Rob-B-Hood (2006)

Rob-B-Hood (2006)

6/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Louis Koo

Michael Hui

Charlene Choi

Directed by Benny Chan

Rob-B-Hood is supposed to be Chan’s break from character; he wanted to stop being the good guy in movies and for us to see him be a bad guy for once. Now, if you plan to see this movie, don’t be afraid that it doesn’t have the regular Jackie Chan fun of action comedy—it has plenty of it. It’s just that Chan’s character is a man who has a gambling problem, isn’t close to his family, and kidnaps a baby.

For me, Chan did a fantastic job in this movie, putting his acting ability to the test and coming out on the other side victorious.
I also liked the story of the movie, which stuck to the idea of what Chan wanted. He remained the bad guy, but he was up against worse guys. We see his struggle of trying to do the right thing for a child he kidnapped.

The movie shows us two men, Thong (Jackie Chan) and Octopus (Louis Koo). Both are burglars, and we see them at work as they rob a hospital.
The landlord where they live is having a tough time, and he gets a contract from the triads to kidnap a baby. Needing the money, he contracts Thong and Octopus to assist with the job. They’re not thrilled with the idea of kidnapping a baby. Their getaway is challenged when the police come after them. Thong and Octopus get away, leaving the landlord to be arrested. He tells them they should care for the child until his release, since he was arrested for kidnapping.

It’s this waiting for him to come that shifts the movie’s direction. We get to see Thong and Octopus try to be good caregivers to the child. It affects their lives and forces them to change the way they see things while waiting for the landlord, who is still bent on giving up the baby for money.

How things end up when the landlord gets out is something you’ll have to see when you watch the movie.

The movie is the first in decades to have Chan play a negative character involved in a terrible scheme.
It’s well-produced, and even though the focus of the movie was more on the characters and not the action, it was still fun to watch. Although the movie is quite long for the story it’s trying to tell, much of the extended scenes occurred during the child care and the fights. It also has a pretty weak plot that feels all over the place, jumping between action, comedy, and drama too much. The villains are pretty generic, which makes the stakes feel lower than they should. While the action scenes are fun, some of the stunts are a bit exaggerated.

Watchable fun.

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

5/10

Starring

Steve Coogan

Jackie Chan

Cécile de France

Directed by Frank Coraci

I don’t know if you’ve seen the 1956 Around the World in 80 Days, but these two movies differ greatly. The movie also differs significantly from the novel both were adapted from.
For me, I had more fun watching the 1956 version than I did watching this remake. The 1956 version won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography. What puts that film above this remake is the story and the cinematography. The sights in that movie were more magnificent.

Now, there are some major differences between Fogg and Passepartout in the 1956 version and the remake. They took some of Passepartout's characteristics from the 1956 version and gave them to Fogg, and vice versa.
Also, in this version, Passepartout joins Fogg on this expedition for his own selfish reasons, while in the 1956 version, he was truly Fogg’s valet.

Set in the 1890s, the plot here has Fogg (Steve Coogan) as a clumsy, bumbling inventor who seems to be head and shoulders above the rest at the Royal Academy of Science. He’s eager to discover more, while the rest believe everything that needs to be discovered has already been found.
For this, he is not well-respected in the scientific community.

Xing (Jackie Chan) robs the Bank of England, and while trying to get away from the police, he runs into Fogg, who, at that point, is looking for a new valet. Fogg thinks Xing has come to apply for the job. Xing, wanting to get off the streets, takes the job and lies, saying his name is Passepartout.

With the police close behind, Xing decides to stick with Fogg. Fogg makes a wager with his scientific colleagues: he will travel around the world in 80 days. If he wins, he’ll become Minister of Science; if not, he will destroy his lab and never invent anything again.

With Xing accompanying him on this crazy expedition, they begin their journey in Paris, where they meet Fogg’s love interest, Monique La Roche (Cécile de France). She joins them on this journey, which is plagued with numerous unfortunate events.

