because the plot feels contrived and the film praises the glory of a mythical China that exists only in legend.

While the action is very good (if incredibly slick) I'm not sure it's quite up to the task of making the film  worth seeing. The problem is there is too much blah around it.

Ride On (2023)

RIDE ON is a first for Jackie Chan, a film that is so disappointing that you really don’t ever want to see any of it ever again.  Say what you will about Jackie’s out put of films, no matter if you liked a film or not, there was always something in them that made you want to see at least part of them again. With RIDE ON that really isn’t the case. I wouldn’t feel heart broken if I never revisited it.

In the film Jackie plays an employed stuntman who lives with his horse. He is struggling to get by. He can’t make rent, the local gangsters want the money they loaned him and his daughter is trying to reconnect. When a fight with some of the gangsters goes viral he has a shot at redemption with a second chance at the movies. 

Okay....

Where do I begin?

The first problem is that this film is like five or six films all mashed together. Every plot thread should have been its own film. There are so many characters in this film it feels like we are in the middle of New York’s Penn Station at Rush Hour and we are trying to make a film of everyone that is getting off every train. It’s insane.  Complicating things is the tone of the film changes from moment to moment. Nominally a light comedy the film is frequently maudlin. Jackie looks like a broken man and seems to be playing this as Death of Salesman.  What was this supposed to be originally because I don’t think that’s it now.

Shot as an epic, the film is a true widescreen film where everything is big and bold. This helps the action sequences which have room to be huge set pieces, but the characters get lost in the smaller moments as the characters get vanish among the sets.

Probably the most heartbreaking thing is the action set pieces are just okay. I would like to say it’s just Jackie showing his age, he tuned 69 on the day the film was released, but there have been several recent films that worked with Jackie and hid any slowing down through editing and camera work. Here the set pieces feel slowed down. At times the sequences feel like they filmed the dress rehearsal instead of the actual performance. Set pieces such as Jackie playing a Green Hornet type character are brilliant in conception but poor in execution. It feels like everyone is moving two steps slower than they should be.

I kept thinking what would this have looked like ten years ago? Two years ago? With a different creative team?

The worst part of all of this is the film doesn’t feel like there was any love involved in the making. It feels like a contractual obligation. It’s a feeling hammered home by the outtakes that run during the credits and there isn’t the joy the sequences had in other Jackie Chan films. There is no sense of fun in them.

I was disappointed from start to finish.

While not bad, it’s just nothing worth the effort.

Skip it

Vanguard (2020)

The events in VANGUARD are set in motion in London during Chinese New Year  when a rich accountant is kidnapped by a band of mercenaries. They want the accounts that he had been handling for now deceased head of a terrorist organization. His son wants the cash, and revenge since the accountant had ratted him out to authorities.  Two Vanguard agents then rescue the accountant and his wife. However the terrorists threaten his daughter and the chase is on as Vanguard tries to keep everyone safe in an escalating series of pitched battles.

One of the few truly new films playing in theaters VANGUARD is another action film from director Stanley Tong and nominal star Jackie Chan. While Chan is billed first he is actually a more a supporting player, being the head of the multinational security firm that gives the film its title. Not to worry, this film is great fun.

Yes, I’m breaking with my fellow critics and I’m going to reveal I had a blast watching this film. Pure popcorn for body and soul, VANGUARD is far from deep, meaningful or even logical but it moves like the wind and entertains more than most recent films I’m seen. Sure the CGI, like the animals, such as lions and hyenas, is crappy, but I really didn’t care. VANGUARD is never pretending to be anything other than entertainment, and on that level this film kicks serious ass. This is a 105 minute mind cleanse and we are so much better for it.

Frankly I don’t know why this film isn’t getting talked up more. The action is well done and gripping. Sure there are times when Jackie’s being goofy makes you groan, and some of CGI is clunky but the rest of the violent ballet makes you go wow.

Simply put I has a blast watching.

To hell with high art- give me crazy ass action that just moves and I am happy.

Currently in theaters  VANGUARD is the perfect film for anyone who just wants to sit and not think about serious stuff for a couple hours. Highly recommended for anyone who can go with it’s lets have fun vibe.

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #59 Fearless Hyena Part II [1983] ★

It was probably too much to ask for the sequel to The Fearless Hyena (1979) to be as good as the first. The film was Jackie Chan’s debut as a director and it marked an early high point in his career, both as a filmmaker and as a restlessly creative stunt choreographer. Consider the film’s masterful climax where Chan defeats an evil fighter with “emotional kung fu,” confounding him with absurd techniques mimicking explosive emotional outbursts. It was the rare intersection of martial brilliance, directorial know-how, and can-do recklessness that defined the very best of classic wuxia cinema.

That said, there was no reason for the sequel, Chan Chuen’s Fearless Hyena Part II, to be so heinously abysmal. But then, Chan himself backed producer Lo Wei into a corner when he jumped ship mid-production, breaking his contract with the studio to sign on with Golden Harvest. Determined the release a finished product, Lo hired stunt doubles to complete the unfinished scenes and shamelessly recycled footage from the first film to pad out the runtime.

