Jackie Chan

The Spy Next Door (2010)

AKA Spy Daddy, Kung Fu Nanny, Double Mission

Starring Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Madeline Carroll, Will Shadley, Alina Foley, Magnús Scheving, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Lopez, Katherine Boecher, Mia Stallard, Maverick McWilliams, Quinn Mason, Lucas Till

Directed by Brian Levant

Expectations: I don’t expect much at all.

I don’t know what I expected this movie to be, other than the reasonable assumption that it’d be another in a long line of Jackie Chan spy movies. When the movie began with a montage of old Jackie Chan spy movies, I was surprised and taken aback. Why would a movie open with a montage of movies that it has no chance of matching? But as the story of The Spy Next Door developed, this opening actually makes a lot of sense. By opening with the old, amazing clips, we see how Jackie has defended the world against insurmountable odds throughout his career; he is an indestructible machine capable of taking on literally anything the villains can throw his way. But one thing Jackie has never had to contend with on-screen is the more mundane, everyday task of managing a family and earning the respect and trust of potential step-children. So while this is “another Jackie Chan spy movie,” it is unique among the bunch.

Jackie plays Bob Ho, international spy on loan to the CIA and living life undercover in New Mexico as an importer of pens. His neighbor and main squeeze is Gillian (Amber Valletta), a single mother of three: seven-year-old Nora (Alina Foley), 10-year-old Ian (Will Shadley), and teenager Farren (Madeline Carroll). Bob and Gillian’s relationship is getting serious, and Bob wants to finally divulge his true profession, retire and begin a new life with Gillian. But because it’s a movie, he’s interrupted by an urgent job which complicates matters, and before you know it, Bob is tasked with caring for the three kids on his own while a group of Russians hunts him down.

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

Starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano, Collin Chou, Liu Yi-Fei, Li Bing-Bing, Ye Xiao-Keng, Wang De-Shun, Morgan Benoit

Directed by Rob Minkoff

Expectations: Curious. I don’t remember it being very good.

The Forbidden Kingdom is far from great, but it is worthy of respect and attention. It is an American-produced fantasy wuxia, and I’m having a hard time thinking of any other film that fits that bill. For that alone it is interesting, but it’s also the first (and so far only) film that stars both Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Martial arts fans will no doubt want to see that, especially since the film contains a great fight between the two Hong Kong legends. Jet Li even plays the Monkey King during the film’s intro and finale! There’s so much I enjoy about this movie, but no matter how much I want to love this film for what it is, its missteps are hard to overlook.

The major problem is that while it features Jackie and Jet, neither of them are the lead. That honor goes to Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), an American teenager obsessed with Hong Kong movies. His room is adorned with posters of Shaw Brothers films and Bruce Lee, The Monkey Goes West plays on his TV, and he even has a Sega Dreamcast. It’s almost like the character was based on my own teenage years! I wouldn’t ask the shopkeeper for an “early Shaw Brothers movie featuring a guy doing leopard style,” though. I’ve also never said, “Sick! Ten Tigers of Kwantung,” although if I did find a copy of the Shaw classic in a secondhand store, I would say something like “Oh shit! Ten Tigers of Kwantung!” so perhaps they weren’t too far off the mark. 🙂

Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Starring Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Max von Sydow, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yvan Attal, Yuki Kudo, Noémie Lenoir, Zhang Jing-Chu, Tzi Ma, Dana Ivey, Sun Ming-Ming, Roman Polanski

Directed by Brett Ratner

Expectations: Fairly low. I feel confident I’ll enjoy it, though.

The Rush Hour films are made to entertain. None of them are great, but they carry a certain charm. Jackie is always a joy in any form, and I like what Chris Tucker brings to the table. The two have an effervescent chemistry perfect for the age-old buddy cop premise. It’s just that by the time we get to Rush Hour 3, that’s about all we have to hang our enjoyment on. For me, this was enough to make the movie fly by in a haze of dumb jokes, action and entertainment, but I imagine others would be less forgiving.