Jackie Chan gets to show off some of his martial arts skills, and Cécile was more fun to me than Coogan was. Coogan, to me, seemed to be a drag in this movie, and his acting wasn’t good enough to make me like his character.

This movie was a box office flop and received bad reviews.
Like the 1956 version, this movie also showcases some beautiful visual masterpieces from around the world.

Is the movie watchable for the fun of it? To be honest, it is. I’ve found myself watching the movie numerous times just to see Jackie Chan and Cécile. But I cannot, in good conscience, tell anyone to go see this movie without warning them that its story isn’t so great. That is because the plot is pretty predictable and formulaic, and there’s a lot of slapstick humor that might not work for everyone. The characters, especially Jackie Chan’s, feel one-dimensional, and the romantic subplot doesn’t add much, it kind of feels forced.

The Tuxedo (2002)

The Tuxedo (2002)

6/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Directed by Kevin Donovan

Not many Jackie Chan films have done the impossible of casting Chan out of character. This movie not only cast Chan out of character, but it also has him supported by special effects.
Here’s a movie that made little use of Chan’s martial arts skills to deliver a stunning performance, but instead tried to overplay their hand by adding special effects and laughs.

Regardless, I enjoyed the movie.

The storyline of this movie is not one of the best. It was flaky and muddled up. I feel the writer got carried away with the idea of scripting a spy movie with an actual martial arts expert. And so did the producers, who wanted to push the limit by adding unneeded special effects to Chan’s ability.

What I did enjoy in the movie was the comedy. The comedy comes at you when you least expect it, and the action wasn’t bad when you consider that Chan, not the suit, was doing all the stunts.

The movie plot introduces us to a taxi driver, Jimmy (Chan), who has made a name for himself with his stunt driving and speed. He’s hired to be the driver for an international spy named Clark. Clark has been on a case for some time, and he’s about to crack it when he and Jimmy are attacked.

Clark is seriously injured, and Jimmy is not. Jimmy takes Clark to the hospital and makes his way back to Clark’s home. It’s at the home, while Jimmy is going through Clark’s things, that he sees the tuxedo, which is controlled by a watch. The tuxedo gives the wearer extraordinary abilities to do practically anything. Jimmy unknowingly tries on the tuxedo and watch, dressing as Clark just to see how it feels, as he has come to admire Clark’s fashion sense, and discovers what the tuxedo does.

Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is works in the CSA who hopes one day to be a field agent. She is assigned to work with Clark, but having never met him before, mistakes Jimmy for Clark. This happens when Jimmy shows up for a meeting with her, a meeting Clark was supposed to attend.

From here, the two—the wannabe field agent and the taxi driver—begin to work on Clark’s case and must stop the bad guys before they poison the world.

The onscreen chemistry between Hewitt and Chan wasn’t as enjoyable as I would have expected, but it was good enough for the laughs.

The movie is centered around the idea that the suit makes the man do magnificent things, not the man himself. Imagine James Bond, stepped up two notches, with the ability to do martial arts like Bruce Lee.

Like I said, don’t expect much when it comes to the story of this movie. That said, it is enjoyable.

Who Am I (1998)

Who Am I (1998)

7/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Michelle Ferre

Mirai Yamamoto

Ron Smerczak

Directed by Benny Chan and Jackie Chan

Who Am I has car stunts, amazing fighting, and Jackie Chan just shouting, "Who am I?" at some very weird instances. Chan, playing a man who has just lost his memory, delivers an acting performance that just wasn't it, in this movie, regardless he had the stunt and fighting on point. If you remove the memory loss aspect from this film, Chan did his best to put together a spy film that's all action-oriented.

The movie has a plot that tries to twist you here and there. The bad guy, as usual, has the stereotypical persona, but his two supporting ladies, who have his back throughout the movie, fill in the gaps. The ladies made up for Jackie’s lack of convincing acting as someone with amnesia, and the bad guy was just too stiff.