In truth, Fearless Hyena Part II is a sequel in name only—the plot and characters are completely unrelated to the first film. It doesn’t even bother to bring back the emotional kung fu that made Chan’s character in the first movie the eponymous fearless hyena! Instead the film features a truly scatterbrained plot about two estranged cousins, Cheng Lung (Chan) and Tung (Austin Wai), who join together to avenge their fathers’ murders at the hands of their rivals, the Heaven Devil (Yam Sai-koon) and Earth Devil (Kwan Yung-moon), two ruthless killers whose synchronized fighting style makes them practically invincible.

Of course, said vengeance only occupies maybe the last fifteen minutes of the film, the first seventy-five being devoted to half-baked and obnoxious shtick. There’s an excruciating sequence early on where Chan applies to be a waiter in a restaurant owned by an imperious Dean Shek who sneers half-cocked non-comedy for what feels like an entire reel before Chan just…leaves the restaurant to do something else. Even worse is the addition of Hon Kwok Choi as Frog, a gambler who gets entire set pieces whose only purpose is to eventually introduce the cousins to each other before getting killed off. Fearless Hyena Part II is barely a movie—it’s only a finished film by runtime technicality.

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #39 Spiritual Kung Fu [1978] ★★½

Producer Lo Wei wasn’t quite sure what to do with Jackie Chan after he returned from being loaned to Seasonal Film Corporation in 1978 for a two picture deal with director Yuen Woo-ping. Wei had helped launch Chan’s career in 1976 by casting him as the lead in a number of unsuccessful Bruceploitation films. But after the smash success of Chan’s two kung fu comedies with Yuen, suddenly he was one of the hottest performers in Hong Kong.

Yet Wei still couldn’t quite get the hang of how to use him. He tried reverting back to the Bruceploitation format with the dour, overly serious Dragon Fist (1979), and he tried replicating Wong-ping’s comedic magic with other directors like Chen Chi-hwa for the wacky yet terminally scattershot Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (1978). Wei’s own Spiritual Kung Fu was another attempt to reverse engineer the Chan formula, this time throwing him into a supernatural comedy. But unlike Chan’s fellow Peking Opera School graduate Sammo Hung who pioneered a new horror comedy subgenre with his own martial arts hybrid Mr. Vampire (1985), Wei’s film didn’t make significant waves.

Spiritual Kung Fu isn’t a bad film by any means, and it has a surprisingly original plot when compared to Chan’s other films of the era: after a thief steals a tome containing a forbidden style of kung fu from the Shaolin Temple’s library, upstart student Yi-Lang (Chan) is contacted by five ghosts who teach him the long-lost techniques that can counter them. The issue is the slapdash execution. Most of Spiritual Kung Fu is played as a straight mystery thriller. There are secret identities, mysterious assassinations, and shocking twists galore as the monks feverishly try to figure out who stole the secret techniques and why. Yet the scenes with Chan and the ghosts are played like crude, childish farce. The ghosts—who with their white, full body leotards, skirts, and yarn-like red hair look like malevolent Raggedy Andy’s—act like young, petulant schoolchildren as they go about invisibly causing mischief and mayhem.

Still, the fight scenes are superb, particularly a prolonged sequence near the end where Yi-Lang passes the Shaolin Temple’s final examination by defeating over a dozen opponents simultaneously while armed only with twin tonfa. The shots of Chan fending off four, five, or six enemies at once are dizzying masterstrokes of fight choreography.

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #37 The Fearless Hyena [1979] ★★★★½

Jackie Chan’s directorial debut The Fearless Hyena marked an early high point in his career, perfecting everything he’d learned working with Yuen Woo-ping on their two groundbreaking kung fu comedies in 1978: fast-paced, frenetic fights, character-driven pathos, and an irreverent sense of humor. Though his onscreen persona would eventually morph into that of the harried everyman, in his early comedies Chan’s characters were frequently immature ragamuffins who had discipline (literally) beaten into them.

The Fearless Hyena is no exception. Chan plays Ching Hing-lung, a kung fu prodigy living with his cantankerous grandfather in the mountains. Disobeying his orders to keep their skills secret, Ching joins a kung fu school in a nearby village where he quickly gets rich challenging opponents from other schools. But the attention draws the notice of his grandfather’s evil rival Yam Tin-fa (Yam Sai-kwoon) who tracks down and kills the old man. Enraged, Ching becomes the student of the Eight-Legged Unicorn (Chan Wai-lau), an elusive master who teaches him secret techniques with which to get his revenge. The plot is paper-thin even by kung fu standards, and it almost snaps in the second act when it devolves into a series of one-on-one brawls where Ching defeats a number of enemies by alternatively pretending to be retarded and a flirty young woman. But as showcases for Chan’s talents as a fighter they’re nearly unsurpassed. The more light-hearted fights like an early tussle between Ching and three street hustlers vibrate with the wacko logic of Looney Tunes: the camera literally shakes when Chan flips a fat guy onto the ground, leaving a second fighter pancaked in the mud like he was Wile E. Coyote. But the more serious fights involving Yam are shockingly gruesome, like the opening scene where he nearly tears a man’s shoulder blades off his back with his bare hands.

Through it all Chan demonstrates his tireless perfectionism, creating fights so intricately choreographed and rehearsed they’re almost too fast to follow. Case in point: one fight sees Ching square off with a sword-wielding opponent with nothing but an iron bar. At some point Chan disarms his opponent and begins fighting with both bar and sword without missing a beat. Neither myself nor my roommate watching with me knew when the switch happened. It was simply done too fast, too smoothly, too perfectly.