The story they have the boys propping up this time will be relatively familiar if you’ve seen Rush Hour. Since this is Rush Hour 3, we know a basic formula has been established, but this is more than that. It’s certainly an odd choice to make from a screenwriting standpoint. I appreciate the idea to bring back characters from the original film, such as Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma) and his now-grown daughter Soo Yung (Zhang Jing-Chu). But it also mirrors the original film’s story in a lot of painfully obvious ways, to the point that I had figured out one of the late-film “Oh, shit!” twists by the time the opening scene was over. I understand wanting to bring the series back to where it started (and was successful), but this is a bit too close, no? It makes the film feel like the product it is, and this seriously hampers its ability to resonate with its audience.

Rob-B-Hood (2006)

Rob-B-Hood [寶貝計劃] (2006)
AKA Robin-B-Hood, Project BB

Starring Jackie Chan, Louis Koo, Michael Hui, Teresa Carpio, Yuen Biao, Gao Yuan-Yuan, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Terence Yin Chi-Wai, Conroy Chan Chi-Chung, Andrew Lin, Matthew Medvedev, Ku Feng, Ken Wong Hop-Hey, Ken Lo, Hayama Hiro, Cherrie Ying Choi-Yi, Candice Yu On-On, Chen Bao-Guo, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, He Jun, Ng Kong

Directed by Benny Chan

Expectations: Kinda high. I’ve come to expect good things from Benny Chan.

Rob-B-Hood is kind of a weird movie. Contrasting the modern realism in Benny Chan and Jackie’s previous collaboration, New Police Story, Rob-B-Hood feels like an attempt to revive an ’80s style focused on providing wild entertainment over believability. Apparently the film was originally intended to finally reunite Jackie, Sammo and Yuen Biao, too, lending further credence to this idea. But while the criminal character dynamics between Jackie, Louis Koo and Michael Hui recall early ’80s movies like Wheels on Meals, Rob-B-Hood owes an even bigger debt to the Aces Go Places series. The obvious connection is the baby who is often in harm’s way, but elements of that series’s James Bond riffs also find their way into Rob-B-Hood.

Thongs (Jackie Chan) and Octopus (Louis Koo) are master safecrackers, and we meet them in a hospital’s pharmacy. They are stealing high-priced drugs while their leader, Landlord (Michael Hui), waits in the getaway van outside. Crosscut with this is the birth of a child, which seems insignificant at first but wouldn’t you know it, they showed this birth to us for a reason! Imagine that. Mid-way through the criminals’ escape attempt, a disgruntled and mentally unstable ex-boyfriend of the baby’s mother abducts the kid. At first, he even tries to drag the mother along for the ride, still in her hospital bed. This fiasco gets the heat off of Thongs and Octopus, but as luck would have it, when the crazy ex-boyfriend loses control of the baby and it falls down a couple of stories in the hospital’s open lobby, Thongs is able to jump off the escalator, save the kid’s life, and return him to his mother. Thongs and Octopus are now free to leave the scene of their crime, but their story with this infant is far from over.

The Silver Emulsion Podcast: Ep. 38 – Drunken Master

Episode 38! Yuen Woo-Ping’s Drunken Master is a true work of art, but this podcast about it — or at least the first 14 minutes or so — is a total shit show! Like the movies I love to cover, The Silver Emulsion Podcast is truly representative of the full spectrum of quality in audio recording. My aging Tascam PortaStudio took a dump on my channel, so it’s a little rough at the beginning. Just hang in there and you’ll be able to hear my voice in all its “glory” as the episode progresses. Stephen’s audio gave me trouble in previous episodes, now it’s my turn! Anyway… enjoy!!! 😛

Intro:

Ramsey Lewis – Them Changes
- Them Changes (Amazon)

Outro:

Bloodstone – You Don’t Mean Nothin’
- Bloodstone (Amazon)

If you’ve got feedback, throw it into the comments below or email it to me via the contact page! We’ll include it in a future show!

