'WHEN YUEN WOO-PING CHOREOGRAPHED JACKIE CHAN'S BRAWLS' DOUBLE FEATURE! 138.- TWIN DRAGONS (HONG KONG/USA, 1992/1999, AMAZON PRIME). Also streaming on TUBI, PLEX, ROKU CHANNEL.
Two legendary Hong Kong action directors, Ringo Lam ("City on Fire") and Tsui Hark ("Once Upon a Time in China"), worked together in this action comedy in which Jackie Chan plays the dual roles of twin brothers separated at birth. Now grown men unaware of each other's existence (except when the script finds it convenient to have one twin feel what the other one is doing), the one in HK, Boomer, is a formidable fighter who's deep in debt with the criminal underground alongside friend Tyson (Teddy Robin, annoying as f*ck). The one who grew up in America, John Ma, is a musical composer and piano prodigy with no fighting skills whatsoever. Wackiness ensues when John Ma visits HK for an important concert, intersecting with Boomer at a hotel where both brothers mix it up with each other's lady friends (Maggie Cheung and Nina Li Chi) before accidentally being forced into assignments (driving a getaway car to free an imprisoned crime boss for Ma, conducting an orchestra for Boomer) neither brother is equipped for. Comedic action doesn't get any nuttier (aka cool as hell) than dozens of police/mob cars crashing/exploding near a dock while Ma listens on the radio as Boomer waves around Ma's conductor baton to create musical magic like a Looney Tunes-trained maestro. 😎😋
Special effects when both Jackie Chans are on-screen simultaneously look a little ropey (expected for a low-budget Asian film in the early 90's), but the acting/comedy hijinks are handled by the dual directors like pros. There are only a handful of actual brawls (one inside a Mitsubishi vehicle testing facility) where Yue Woo-ping's fight choreography, along with the star's willingness to put his neck on the line, delivers the action goods. It also gives Jackie a chance to showcase his comedic timing by playing Ma as a coward with no fighting skills, which makes it easier to tell when Boomer delivers the ass-kicking. Now, if there was a way to remove Tyson from "Twin Dragons" entirely... 🤔😓3.85 EXPLODING BARRELS BURNING BAD GUYS' CLOTHES (out of five).
Thanks for the reminder about Twin Dragons, J.M. It is not one of the classics, but my wife and I enjoyed the goody fun. There was less high flying Jackie, but twice the comedic timing. Also, it is always a joy to see Maggie Cheung.
139.- THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (USA/CHINA, 2008, SYFY CHANNEL). Also streaming on PLEX, FAWESOME, HOWDY, TUBI.
Jackie Chan and Jet Li (their names arranged in such a way both are THE leading man) headline this $55 million USA/Chinese martial arts fantasy epic (from the director of the animated "Lion King") that was clearly influenced by 2000's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (one of many masterpieces whose fighting was also choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping). An American teenage kung fu movie fanatic (Michael Angarano, "Sky High") is transported back to ancient Chinese times carrying a magical staff that will awaken the Monkey King from a centuries-old curse keeping him locked in stone. Though he knows his martial arts movies, young Jason isn't skilled or good at fighting... so a group of warriors trying to fulfill the staff's destiny help train him for the dangerous mission ahead. Though Chan and Li are in a bulk of the narrative and star in its most memorable action set-piece (a fighting duel between the two action megastars that is more for show than important to the plot), this is Jason's story and he's too much of a dopey cipher for audiences (foreign or American) to relate to. Yifei Liu (as Golden Sparrow) and Li Bingbing (as White-Haired Witch) add some much-needed female presence, though the story doesn't do either of them any favors. 🫤'It's fine,' but even when it's at its best (Jackie's drunken teacher reacting to a life-giving potion) you can feel this is punching below everybody's (in front and behind the camera) much higher standards. 3.15 CHINATOWN MOM & POP STORES WITH BOOTLEG SHAW BROS. MOVIE DVD'S IN CANTONESE WITHOUT SUBTITLES (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 25! 140.- PINK PANTHER AND SONS: SPINNING WHEELS, PINKY AT THE BAT (9/8/1984, YOUTUBE)
The last original 'Pink Panther' cartoon of the 1980's, courtesy of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon assembly-line (with Friz Freleng credited as 'creative producer'), "Pink Panther and Sons" passes the baton to the Panther's two offspring (pre-teen Pinky and toddler Panky, whose diaper is constantly dragging) and their 'Rainbow Panthers' crew of friends. It's basically a test-run for 1986's "The Flintstone Kids" with talking cartoon felines, or an attempt to latch onto the "Muppet Babies'" popularity.