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #32 Half a Loaf of Kung Fu [1978] ★½

1978 was the year Jackie Chan went from being a minor studio player to an international superstar. In March he starred in Yuen Woo-ping’s Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, the first of his films that stopped trying to make him a Bruce Lee clone and instead embraced his acrobatic and irreverent style of comedic kung fu. In October, Yuen and Chan reunited for Drunken Master, the film that arguably perfected the Jackie Chan formula. But nestled between those two films’s releases is Chen Chi-hwa’s Half a Loaf of Kung Fu.

If Chan’s most successful comedies saw him blending martial arts with slapstick silent film stunts à la Buster Keaton, then Half a Loaf channels instead the madcap zaniness and kineticism of Looney Tunes. Consider the opening credits montage. In many wuxia of the era, the credits would play over shots of the lead actor performing kung fu routines in an empty studio. Here, Chan instead acts out a series of 10-15 second comedic vignettes with a group of extras. (The most absurd sees Chan pinned to a wall by enemy knives while posing like a crucified Jesus as a musical stinger from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar blares!!)

The rest of the film is just as inexplicable in its selection of gags and set pieces. Most of it sees Chen grasping at straws for what to throw at the audience next, and indeed for most of the run-time it seems like Chan’s wondering through two or three different movies at once. He runs into several secret kung fu experts, multiple femme fatales, joins or leaves several different clans—the Wu Tang Clan is mentioned in one scene but never shows up, proving that while they may be for the children they’re not for terrible movies—and gets into lots of fights with combatants of perpetually shifting allegiances. Eventually the disparate plot threads collide in the last twenty minutes for a brawl that felt less like a climactic showdown than a recreation of the news teams fight in Adam McKay’s Anchorman (2004). The film’s only bright spot is this fight which, while ridiculous, still manages some inspired choreography, particularly a sequence where Chan frantically studies new moves from a kung fu manual while sparring with the lead villain. It seems Half a Loaf of Kung Fu is half a loaf short from being a good movie.

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule # 27 My Lucky Stars [1985] ★★

Oh so, lemme tell youse guys about this fight scene. So, Jackie Chan is hot on the trail of a gang of yakuza hiding beneath a Japanese theme park. Wearing an Arale Norimaki mascot costume, he sneaks into the entrance of their subterranean base disguised as a Japanese-style haunted mansion. As he navigates the twists and turns of the mansion’s corridors, monsters from Japanese mythology jump out of the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Some are just animatronic props. But others are henchmen dressed like ninja or demonic geisha who attack him with the element of surprise. Armed with a sword and handgun, Chan shoots and slashes his way through them. He doesn’t just beat them up, he straight up kills these goons, blasting them at point blank range and impaling them with his sword. It’s a showcase of Chan’s manic comedic energy and physical precision at its very best, particularly a couple of stunts in an upside-down room. Elsewhere, a Hong Kong detective woman played by Sibelle Hu squares off against a yakuza killer. The killer disrobes her yukata revealing an 80s aerobics leotard beneath. And beneath the leotard is Michiko Nishiwaki, Japan’s first female powerlifting champion, in all her cut, muscly glory. It’s a moment internet memes were made for.

All this happens in the last thirty minutes of Sammo Hung’s My Lucky Stars, the loose sequel to his 1983 action comedy Winners and Sinners. These were the first two films in the Lucky Stars franchise which saw Hung lead an all-star ensemble cast of famous Hong Kong actors. And this emphasis on the ensemble is exactly why My Lucky Stars doesn’t work despite its glorious climax. The majority of the film is comprised of bawdy comedic set pieces. (Chan only has about twenty minutes of screen time!) Some of the sequences work—the best being one where the Stars try and order food via pantomime from a Japanese waiter who doesn’t speak Chinese, resulting in a genuinely clever dick joke. But most of the bawdiness comes from the Stars sexually harassing and assaulting Hu. (In one scene, Hung literally has to stop the other Stars from storming into Hu’s room and raping her. This horrific moment is made all the worse in light of the numerous rape allegations made against Eric Tsang, one of the Stars.)

It’s 15% amazing action, 85% nauseating sex comedy.

Jackie Chan's Police Story plays at the Metrograph in a beautiful 4K restoration

Jackie Chan’s Police Story is playing at the Metrograph in a gorgeous 4K restoration starting Friday. If you’ve never seen it you must go, it is one of Jackie Chan’s best. Its so good it played the New York Film Festival and was part of their 50 film retrospective that lead into the 50th NYFF. Below is a modified version of the piece that I ran when it played that retrospective:

Jackie Chan’s Police Story is the first time that the New York Film Festival looked like it actually would show something that wasn’t an arty farty films (at least to me). Here was a movie that most people I knew would watch. It was a film that had me considering actually trying to get tickets and go to the festival. It didn’t happen (actually my first trip to the festival was not until 1991), but the thought of Jackie Chan, clown prince of Hong Kong cinema, getting attention from the film snobs was somehow thrilling.

