Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Boy, I hope so...
Hi Harry,
Long time reader, first time writing in.
Let me start by saying I’m a huge Jackie Chan fan, I’ve seen all of Jackie’s movies, from the early Lo Wei Bruce Lee type movies (New Fist Of Fury, Magnificent Bodyguards etc) to Yuen Woo Ping comedic Martial Arts masterpieces (Drunken Master, Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow), to Jackie’s breath-taking one man show masterpieces (Police Story 1,2,3, Armour Of God 1,2) to the “Three Brothers” classics (Project A, Dragons Forever, Wheels On Meals).
I never really entertained the idea of Jackie moving to the US to make movies, where Producers/Directors would dictate everything, from the camera angles, editing to the amount of time allowed to shot fight scenes and what stunts were allowed. I felt Jackie wouldn’t be allowed to express himself to the full extent action and stunt-wise, that he had done in his earlier Hong Kong classics.
These fears soon proved to be correct.
I hated the Rush Hour movies, and thought Jackie’s trademark action and stunts were too short, watered down (in terms of intensity and length) and took second fiddle to his co-star, the extremely annoying (especially in this movie, thought he was OK in Money Talks), loud mouthed Chris Tucker, who would put down Jackie’s character at any available opportunity, with his constant racial stereo-type jokes and wisecracks.
The Shanghai Noon/Knights movies proved to be far superior and much more entertaining in my opinion than the Rush Hour movies, firstly this franchise had a better and more likeable co-star in Owen Wilson (who has great comic timing, a great sense of humour and dry wit, loved his performances in Bottle Rocket, Starsky & Hutch and Meet The Parents), which resulted in a much better, respected chemistry between the stars (very reminiscent of the Lethal Weapon chemistry, between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover), Owen didn’t put down Jackie the way Chris Tucker constantly did. Secondly the action and stunts were an improvement.
But it was still extremely disheartening, and totally pissed me off to see how many (probably 80%) of the fight scenes from Shanghai Knights were cut and sloppily edited together to shorten the length of them. Just check Shanghai Knights DVD deleted/extended scenes to see how the fights should have been, much more fluid, better paced and altogether more Hong Kong (Jackie Chan) in style. Jackie even openly admitted he thought Shanghai Knights was his Best American movie he had made and one that could rival his Hong Kong Classics, after seeing what they (company/producers?) cut he must have been totally pissed, and I don’t blame him. (Side Note: similar fate for Corey Yuen’s Transporter were many of the fight scenes were shortened, what is it with American companies? Do they think the US audiences might fall asleep watching long exciting fight scenes).
Anyway, Jackie gave Hollywood another chance and went on to make,
The Tuxedo – which I thought was a fun, entertaining family movie (much better than Rush Hour movies), but I felt the CGI and special effects type of movie it was, didn’t ‘suit’ Jackie, mainly due to the fact that Jackie doesn’t need special effects or wire-work to do what he does, as he IS the special effect.
Thought Around The World In 80 Days was again a fun family movie, that had some good Hong Kong (Jackie Chan) style action, especially liked the village fight scenes, Jackie’s face-off against Daniel Wu and his men, Peking Opera ‘brother’ Sammo Hung playing the legendary Wong Fei Hung fights and the various Martial Arts styles displayed by 10 tigers. But again this movie lacked amongst other things, action and in particular the customary final fight, which should have been towards the end of the movie and not 30 minutes before.
The Medallion or Highbinders was a Hong Kong Production, but it was intended for both the Hong Kong and International markets and ended up satisfying neither, and is, in my opinion, probably one of Jackie’s worst movies in recent years. But I don’t totally blame Jackie, Sammo (Action Director) or Gordon Chan (Director), more so the US company who totally butchered the movie, changing the story, cutting large chunks of dialogue, and trimming the action/martial arts scenes and sloppily editing them together.
After all this stereo typing (Rush Hour movies), cutting and disrespecting (Shanghai Knights and The Medallion) of his movies, Jackie finally got disillusioned with Hollywood and said he would take the next couple of years to focus on Hong Kong movies, made in Hong Kong, specifically for the Hong Kong market and Hong Kong fans and not bow-down to appeasing other markets, HE WOULD RETURN TO HIS ROOTS, and his first movie would be NEW POLICE STORY.