Every 10 min. episode (two per show, plus the OG PP doing silent wrap-around 1 min. segments) the Rainbow Panthers have to defeat the gang of Howl Angels (troublemaking teen lions) led by colored-mohawk leader Finko (Frank Welker) from whatever competition they're challenged for. For 'Spinning Wheels' is winning a bike race fair and square to earn the right to a free bike and sponsorship money; the Panthers are honorable, the Angels are cheating d!cks. For 'Pinky at The Bat' it's who gets to play in the neighborhood baseball field after winning a winner-take-all match; L.A. Dodgers' coach Tommy Lasorda guest-stars as himself, coaching the Panthers at first and eventually deciding the game's final call at the plate. It's all as Saturday morning dopey as it sounds, but I've seen worse from H-B. 2.65 CONSTRUCTION SITE PHONY DETOUR SIGNS (out of five).
141.- PINK PANTHER AND SONS: ARABIAN FRIGHTS, BROTHERS ARE SPECIAL (11/25/1984, YOUTUBE)
After 13 half-hour episodes the "Pink Panther and Sons" show was cancelled by NBC, though it came back in 1986 on ABC as re-packaged repeats. The next-to-last episode (couldn't find the final one online, so these will have to do) starts with 'Arabian Frights,' in which a sleepy Panky being read the 'Arabian Nights' story by brother Pinky. The Howl Angels are the 40 thieves equivalent, complete with remote controlled 'Open Sesame' cave where the lion gang hide all the candy they steal, which drives Panky sugar crazy. In 'Brothers Are Special' Finko wants to win a talent show at all costs, even if he and pals Howl and Liona have to cheat to win the top prize. Pinky has rehearsed hard for his solo act, but that's forgotten when Panky goes missing in the carnival's most dangerous area. Looks like this was a consistent Hanna-Barbera cartoon from start to near-the-end... consistently bad-to-mediocre compared with the Panther shorts that came before it. 2.60 DEFECTIVE MAGIC CARPETS WITH ENGINE TROUBLE (out of five).
Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991, dir. Jackie Chan)
Adventurer and treasure hunter Jackie a.k.a. "Condor" is hired by a Spanish count working for the UN to find a massive stash of gold the nazis buried somewhere in the Sahara desert in the last days of World War II. On the way, he teams up with Ada, an expert in the region, and Elsa, the granddaughter of one of the nazi officers who buried the treasure.
Expertly crafter fight scenes and stunts, unfunny comedy, and a plot that's incidental at best. It's a Jackie Chan movie is what I'm saying. Plays like a mixtape of 70% Indiana Jones, 30% Roger Moore-era James Bond.
This was my pick yesterday, too. I just didn't finish the movie until this morning. My thoughts echo yours. Great fights and stunts. Not much else, but the fights and stunts are mostly the point.
The bit with the granddaughter of the Nazi officer was bizarre. The movie seems to want us to sympathize with her efforts to clear Grandpa's name in regard to the whole gold snafu... but hey, movie, Grandpa's still a Nazi!
Jackie Chan tries to do some Bond stuff. Is the spy stuff or plot interesting? Not really. But there's a couple all-time action set pieces here. Ladder fight? Climactic fight in the aquarium, including an EXTENDED underwater sequence?
Jackie really is a miracle of a physical actor, never missing an opportunity for a comedic beat even while freezing in the snow or fighting underwater.