It would be a while after the festival before I saw the film, but once I did it was clear why the film was chosen to run, it’s an amazing piece of film making (actually every film in Jackie’s series is amazing). The film is your typical cops and robbers stuff. Its nothing you haven’t seen before, nor isthe plot anything particularly memorable. On the other hand the point of the film and what YOU WILL REMEMBER are the action set pieces, in particular the opening and closing bits. The opening bus chase, with Jackie using and umbrella to hang on to a double decker bus is still one of the best things Jackie has ever put on film. The final fight in a shopping mall is equally something that hangs in my memory these 30 years plus since I saw it.

I love this film. It’s the one I usually put into the hands of anyone who I want to turn on to Jackie Chan. This is the film to see if you want to know what his reputation is all about.

If you’ve never seen the film you should.

If you live in the New York City area you can see it the way it was meant to be seen, on a big screen. It runs starting Friday at The Metrograph in a beautiful restored print. This is the way the film was meant to be seen and quite possibly it looks better than even when it was first released.

Go see the Police Story. I know many of the Unseen Films writers and readers are going to be double downing and going to see the film yet again on the big screen. Come Join us.

Namiya: Jackie Chan and a Little Magical Realism

In the early 1990s, they still wrote letters in this provincial Chinese town, but when they might be delivered was anybody’s guess. This was especially true of Papa Namiya’s mail chute. One fateful night and one night only, it will serve as a time portal, connecting correspondents three decades apart. Perhaps it is made of the same stuff as the mail box in Il Mare. Regardless, people seem to receive their letters exactly when they need them in Han Jie’s Namiya, which opens today in New York.

Kindly old Papa Namiya was so full of helpful advice, he institutionalized his position as the local “Agony Uncle.” Advice seekers dropped off their notes and letters through the mail slot at the front of his corner store and he left his replies for the more private cases in the milk delivery box in back. Seeking his counsel became a local ritual until old age and a crisis of confidence forced him to retire. However, several years later, he had his faithful nephew announce his special one-night return, but even Papa Namiya does not know how special it will be.

Back in the present day, Ah Jie, Tong Tong, and Xiabo, three grossly disadvantaged orphans take refuge in the mothballed Namiya store, after a bit of mischief crosses the line into criminality. Much to their surprise, time nearly stands still for them in the store, but that allows them to start responding to letters meant for Papa Namiya. In flashbacks, we see how life unfolds for the musician they sort of encourage to follow his dreams. We also watch the results of the advice Papa N. offered to a young Michel Jackson fan disillusioned by the King of Pop’s molestation accusations and his own father’s mounting debt and chaos, as well as the fate of a desperate bar hostess, who starts to follow Jie’s prescient investment strategies. Eventually, all four strands will mostly come together, thanks to Old Papa’s subtle guidance.

Namiya is based on a novel of magical realism written by Japanese mystery master Keigo Hagashino that was also recently adapted for film in his native land. It very definitely stands comparison to the Korean film Il Mare (ill-advisedly remade as the Sandra Bullock vehicle, The Lake House), but it is exponentially more hopeful. Frankly, the basic premise never makes much sense and it is easy to get confused by all the flashbacks and call-backs, but viewers will still leave Namiya feeling strangely great about life in general.

Namiya also holds the distinction of being the first strictly dramatic, no fighting and no martial arts performance from Jackie Chan (with the possible exception of a few jokey cameos) as old Papa Namiya. He is heavily made-up, but still instantly recognizable. Basically, he acts like what his body should feel like after all the beatings he took—and he is terrific. It is some of his best work, up there with The Foreigner, but that old charisma from his glory years still twinkles through.

Dilraba Dilmurat is the strongest by far of the punky orphans, but Hao Lei outshines everyone as the naïve but resilient bar hostess. However, the rock-solid Chan is both the glue that holds it together and the X-factor that makes it all click so well. Namiya the film isn’t shy about its melodramatic inclinations and neither are many of its cast-members, but it pays off in a big way, earning its sniffles and sighs. Refreshing and invigorating, Namiya is a super way to start the New Year. Highly recommended for fans of light fantasy, Namiya opens today (1/5) in New York, at the AMC 34^th Street.

Kung Fu Yoga: Jackie Chan Goes Bollywood

It is a martial arts film deliberately crafted to support Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” neo-Silk Road-sphere of influence policy. It is also a tomb-raiding film without tomb-raiding, Instead, world famous archaeologist “Jack Chan” risks life and limb to recover lost artifacts for the greater glory of China. In addition to physical danger and extreme elements, he must also deal with deceptions and double-crosses in Stanley Tong’s Kung Fu Yoga, which opens today in New York.

When a highly regarded and impressively limber Indian archaeologist requests Chan’s help tracking down a treasure lost during the Journey to the West era, he can hardly say no. Along with his teaching assistants and Jianguo an old crony who specializes in remote petroleum drilling, Chan globe-trots off the China-India border, to follow the clues on an ancient map. Unbeknownst to them, the well-heeled descendant of the rebel Magadha army lies in wait to ambush Chan’s team. It was his ancestor who lost the fabulous treasure, so he intends to steal it back to restore the family honor.

However, the real treasure remains buried somewhere deeper within India. To find it, both parties will have to acquire the artifact stolen by Jones, the son of Chan’s late friend and colleague. Unfortunately, Jones has put it up for auction in Dubai, the conspicuous consumption capitol of the world.