The stunts and fight scenes are what you would expect from a Chan movie, and the comedy Chan is known for shows up in the fight scenes, which were done with some amazing choreography. Chan is as fluid as you would expect him to be.

It starts somewhere in South Africa, where a multinational military unit kidnaps several scientists working on a newly discovered material from a meteorite. Among the military unit is a Hong Kong national (Jackie Chan).

Things don’t go as planned, and a helicopter accident leads to the death of every man in the team except one: Chan. He falls off the helicopter and lands, injured, in a tribal village in South Africa.

After probably weeks of recovery from his wounds, he spots a team of rally cars racing through the desert. He sees that as an opportunity to get back to the city.

He runs to the aid of one of the crashed cars and gets a ride back to the city, where he begins his journey to find out who he is. Things start to get complicated when, wherever he shows up, some men start to chase him, trying their best to kill him. Even when he gets to the police station, it also seems the authorities want to catch him, too.

He has by his side two ladies—one whom he aided in the African desert during the rally, and a journalist who seems to always be at the right place at the right time.

With the two of them, Chan is trying to get away from everyone after him and also discover who he is.

By the end of the movie, you’ll be so impressed with the writing that you’ll forgive the bad acting. This is Chan's second film to be scripted and shot in English, the first one being Mr. Nice Guy (1997). But unlike Mr. Nice Guy, I can safely recommend this film as both enjoyable and fun.

Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

5/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Richard Norton

Directed by Samo Hung

Mr. Nice Guy is one of Jackie Chan’s movies that just fails to live up to the expected excitement you would usually get from a Jackie Chan movie. It's sad because before this movie, Jackie Chan did The Legend of Drunken Master (1994), Rumble in the Bronx (1995), and Police Story 4: First Strike (1996), which were all masterpieces. Those three showcased his fluidity as a martial artist, and the plots were easy to follow and enjoy.

Here, Jackie Chan seems to be in some kind of caged environment, and the story is weak. They made the movie move at a fast pace in the beginning, but then the pace drops and becomes inconsistent throughout. The story tries so hard to add complexity to a case that should be so simple.

The movie tries to make more of the female characters than they were supposed to be. This is something you didn’t get with the other female lead, Anita Mui, in The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) and Rumble in the Bronx (1995).

Here, we get to see Jackie pull off some culinary skills. We start the movie by meeting the bad guy, his name is Giancarlo. Giancarlo is the stereotypical bad guy, who frowns for no reason, laughs hard, and tries to pass his message across by using intimidation in his voice. We see he’s involved in a drug deal that has already gotten out of hand. Unknown to Giancarlo and his gang, a reporter was tailing them and recorded everything. This is where Jackie comes in. She’s found out, and when she’s trying to escape, she bumps into Jackie, who, as we said, is a cook with his own cooking show.

In his process of trying to help the lady, he ends up beating up the men, and they both escape. Jackie is popular, and the men know where to find him, so they go after him and the journalist.

To make Jackie’s problem worse, he has to handle all this while caring for his girlfriend, who just flew in and is not familiar with the way things are.

So the movie is a big chase between Giancarlo and the gang he was dealing with in the beginning, and Jackie with the lady reporter.

Mr. Nice Guy was one of those Jackie Chan films that I never quite saw often because there’s basically nothing to enjoy here, but we all saw it the moment it came out back in the days, only to regret it.

Rumble is the Bronx (1995)

Rumble is the Bronx (1995)

7/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Anita Mui

Directed by Stanley Tong

Rumble in the Bronx is so action-packed it blows your mind. The story could use some work, but the movie itself is fun. The action, fight scenes, and comedic tone of Jackie Chan’s charm make this one of the top Jackie Chan movies to see.

This movie is a full-on action film with a slight taste of comedy, which mostly shows up in the fight scenes.

The story begins with Chan’s character, Keung, arriving in the United States to attend his uncle's wedding. His uncle lives in the Bronx and owns a supermarket there. He’s planning to leave the Bronx with his new wife and sell the store to a new owner, Elaine (Anita Mui).