Heroes and Villains! seems pretty wide open to interpretation. Anything from a 007 movie to Oscar winners like "Spotlight" (hero journalists bring down villainous church covering for known crimes), "Heat" (good cops versus bad robbers, but you get to know everyone as individuals) and "L.A. Confidential" (grey area of the law has hero cops and villain ones pretending to be good... or not) to WWII war movies or Indiana Jones vs. Nazis/Russians fairytales. World's your movie oyster. 🙃🙂
PM Entertainment is a crapshoot in that you choose a movie from a studio notorious for DTV production values that was the 90's equivalent of the Cannon Group. As in most things in life, Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_Entertainment 🙂 And if l may be so bold, Day 1 of this year's Junesploitation! (90's Action!) include a couple of PM Ent. flicks l review and strongly endorse: https://www.fthismovie.com/2026/06/junesploitation-2026-day-1-90s-action.html 😎
I'm not very familiar with PM Entrtainment, so I'm scrolling through this list, and thinking "that sounds amazing", and then I scroll some more and my jaw drops. Not sure I can settle on only one.
The other day I started fiddling with Letterboxd themes and nanogenres to cross reference against my various lists. Can be handy if you use that website.
For Heroes and Villains, I started by finding an example movie (such a Mission Impossible installment) and then looked at its themes. There I saw the "Explosive and action-packed heroes vs. villains" theme, which uses the URL fragment mini-theme/action-packed-villain-hero-adrenaline-explosives... You can add that on to your watchlist or other list URL like below, and then filter further if you want:
(Editors Note: Jackie Chan is 100% one of my personal heroes. I dont use that term lightly. I was fortunate enough to discover his work in the early 90s (a smidge before the release of Rumble in the Bronx...see Patricks great repost on that one!) and quickly tried to consume as much of his portfolio as possible. His skillset in cinema is unmatched as he is prolific across departments: stunt man, stunt team lead, action choreographer, director, comedy filmmaker, above/beyond risk taker, driver of evolution of action cinema, and so so much more)
(Editors note 2: There is a newly released 4k Chan box set that ill have to wait and get as its $$ BUT it contains a 4k of my all time fav chan flick and all time fav action movie: Drunken Master II. If i had that in hand, it would be my watch today.)
Jackie Chan: My Stunts (1999)
As Chan has a HUGE list of incredible movies to choose from, i just couldnt decide what to watch for today! Therefore i defaulted to this reallllllllllllllllllllly great documentary made, in my opinion, at a perfect point in Chans career (The era of his films i love most starts in the late 70s and goes to mid 90s). This documentary does a phenomenal job showing his approach to creating stunts and action scenes. It also shows that even in the late 90s, the hong kong stunt teams STILL relied on very low tech options for dangerous stunts (ie: stacks of "apple boxes" (cardboard boxes) and flimsy mattresses are STILL used for incredibly dangerous high falls).
DRAGON FIST (1979) Jackie plays a martial arts student who seeks revenge for the death of his teacher. But not all is as it appears. They play it straight in this one. It’s an action/drama, a serious historic epic with none of Jackie’s trademark slapstick fighting. It deals with themes of penance, forgiveness, sacrifice, and so on. The good news is there are plenty of fights along the way. Rather than big stunts, it’s all lightning-fast close-quarters combat, and skillfully choreographed throughout. The internet alleges that Jackie went with some other production company for this movie, rather than his usual collaborators, and it shows. I enjoyed it just fine, but it’s a real outlier in his filmography.
30 days of fan films, day 25: SPAWN THE CURSED (2024) A troubled young man named Richard is possessed by an evil spell book, putting him in the path of both Spawn and Violator. On the plus side, the Spawn costume looks terrific, and it’s one that doesn’t translate easily to live action. On the other hand, the movie spends way too much time with this Richard guy and not enough on the McFarlane characters you came here to see. But it’s only twelve minutes long, so no complaints. You’re in, you get some Spawn, you’re out.
Believe it or not, Junesploitationers, I have never seen a Jackie Chan film (not counting several flicks in which he played a bit part or was uncredited). Chan’s blend of comedy and kung fu just didn’t strongly appeal to me.
Thus, I hesitatingly waded into today with his signature Hong Kong flick, and for the most part, POLICE STORY did not disappoint. While it was a little wacky for my tastes, much of the humor was endearing and often as physically impressive as the fighting. And oh, the fighting! The lengthy shootout and chase that kicks (literally) off the film, the achingly hard falls that had my bones actually hurting, and the incredible ending assault at the mall—incredible sh!t! If there was pane of glass in the vicinity, someone was going through it! Oh, to be a glazier in Hong Kong in 1985! I also enjoyed the end credits/outtakes, they really made me reflect on all the work that went into choreographing both the combat and the comedy.