Granted, KFY is a little wacky, but it is not a full-on goofball spectacle in the mode of Chuen Chan’s 1979 Kung Fu vs. Yoga. Arguably, the sequence in which Jack[ie] Chan pursues a car chase with a not so tame lion in the back seat of his appropriated SUV harkens back to the madcap spirit of vintage Chan movies. Tong also makes Dubai look like an absolutely horrible, nauseatingly shallow place to visit and an even worse place to live.

Chan mostly acts two-thirds his age in KFY, even checking into the hospital at one point. Aarif Rahman’s Jones displays some solid chops, carrying a disproportionate share of the martial arts load, while Eric Tsang is about as shticky as you would expect as Jianguo. Disha Patani is certainly a good sport flirting with Chan as the secret Indian princes Ashmita. However, Mu Qimiya matches and maybe exceeds her yoga flexibility and screen appeal as Chan’s assistant Nuomin.

There is a good deal of corn in KFY, but there are also a handful of gleefully outlandish action scenes, including one set in a cage full of hyenas (beasts are definitely beastly in this Chan outing). It closes with a Bollywood number which is a cliché, but it is still good, clean fun. It can get silly, but never in the way that makes loyal fans gag. Recommended as a fluffy, harmless romp, Kung Fu Yoga opens today (1/27) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Railroad Tigers: Jackie Chan Rides the Rails

Wouldn’t it be nice if Chinese cinema devoted one fiftieth of the time and attention they spend on the Japanese occupation to the events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the Cultural Revolution instead? At least the war and the resistance offer opportunities for good action sequences, which is all we’ve really asked of Jackie Chan. To his credit, Chan has found ways to act his age and still be an international action movie star, most notably in collaboration with director Ding Sheng (including Little Big Warrior and the bizarrely under-appreciated Police Story: Lockdown). Produced with the Mainland market in mind, Ding’s Railroad Tigers opens this Friday in New York.

Ma Yuan is the grizzled leader of a gang of petty thieves ostensibly working various jobs related to the railroad. They regularly pull off small-scale capers targeting the Japanese authorities and collaborators as best they can. However, they get the call-up to the big leagues when Ma Yuan shelters a wounded Eight Army commando charged with blowing up a critical supply-line bridge. The dedicated soldier isn’t going to make it, so Ma Yuan and his tigers adopt his likely suicide mission.

Of course, they will need help, so they manage to recruit Fan Chuan, a Rick Blaine-like noodle shop owner, who was once the sharp-shooting bodyguard of a Nationalist warlord. Unfortunately, the Japanese also get reinforcements when legendary Inspector General Yuko Nakashima arrives. She is fierce (played by Lanxin Zhang, a frequent femme fatale henchperson in Jackie Chan films), but one could argue her high rank makes the occupying Japanese look weirdly progressive.

Once again, Chan largely (but not entirely) acknowledges his sixty-some years during RR Tigers. Throughout most of the film, he is the terse-speaking center of the team, sharing the action duties with the rest of the ensemble on equitable terms. Of course, he takes over the big climatic set piece sequence, but by that time many characters will be dead, in accordance with the conventions of Dirty Dozen-style big mission movies. Old Man Chan also develops some truly appealing chemistry with Fan Xu, glammed down to look at least ten years older as his love interest, the widowed Auntie Qin. Frankly, it would have been nice to see more of them together.

The first two acts have their share of entertaining stunt work, but nothing that will really dazzle fans’ minds. However, the climatic blowing-the-bridge sequence is a doozy. It is nice to know JChan can still get the job done. It is also always good fun to watch Zhang Lanxin throw it down.

RR Tigers has also garnered attention for the unheralded return of Chan’s son Jaycee after his pot conviction. They even share a scene together that Mainland-HK audiences have read considerable irony into. You have to feel a little for Chan fils. If he grew up in the Hollywood establishment, nobody would care about a minor pot bust. He’d working again after a quick “mistakes were made” non-apology. It also seems tough that he was transparently named after his father, but does not have the benefit of being a “junior.” As a further Easter Egg, look out for a fleeting cameo from one of the world’s biggest movie stars in the wrap-around framing device.

If you are already a JChan fan, you can watch RR Tigers without any cringing or regrets. The Jackie Chan Stunt Team aims to please and their skills are admirable. It is not bad, but for those who are not rabid Chan loyalists, this latest outing from Chan, Ding, Zhang and company is probably too uneven to win over ardent converts. Recommended for the faithful, Railroad Tigers opens this Friday (1/6) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

I dare you to look away from DRAGON BLADE (2015)

DRAGON BLADE is among both the best films Jackie Chan has ever done and the worst. Its a film that is glorious one minute and laugh out loud bad the next. Its a stunning spectacle that was shot and released in Asia in 3D that is getting a 2D release this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Let me get the question of should you see this on a big screen out of the way before I go any further- yes you should. The visuals are frequently stunning. Also outside of one early fight Jackie Chan's fight choreography is bloody (literally) good.

The plot of the film has Jackie Chan as one of a small group of protectors on the Silk Road there job is to keep the peace and prevent anyone from taking advantage of travelers. Or the 36 kingdoms from preventing free trade. Chan's attitude is all men are equal and if we treat them right we will have a friend and allie instead of an enemy. When a cache of gold with his groups signature is found they are all arrested and sent off to help rebuild the decaying Goose Gate, a city outpost, some where in the wilderness.

