Who Am I? [我是誰] (1998)
AKA Jackie Chan’s Who Am I?
Starring Jackie Chan, Michelle Ferre, Mirai Yamamoto, Ron Smerczak, Ed Nelson, Ron Smoorenburg, Kwan Yung, Mike Ian Lambert, Yanick Mbali, Washington Xisolo, Chip Bray
Directed by Jackie Chan & Benny Chan
Expectations: Interested to revisit it.
Who Am I? was Jackie’s last Hong Kong production before re-entering into the Hollywood machine with Rush Hour. Like the last four or five of his films, Who Am I? continues the trend towards eliminating Cantonese dialogue in favor of English; to the point that this film only has a small handful of lines that aren’t in English. It’s still very much a Hong Kong film in feel, but the shift towards a more sustained and consistent American tone is a defining element of Who Am I?. Where Mr. Nice Guy was an Americanized version of the Hong Kong filmmaking philosophy of the ’80s (action above all else), Who Am I? is more an attempt to blend Hong Kong-style action and stunts into the structure of a traditional American action film.
Jackie plays Jackie Chan (yep!), a highly trained military operative on a mission in South Africa with an elite strike team. They pull off their mission without a hitch, but somewhere along the way Jackie was left behind. We aren’t privy to the exact events just yet — unless you’re watching the US cut that reorders all the flashbacks to not be flashbacks! — we just know that a tribe of African natives has taken him in, providing everything necessary to make a speedy recovery. But Jackie’s not just physically injured, he’s also lost his memory. The tribe calls him “Who Am I” due to a language barrier, and while he’s happy living with the tribe, he’s also eager to leave and reclaim his identity.