As mentioned, the mix of action and comedy isn’t always my jam, hence my reluctance to watch Jackie Chan’s efforts. It still isn’t my jam, but I’m happy I checked this out, as it held many spectacular thrills and spills. The next time Jackie’s name gets called for the Junesploitation! category sweepstakes, I’ll be wholeheartedly ready for more!
You don't like Jackie Chan's action/comedy template? 🥵😳 Dude, you must lead a charmed existence to not need Jackie Chan in your entertainment life. He's like my "hot coffee": once you go black, you never go back.😉😁
The goofy comedy mixed with the action is very common in Hong Kong cinema. It took me several years to learn how to not let annoying comedy bits derail a viewing experience. Seems like you are on your way toward that, Zillagord.
ACL: I've been more tolerant of the comedy in horror films-- it's a genre I enjoy more than action. Moving this aspect of HK films from derailing to distracting is the goal!
JC's physical comedy skills are top-notch, no doubt; the bit with the phones and the pencil was really engaging, for one. Coulda done without the slapstick cake fight scene, tho!
Vintage slapstick kung fu of the highest order. Jackie (credited as "Jacky Chan") is living in seclusion with his grandfather who teaches him crazy fighting techniques. He's strictly forbidden from showing off his special brand of kung fu around other folks, though, because, unbeknownst to Jackie, his grandfather is being hunted by some bad guys. Of course that goes about as well as you expect. Jackie wrote, directed and choreographed this banger himself. Almost every scene is him fighting or training, and it's glorious. At one point he dresses up in drag like Bugs Bunny to confuse his opponent. It's a non-stop ballet of insane physical feats and fighting choreography that makes you shake your head and wonder how on earth is it possible for a human being to do all this stuff.
Not even the most god awful dubbing on Tubi could ruin this movie. Chan is half Mikhail Baryshnikov, half Charlie Chaplin, and half brick shit house. His character is a full on spoiled jackass and that almost ruins the movie. But the creativity, beauty, and sheer impressiveness of the kung fu won me over in the end.
Jackie Chan is partnered with a streetwise cop to go from New York to Hong Kong on the trail of a kidnap victim. No, it’s not a Rush Hour sequel, it’s an early attempt to get Jackie to break out in the states. It didn’t work, and that’s probably for the best.
There’s some cool action here, but nothing as inventive as Jackie’s best. It’s weird hearing Jackie curse and seeing him use guns to do most of the crime fighting, but that’s an ‘80s cop movie for you. Good stuff: an awesome chase that has him jumping from boat to boat in a busy harbor, Danny Aiello as his partner, and a handful of deeply satisfying squibs. Less good stuff: pretty much everything else. His actual US breakout hit, Rumble in the Bronx, is also not great but it’s way more fun and lets him show off his unique personality rather than try to just stuff him into the generic cop movie box like this one does.
Jackie plays a has-been stuntman who specializes in horse stunts with his beloved horse Red Hare. He navigates the modern film industry, dodges debt collectors and tries to become closer with his estranged daughter. It's good! Jackie can still kick ass, although he's slower, there's more editing and more stunt doubles now. There is an interesting part where Jackie is preparing to do a big horse jump and the director tells him they will do the stunt with digital stunt doubles.
Jackie: Red Hare and I will do the fall for real. Director: What for? No one falls for real these days. Jackie: If not, what are people watching?
This all leads to Jackie courageously NOT doing a very risky stunt for the first time in his career out of love for his horse and his daughter. It's not perfect, and the last 20 minutes should have been deleted. But I still really enjoyed it. Long live Jackie!!!
The fights are good, especially Jackie vs Eyeliner Guy. I'm not in to the "boyfriend Jackie" parts, where I dunno... it's just too goofy for me. Sammo Hung is okay in this one, but I could do with a little less of him. A decent movie that I don't think I'd come back to.
Plot pretty much beside the point. Really just a succession of fights with some triaining scenes in the second half. All of these movies have their comedic elemetns, but this one has several full on "BOING!" sound effects. The first half is very silly and then things take a more serious turn in the second half. The climactic fight is amazing.