Unknown to Elaine at the time, the supermarket is a well-known target for vandalism by a local biker gang. Before long, Keung finds himself involved in a problem too big for him to handle, dragging Elaine into it as well. He defends the store from being robbed by the gang and quickly becomes their number one enemy.

Keung’s troubles get even more complicated when he meets his uncle's neighbor, a woman who cares for her disabled brother. She turns out to be more connected to the unfolding chaos than she initially seems, and Keung’s involvement with her and the supermarket puts his life in serious danger.

The movie moves at a fast pace, with one problem after another piling onto Keung from the moment he defends the supermarket.

This film marks the third and final collaboration between Jackie Chan and the late Anita Mui, the first two being Miracles (1989) and The Legend of Drunken Master (1994).

Interestingly, this movie is also famous for its tales of on-set injuries. It’s the film where Jackie Chan injured his leg during a jump stunt.

When watching this movie, allow yourself to be entertained. Don’t overthink the story—just enjoy the comedic action scenes and stunts that make this movie so memorable.

Looking back, watching this movie again brings up great memories from when I was younger. My sister and I eagerly looked forward to the next Jackie Chan movie every year in the '90s.

Watching it now, I can see that some of the acting by the supporting cast needed improvement. However, the stunts are well-timed and unforgettable. I personally feel Jackie Chan shines more when working outside of the United States, but he did a fantastic job here. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t enjoy revisiting this movie. Not the plot and pacing is a bit slow between the actions.

Miracles (1989)

Miracles (1989)

10/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Anita Mui

Gua Ah-leh

Ko Chun-hsiung

Wu Ma

Directed by Jackie Chan

I won’t deny that The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) is my favorite Jackie Chan movie, but Miracles is definitely up there as one of my top picks. Depending on the region, this movie is known by many other names, including Mr. Canton and Lady Rose, Black Dragon, and The Canton Godfather.

This action-comedy features Jackie Chan as Kuo Cheng-Wah, an unlikely crime boss. He stumbles into this position after the leader of a criminal crew dies and names him as the new boss. What makes this so entertaining is that Cheng-Wah is a total stranger to both the crew and the former boss. How he ends up taking over is something you’ll have to watch to find out.

Cheng-Wah is a kind-hearted, naive man whose streak of luck will leave you laughing. The movie kicks off with his innocence getting him into trouble—he loses all his money and is left broke, with nowhere to go. While wandering aimlessly, he meets a woman selling red roses. She claims the rose will bring him luck, and thinking “why not,” he buys one. Almost immediately, his fortune turns, and he ends up becoming a crime boss.

Life as a crime boss, however, doesn’t come easy for Cheng-Wah. Things get even more chaotic when singer Yang Luming (Anita Mui) enters the picture. He hires her, but instead of helping him maintain his cover, she adds to his problems. To top it all off, a rival gang wants to encroach on his territory, forcing him to defend it. Meanwhile, Yang Luming encourages him to stick to his good-hearted nature.

Thanks to the rival gang, the movie delivers some fantastic kung-fu sequences.

Miracles was the first collaboration between Jackie Chan and the late Anita Mui. The duo would go on to star in two more films together: The Legend of Drunken Master (1994) and Rumble in the Bronx (1995).

The film is packed with amazing stunts, and the decision to lean more toward comedy than pure action adds a lot of charm to the story. That said, Chan didn’t hold back on the action—there are plenty of impressive stunts throughout.

Miracles has a pretty tangled plot that’s tough to follow, with the story jumping between different genres and tones. Some of the humor feels forced or out of place during the more serious parts. The pacing is uneven, with some sections, especially in the middle, dragging on too long. While the action scenes are well done, they can start to feel repetitive.

Chan adapted this movie from Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961), setting his version in the 1930s. He added his signature action style, expanded the backstories of the lead characters, and stayed relatively close to the spirit of the original film.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you’re missing a key piece of Jackie Chan’s filmography.