As you can imagine, being a fan of his Hong Kong movies, this was great news to me and I couldn’t wait for the movie to be made and released. Well it was finally released on 24th September, and I got a chance to watch it a week or so later, here’s my review,
REVIEW
PLOT/PERFORMANCES
Basic plot involves a group of game loving, extreme sport, rich kids lead by Daniel Wu who rob banks for kicks and declare an all out war on the Hong Kong Police. Jackie plays a highly decorated and respected Police Officer and leader of an elite task force assigned on stopping the spate of robberies and bringing the ruthless gang to justice.
The opening half of the movie mainly focuses on Jackie’s fall from grace, with him losing many of his men (including Super Kicker Ken Lo – main bad guy from Drunken Master 2) and turning to drink, becoming an alcoholic to get rid of the pain and loss he feels for his dead brothers in arms. With the latter half concentrating on Jackie getting back to what he once was (with the aid of Nicholas Tse), rekindling his romance with Charlie Yeung and bringing the gang to justice, once and for all.
Acting wise, I thought Jackie’s performance was probably one of his best, he showed a much more serious and matured performance than of late, showing the right amount of regret, remorse and depression for a man in his position, having lost everything, from his friends to his girlfriend, to perhaps his own soul. Not since I think, Heart of Dragon have I seen this kind of performance from Jackie.
The acting/performances from the co-stars, Nicholas Tse, Charlie Yeung, Daniel Wu, Yu Rong Guang and Charlene Choi were also good, with Nicholas Tse particularly standing out with his comedy, buddy-buddy pair up with Jackie and convincing Martial Arts skills.
Daniel Wu’s characters background and reasons for doing what he does could have been explored in a bit more detail, but what is there, is sufficient, as was Charlie Yeung’s performance as Jackie’s girlfriend.
The only major gripes would be the inclusion of Charlene Choi’s character, who I felt really wasn’t needed, as she really didn’t progress the plot/story much and the only reason I can think she was included was for marketing purposes (she’s part of the successful Twins pop group in Hong Kong), and not allowing, the extremely gifted Martial Arts expert Yu Rong Guang, playing the Police Captain, (Star of Yuen Woo Ping’s Martial Arts extravaganza, Iron Monkey), a fight scene.
So overall the acting and performances were good, with especially a good, matured performance from Jackie.
FIGHTS, STUNTS, FIGHTS, ACTION AND MORE FIGHTS
This being a Jackie Chan movie, it must have the breath-taking Martial Arts action and madcap stunts that Hong Kong movie fans have come accustomed to, and these are thankfully, delivered to the high quality and technical excellence that is expected, quality that has been lacking from recent (Hollywood) productions. The major action/stunt and Martial Arts scenes that are peppered throughout the 2 hours run time, consist of,
- Opening Gunfight/Shootout – Daniel Wu and his gang get to have some fun and shoot-up, armed with automatic machine guns, police cars, vans and police officers. Cars, flipping and sliding out of control, officers getting shot in the chest (wearing bullet-proof vests), arms, legs and just plain out hell breaking lose, surprising violent shootout too for a Jackie Chan movie, very gritty, realistic feel to it all ala Heat.
- Warehouse Shootout – Jackie and his team track down Daniel Wu and his gang to a abandoned warehouse, where they are embroiled in a more cat and mouse style shootout with booby-traps. This shoot-out has a more eerie, tense and surprise feel to it, than the previous one, but it is still, gritty and realistically violent.
- Building/Bus Stunt– All Jackie movies have to have the centrepiece stunt, and this is it, involves a Bus (again). (Spoiler Warning: sequence described in detail) Starts off, with Jackie’s friend getting shot on the roof of a 30 or so storey building, by one of Daniel Wu’s gang members, whose on a bicycle. In order to get away from Jackie, the bicycle guy, ties one end of a rope to the top of the building, throws the other side of the rope over the side, and bicycle’s (is that even a word, anyway) down the side of the building (using the rope), yes u read that right, he’s followed by another female gang member, whose on skates, who skates down the side of the building again using the rope. Of course anything they can do Jackie can do better, he doesn’t need no bicycle or skates, he pulls out his handcuffs and using the rope, RUNS DOWN the side of the building, in pursuit of the gang members.