The podcast is embedded directly below this, or you can go directly to Podbean (or use their app) to listen. If you want to subscribe, paste http://silveremulsion.podbean.com/feed/ into whatever reader you’re using, such as iTunes.

The Myth (2005)

The Myth [神話] (2005)
AKA Jackie Chan’s The Myth

Starring Jackie Chan, Kim Hee-Sun, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Yu Rong-Guang, Sun Zhou, Maggie Lau Sze-Wai, Mallika Sherawat, Ken Lo, Patrick Tam Yiu-Man, Shao Bing, Ken Wong Hop-Hey, Jin Song, Yuen Tak, Hayama Hiro, Chan Sek, Park Hyun-Jin, Yao Wei-Xing, Choi Min-Soo, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Sudanshu Pandde

Directed by Stanley Tong

Expectations: Low, but hopeful.

One day in 2005 or 2006, I happened upon a Chinese DVD (without English subs) of The Myth in my library. Based on the cover art, I assumed that The Myth was a straight historical drama. Intrigued, I took it home to see if it had any fights. I scanned through the film quickly, didn’t see any, and then wrote the movie off until now. Imagine my surprise when I actually sat down to watch the film and I discovered that there is a wealth of action contained within it! And it’s really fun, entertaining, Jackie-style Jackie Chan action! Whoa!

The Myth begins during the Qin Dynasty, as General Meng Yi (Jackie Chan) receives a Korean princess, Ok-Soo (Kim Hee-Sun), who is to marry the ailing Qin emperor. During the handover, a Korean warrior attempts to kidnap Ok-Soo, but Meng Yi ain’t havin’ none of that. They clash in epic fashion, but Meng and OK-Soo become separated from the troops when they fall into a river fall below. As they hit the water, we are whisked to the future, as the respected archaeologist Jack Chan (Jackie Chan) awakes from a dream. This isn’t his first dream of the princess and a Qin Dynasty version of himself, and this troubles him greatly. As luck would have it, his next assignment — helping his friend William (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) uncover the secret of a levitating mystic in India — will shed a lot of light on these dreams. Who woulda thought it? It’s like a movie or something!

New Police Story (2004)

New Police Story [新警察故事] (2004)

Starring Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Charlie Yeung, Charlene Choi Cheuk-Yin, Daniel Wu, Dave Wong Kit, Andy On, Terence Yin Chi-Wai, Hayama Hiro, Coco Chiang Yi, Ken Lo, Yu Rong-Guang

Directed by Benny Chan

Expectations: Low.

Titling this film New Police Story evokes memories of Jackie’s successful series of films than ran through the ’80s and ’90s, but the “new” indicates that it’s a reboot or otherwise unrelated. It’s true, Jackie doesn’t play the loose Chan Ka-Kui character, and this film’s character is almost a polar opposite to Ka-Kui’s reckless, Supercop spirit. Jackie plays Senior Inspector Chan Kwok-Wing, a straight-laced man who gets the job done through discipline, strong leadership and efficiency. With a lead character like this, the film takes on a seriousness that none of the Police Story films carry, but anyone who has seen Crime Story will recognize the tone. So a more apt title might be New Crime Story, which is ironic since Crime Story was released in Japan under the title New Police Story. Confused yet? Anyway, what matters is that New Police Story is more Crime Story than Police Story, something that’s not readily apparent thanks to the title. I guess Hollywood isn’t the only film market to title based on name recognition.

A group of young thugs rob a bank in wild fashion, specifically asking for the police to be called when they finish gathering the money. Instead of swiftly making a getaway, they stick around to confront the policemen, seeing the situation as a game, complete with points for kills & property damage. After causing massive casualties, the robbers escape, and now Senior Inspector Chan Kwok-Wing, the force’s most successful investigator, is tasked with finding their hideout and bringing them to justice. He’s so confident in his abilities and those of his men that he brags about catching them within three hours, but when the assault on their hideout is launched, literally everything that could go wrong does. Chan is the staunch veteran going up against the youthful new breed of criminal; New Police Story could also be called No Hong Kong for Old Men. 🙂