One day a huge army is seen to be approaching. The group is a bunch of Roman Legionaries who are being lead by John Cusack. Cusack is trying to get a small blind boy to a distant kingdom. His men are desperate for food and water and they are planning on storming the city. Jackie Chan intervenes and talks them out of the attack, offering shelter from a sand storm. They then offer aide in rebuilding the city when they are given 15 days to complete the job. As the Chinese and the Romans come together Cusack reveals that he is on the run from Adrian Brody and his army. It isn't long before Chan and Cussck are in conflict with Brody, his men and those he bribed.

There is way more going on, a great deal of it never or poorly explained. The film's two major female roles, Chan's wife who is a school teacher, and a warrior princess who believes she is Chan's wife because he bested her, are under utilized and indifferently handled.(Let me put it this way this warrior princess would kill Xena easily she's that bad ass- but they don't do shit with her after a certain point.)

I should note that the version of this film screening in the US is 103 minutes long. The film's run time lists it as 127 or 125 depending on the source. this means that at least 25 minutes of plot was removed- and the film has sections that are choppy as a result.

The performances are all, with two exceptions pretty good. The stand outs of the cast are Jackie Chan who has one of his most heroic roles while Adrian Brody kicks ass as the villain of the piece (and one of the best screen villains in a long time). The weak performances come from the blind kid who Cussack is protecting he is frequently awful, while Cusack himself is very uneven, and seemingly bored at times.

The real problem here is the editing. Even allowing that the version I saw is missing a large chunk of time, the film still shows signs of being some huge epic chopped down to a manageable size. Characters come and go randomly. There is a sense that these people have a back story and they carry themselves and are shot as if they are supposed to be someone important, however there is no clue in the dialog or by their actions. Worse events just happen and we jump around. They finish building the city and the next thing Jackie is going to get his wife when a huge battle occurs-its such a radical jump I swore I fell asleep for twenty minutes. Toward the conclusion one of the character betrays everyone but then moments later is fighting on the side of goodness and light.

WTF? No seriously WTF?

Events are so out of kilter in places that the audience I saw the film with were roaring with laughter when logic jump moments occurred.There are times when you want to yell like John McEnroe "You can not be serious" because its such a mess... truthfully the plot makes no sense whats so ever and your brain will come close to exploding as you try to make sense of some of it.

And yet the film manages to over come some of the worst editing I've ever seen to be a good action film. No really when this film is on it rocks.

The action that Jackie has come up with is some of the nastiest he's ever been a part of. Blood and body parts fly in the epic battles. People die horribly. The violence can be ugly- but its also way cool as the fights,large and small become glorious action set pieces. ( The training competition is very well done) Best of all Chan's typical silliness is pretty much all gone.

Chan's character, while in his wheel house of  heroes, is also one of his most heroic.  Villain Adrian Brody's line "Real heroes remain accountable to the end" fits Chan to a T. Beaten, stabbed and shot full of arrows Chan is going to fight to the end because that's what he does. Chan's heroics earn the film a few tears which should not have been earned except that Jackie sells the character.

Watching the film there is a sense that there is a truly great film somewhere in the mess that is DRAGON BLADE, and it pops its head out just enough times that you end up liking, if not loving a film you really should hate.

Is this a great film?  Not as it is but it has it in it. It has enough going for it that if you like  Jackie Chan and you love well done action this film is definitely worth seeing.

The film hits theaters Friday the 4th and will be on VOD as well.

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ADDENDUM:
January 4,2016
A full review is coming but I have seen the full 127 minute version of DRAGON BLADE and it does play better.

The wrap around archaeological dig story only covers about seven minutes of screen time which means that there is still another 17 minutes of plot. Based on my cursory watching the additional bits make the story flow better. I know some of the things I thought were jarring seem less so. Plot points don't seem like they are hanging. As it stands this is the way to go- the problem is this isn't the version out in the US

Jackie Chan Experience:Project A and Project A 2

This is going to be brief. I went to the Jackie Chan Experience screenings of the two Project A films. It was fun seeing the films on a big screen (Though I left early on the second one).

The evening was cool since its always fun to see who shows up. Several people related to Subway Cinema were there and I saw a couple of faces I see at Subway events. By the looks of it and based on word from the last couple of days the showing have either sold out or been damn close so if you want to see something get tickets sooner than later.

Seeing the films on the big screen for the first time I was struck by how much I was disappointed by the films. Yes they have great set pieces, but I don't think the films are overall anything special. I'm guessing the reaction was due to being on Jackie over load, but at the same time, outside of the action they are kind of forgettable- which is why I left. (I also never realized how violent the first film is with the graphic-but bloodless- stab wounds and other violence)

That said the chance to see any Jackie Chan in it's original form on a big screen -on film-a fact that was made clear by a break and fluttering picture- is a treat.

Go see something before the series ends Thursday.

PS
A Note to Lincoln Center- apparently everyone loves the Journey to the West Monkey King posters- one guy talked about stealing one- however I heard three separate conversations stating that people were looking to the animated film that was playing all July long.

Time with The Not So Drunken Master-Some Thoughts on Jackie Chan's New York Appearances

Author Ric Meyers at Lincoln Center waits for Jackie Chan

Monday and Tuesday was Jackie Chan overload as Jackie returned to New York for a series of public appearances. I'm told this was first in perhaps a decade, maybe more.