The female gang member manages to get away, with some help by Daniel Wu, Jackie continues pursuing the bicycle guy, with the pursuit now having moved on to the ROOF OF A BRIDGE. Bicycle guy jumps off the roof of the bridge onto a van and then onto the ground, in order for Jackie to stop chasing him, he shoots at a Bus, killing the Bus driver and sending the Bus filled with passengers spiralling out of control. Jackie stops his pursuit of the gang member and decides to stop the out of control bus, jumps from the roof of the bridge on to a lamp post and than from there, jumps onto the speeding bus. Bus continues speeding out of control clashing and totally annihilating a row of phone booths, a car, a central crossing island, a land-rover, all with Jackie still surfing (occasionally falling), on-top of the bus. If that wasn’t enough destruction and mayhem, Bus turns into a shopping mall, totally destroying shop windows, goods etc, with Jackie still on-top of the Bus dodging advertising boards and hoardings, similar to Police Story 2, only on a bigger scale. Finally manages to stop Bus, not before crashing and sending a truck, with Nicholas Tse in it, into the sea.
End Spoiler
This whole stunt sequence was probably one of the best stunt sequences I’ve seen, in recent years from Jackie and was very reminiscent of the Police Story 1 and Police Story 2 Bus sequences. Great stunt sequence.
3 major fight scenes, all extremely fast (in fact, faster than recent Jackie movies) and all containing innovative and inventive moves, shot, edited and paced perfectly,
- Warehouse Fight Scene (Jackie Vs Andy On) – Jackie goes toe to toe with Andy On, consists of two bouts, both bouts feature super-fast kicking and punching combinations from both combatants, highly inventive Martial Arts choreography, Jackie doing more kicks than usual and all hits (full contact) landing on opponent, uses kicks to block kicks, does a cool jumping bicycle kick followed by a spinning back kick. Andy On (or his double) goes kicking mad too. Andy On wins one bout (only because Jackie gets distracted) and Jackie takes the other bout.
- Bar Group Fight – starts with Nicholas Tse taking on some guys in the bar on his own, while Jackie sits at bar, coolly drinking, that is until he’s disturbed, and that’s when all hell breaks loose, Jackie totally annihilates his opponents. Takes on two guys at once, with cool blocking and multiple punching techniques combined with a sweep to leave both guys floored, all done at blistering speed. Grips another guy, punches him a few times, kicks him in the face and then throws him over the bar, painful stunt. Meanwhile Nicholas Tse, is still taking on some more guys, using anything at hand as weapons, including beer glasses, storage boxes and a block of ice (which he smashes on one unlucky opponents head).
- Final Fight (Jackie Vs Andy On Rematch) – starts off with a gunfight in the hall of a convention centre, leads on to a chase/gunfight to, of all places, a Lego play centre, where Jackie and Andy On get to go boot-to-boot, mano-o-mano again. This encounter between the two, like the previous one has superb kicking, punching and blocking combinations, but is more brutal in that display cases, Lego blocks, tables and chairs are used as weapons, both combatants use extremely inventive, exciting and brutal moves on each other, all done at a blistering pace. Jackie, as with the previous fights looks extremely angry and pissed, and totally punishes Andy On.
This fight reminds me of the final fight in Police story 1, with Fong Hak On, with both combatants really going at each other, with glass display cases and tables being shattered/broken everywhere, in fact all the fight scenes in this movie have a Police Story type feel to them, in that they are focused on one angry man on a mission, who takes no prisoners.
The movie is called New Police Story and according to Producers/Company and Jackie himself, has nothing in common with the earlier Jackie tour de force Police Stories, yes it is true, in that the names of the characters are different, Jackie’s girlfriend is played by Charlie Yeung instead of Maggie Chung etc, but it still has the same inventive, aggressive non-stop action and martial arts, the same madcap, death-defying stunts, same one-man, against the odds attitude and hence in my opinion this movie could easily be regarded as part of that supreme series, THAT’S HOW HIGHLY I RATE THIS MOVIE. This is definitely Jackie’s ‘triumph return to his Hong Kong roots’, as expressed in the trailer and one that brings back fond memories of the 80’s, Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema, when movies were fun, action packed and above all entertained.
On a final note, this movie is all that more amazing by the fact that Jackie is now in his 50’s. This is truly a man who can be called amazing and I look forward to many more years of top class Hong Kong (NOT Hollywood, Please) action from the Worlds number 1 action star, Jackie Chan.
Sorry for such a long post, if u use this call me, MartialArtsFreak
Hey, man... take as long as you need to express yourself. This is a really passionate and detailed take on the film, and I appreciate you sending it in.
"Moriarty" out.