Monday he was at Lincoln Center where he was given the Star Asia Life Time Achievement Award by the guys who run the New York Asian Film Festival. After getting the Award he sat down with Grady Hendrix (in a kick ass pink suit) to talk before screening a new version of his Chinese Zodiac.

Grady Hendrix introduces Jackie

Tuesday there was a press conference at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in the morning and  in the evening Jackie was at the Asia Society where he spoke briefly before a screening of his Drunken Master 2. (I was told that he then was rushed off to a big gala that was being held in his honor).

It was a whirlwind of fans, films and Jackie Chan.

Grady interviews Jackie

In trying to write up this piece I tried to figure out what to do. I could talk about the films, how Chinese Zodiac in it’s new form is better than the previously released Asian version thanks to with sped up action and some cut scenes which gave it more cohesion but a bit less sense; or I could talk about how the Drunken Master 2 is so much better big and in its unaltered form (see my piece on the changes here).

I think not.

I could relate exactly what happened at each event, about what was said, about the man who took the stage to ask Jackie to try and help stop violence in wake of the bombing in Boston, and I could relate again the stories he told, of the new projects mentioned -A Jackie Chan stage musical is coming and a music project with people in LA.  But the videos of his appearances are out there if you look (The Asia Society talk is at their website and I've seen The Lincoln Center Q&A on You Tube)

I could do any number of things but I won’t.

Instead I’d like to talk about Jackie the man and what he means to so many people and how that revealed itself over the two days in New York.

I don’t really know that much about Jackie Chan the man. I haven't made a deep study of his biography. Mostly I just watch his films. That maybe sacrilege to some but it still doesn't make him any less cool

I do know that watching him interact with his fans and the people presenting him over the last few days, I felt I was getting a sense of the man behind the myths and the stories.

Jackie takes in the assembled press corps

I mean I watched as he would stand behind the curtain and be quiet until introduced and then bound on to stage very much a man in the on position. I know he’s a man who has told some stories so many times that they come out of his mouth with an easy that suggests he’s said them a few more times than the three I heard them. I’ve seen that he’s a man who wants to connect with his audience but is being pushed and pulled by his handlers past them (He made an effort to try and sign Dr Stan Glick’s book despite being told he had to go). He is also a man very much capable of taking care of himself in a hairy situation, as was revealed when a man stepped out of the audience and on to the stage of the Walter Reade Theater to talk to him. Jackie deflected the people who wanted to keep the man from Jackie  in order to listen to what the man had to say. It was a scary moment, but watching it again on video it has become one of the most powerful memories I’ll have of Jackie. It was amazing since with a wave, a gesture and a straightening up of his posture it became clear that no matter what happened or what was happening Jackie Chan was very much in control-more so than it may seem when he’s being prodded by the handlers. It was a clear human, person to person statement that Jackie Chan is very much the man we see what we see on screen.

And it’s the man that we see on screen that we all are attracted to.

There is something about Jackie Chan that turns us all into bouncing six year olds. Watching a Jackie Chan movie, even after you’ve seen it a dozen times or more, there is still a sense of genuine of wonder. You watch his movies and you have no idea how the hell he’s done what he’s done. It's Jackie and that’s all. There is nothing but the man. The movie magic is Jackie Chan, it’s not computers or camera tricks it’s one man doing the craziest things you’ve ever seen (clearly his mother never told him to be careful)

I love the man and his movies…

…and so do lots of other people especially the guys from Subway Cinema who brought Jackie here. Watching the Subway Cinema guys, Samuel, Goran, Grady, Rufus, Ted and everyone else over the last few days was like watching a bunch of kids who were just dropped at Disneyland and told to go crazy. Never have I seen such wide smiles on so many adults in my life. There was this sense in watching them that they were still in disbelief that they really had gotten Jackie Chan to New York. They all wanted to seem to turn to each other and say “We got Jackie Chan to New York! How Cool is that!?!"

It was way cool, and they did great by film fans in New York.

I kind of know what they were going through since I was staggering around Manhattan for two days in an orbit around Jackie Chan myself. I was there as a fan, and occasionally as a reporter.

Jackie in motion

The fan part of me just wanted to scream Hey that's JACKIE FREAKING CHAN!!!. It was a glorious thing to see a man you’ve admired for almost 40 years walking in front of you. It was even more special when I could drag my brother, after two tries, to see his favorite film star ever.

Yea, my brother Joe is the mad Jackie Chan fan. Joe, who from when he was 9 or 10, was going out and tracking down Jackie Chan stuff. He had me getting copies of Chan films mail order from Video Search of Miami and elsewhere. He had friends getting films from Chinatown for him. From him I went from being a fan to being more than a fan.

Ultimately its just super cool to take your brother to see some one's always loved.

While I’ve been to more than a few press conferences, and I’ve gone to my share of press screenings watching the press corps go gaga around Jackie was a great deal of fun. While I pride myself on being able to connect to the six year old in me (sometimes to the point that people think I'm nuts), many of the press are often too cool for school and try to remain above it. However watching many of them try to get close to Jackie was amusing. Trust me on this this wasn’t that these people were trying to get the shot this was people trying to get as close to their idol as humanly possible because he's Jackie Freakin Chan. And I’m serious in this feeling since I spoke with several other members of the press and I heard several conversations and it was clear everyone was there because it was Jackie and no one else.

One of the best things was just being in the audience at Lincoln Center and the Asia Society  with other fans. I bought my tickets and was there as fan. I was there like everyone else because we wanted to see Jackie. I wanted the right to lose my cool and bounce and not have to be worry about covering things up because it wasn't professional. If I never wrote a word or took a picture it didn’t matter I was there to see Jackie.  Seeing Jackie was all that mattered

Jackie points

Sitting in rooms of like-minded people was great. Sure I was there with Mondo, Mr C, Chocko, Shigeko, Hubert and Earl, but I was also there with a couple of hundred others as well. Talking to everyone and listening to everyone’s Jackie stories was a great deal of fun. The game of When did you discover Jackie Chan went impromptu around every room, the Walter Reade, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office offices and the Asia Society. It was so prevalent that La Frances Hui. from the Asia Society made a reference to it in her opening remarks stating that asking her about Jackie is like asking her to remember her first playground experience. It couldn’t be done, he was always there.

Always there?

Always somewhere, Always on the screen be it large or small but not always in New York. Jackie is only rarely in New York which is why is appearance on Monday and Tuesday was so special to so many..

Jackie signs

And because he comes so rarely the two days and three appearances of Jackie Chan in New York will always have a special place in my heart. What started out as just going to see a favorite actor and some of his movies turned into something else. It became something more since we got to see that this man we admire is, in some ways, all that we thought and hoped- a really cool guy.

I want to thank the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office helping to arrange the trip, The Film Society and the Asia Society for hosting the screening and mostly I want to thank the mad brains behind Subway Cinema- Goran, Samuel, Grady, Rufus, Ted and everyone else for being crazy enough to have started and continued the New York Asian Film Festival so they could share grand moments like these with the rest of the the world.

Jackie speaks while some of  the Subway Cinema crew look on

More Jackie Chan pictures up at Tumblr

I posted a bunch of pictures from the press conference at the Hong Kong  over at the Unseen Tumblr page. Its both Jackie posed and not posed. They can be found here.  A full report on the press conference will be coming soon.

I was also at the Asia Society talk and screening of Drunken Master 2 (Oh you MUST see this when it runs at Lincoln Center if you've never seen it on the big screen and in the original version.) I recorded the entire half hour talk and my brother shot photos. As soon as I get the photos I'll post them and if I can get the talk up I'll post that. Frankly this was the night to have seen Jackie since he was much more animated and was bouncing around the stage.

Two pictures from An Evening with Jackie Chan over at Tumblr

I posted the first two pictures from last night's Evening with Jackie Chan. A full report on it, the press conference and the Asia Society appearence will be coming. For now here are two pictures- one of the instant Jackie got the Star Asia Award and the other when he sat down with Grady Hendrix (he's the one in pink) to talk about his career.  The pictures can be found here.

Drunken Master 2 (1994) and how a few minor snips make a major difference

This piece was written back in December or January when Mr C and I were planning our Chinese New Year sequence of films. Now that Jackie Chan is coming to New York and this is going to play not only during one of  his appearances but during the retrospective, it makes clear why you'll want to see this in it's unedited glory in the series, and why you'll want to see all the films in the series where you can see them as they were intended  to be seen. 

Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master 2 is a case how a small snip and a change of audio track can radically alter a film.

I had loved this film ever since I saw back on import laser disc in the 1990’s. The film was supposed to be Chan’s martial arts swan song, but like several other films, the master just won’t stop.

The film follows Chan’s Wong Fei Hung as he takes on bad guys who who are dealing in stolen goods. In the film Chan’s a super martial artist, so long as he’s drunk off his ass. Chan ended up battling the director and taking over direction, which resulted in some of his best fight scenes. The film ends with a killer fight in a foundry where Chan is forced to drink industrial alcohol to fight. The film ends, in its original form, with a very un-politically correct gag as Chan is blinded and rendered moronic as a result of what he drank.

In watching the American version of the film I was horrified by how the film plays. It all seems wrong and the end punch line is cut out. Watching the film on cable I was sure the film had been cut up (after all Miramax/The Weinstein organization are notorious for chopping up and altering Asian films they pick up). The film looked and felt radically different than what I was used to from the laser disc.

In doing research for this piece I was shocked to learn that there are only two differences totaling less than three minutes between the full Hong Kong version and the American , first is the removal of the blind idiocy. The second is a redubbing of the film to “soften the violence”. I think that the redub does more than soften the violence it alters the whole feel of the film.

Seeing that there was no great difference I suddenly had doubts, and when I met with Hubert Villiga before a Leonard Cohen concert I mentioned that I was working on a piece about alter Jackie Chan films and he asked if I was going to mention Drunken Master 2. I said I planned to but I had found out that there are only two differences, the redub and the end snip. He asked me if I was still going to use it, because the two versions seem different. I said I wasn’t sure.

Not long after that, as I was debating what to do with the piece I mentioned what I was doing to friends at the day job who are big Jackie Chan fans, and they said I should talk about the butchering of Drunken Master 2 since it was clear to them that the two versions were radically different.

Apparently despite being essentially exactly the same, the American version plays so differently that some people, myself included, think there are radical changes.

To that end I suggest you track down a copy of the original version of the film either on line or in your local Chinatown and watch that instead since my unscientific survey indicates it’s a much better film.