Jackie Chan is an internationally beloved Actor, master of kung fu, action and comedy superstar played by internationally beloved actor, master of kung fu, action and comedy superstar, Jackie Chan. Chan is tired of the usual PR and decides to adopt a Panda from the zoo. Sadly, a band of mercenaries has chosen that day to steal the panda from the zoo for a billionaire businessman. Jackie and his assistant team up with the zoo attendant who raised the panda to make sure the animal stays safe. Comedy hijinks and martial arts ensue. Jackie wins by using "Checkovs acting queue" which I believe may be a first for cinema.
The moral of the movie seems to be stealing a panda is wrong unless you got a sick kid. Also I need to mention that I don't think there is any real pandas in this. Instead, we get bad cgi Panda and stuff pillow stand in panda. We do get Jackie Chan milking a Rhino though.
Jackie Chan is a mute student at a Shaolin school, learning all he can while plagued with memories of his father's murder at the hands of a masked kung fu practitioner.
From the extended opening fight scene that is his try out to the school, I knew i was going to like this.
To be fair, I'm generally predisposed to like a Jackie Chan movie...
It's not a great Jackie Chan movie, not even a great John Cena movie but both have enough chemistry to keep it fun even if it is a bit all over the place toneably.
Although I would not say this is as memorable a Jackie Chan vehicle as Police Story, there is a lot to like in this story of a kidnapped Hong Kong businessman. A very serious Jackie Chan is on the case with a fellow detective as they go around Asia to determine who the kidnappers are and where the businessman is being held. When I write serious, I really mean a serious Jackie. There is no clowning around in Crime Story. Some fans may be disappointed by that, but I appreciated it. There are some good action set-pieces in the film, with the fiery finale being the highlight. There is a lot more gunplay than martial arts action.
Drunken Master II (1994): It took America too long to get behind Jackie Chan.
When this was released, Jackie Chan was already a global icon, but he decided to return to his roots in traditional, old-school kung fu for the first time since 1983’s Fearless Hyena Part II. He teamed up with the legendary director Lau Kar-leung to unleash a cinematic hurricane that completely redefined what an action movie could be. Don’t believe me? Time Magazine called it one of the top 100 best films of all time. The BFI ranked it among the top 10 action movies ever made. They aren’t wrong.
The story takes place in early 20th-century China. Jackie plays the legendary Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. On the way home from a trip, Fei-hung accidentally switches a box containing a valuable ginseng root with another box containing the Imperial Seal. It turns out the British consul is trying to smuggle priceless Chinese artifacts out of the country, and now they want that seal back.
Fei-hung tries to cover his tracks by cutting a root off his dad’s favorite bonsai tree to pass it off as the missing ginseng. After a massive public brawl, Fei-hung’s strict father (played by Ti Lung) finds out about the fake ginseng, disowns his son and kicks him out into the street. Now he has to restore honor to his family name and, oh yeah, get wasted. Luckily, he has help from Anita Mui, who steals every single scene she is in as Fei-hung’s stepmother, Ling. She’s hilarious, fiercely supportive and literally encourages Fei-hung to get plastered so he can unleash his drunken boxing on the bad guys.
Ken Lo (who was actually Jackie’s real-life bodyguard and a legit Taekwondo champion) plays John, the consul’s chief enforcer. The guy’s legs move like lightning. To beat him, Jackie breaks his vow of sobriety, chugs industrial alcohol and goes into a full-blown, fire-breathing, drunken berserker mode. It’s one of the wildest things ever captured by a camera.
When Dimension Films brought it to US theaters in 2000 as The Legend of Drunken Master, they did what US distributors always did back then: they dubbed it, swapped out the incredible original musical score, altered the sound effects, and cut the final 35 seconds of the film. Why? Because the original Hong Kong ending shows Fei-hung blinded and mentally crippled as a comedic side-effect of drinking industrial steel-factory alcohol. Played for laughs in HK, the US distributors thought it was way too dark.
For decades, fans had to rely on out-of-print Mei Ah LaserDiscs or cropped bootleg DVDs just to see the real movie. Not anymore.
Drunken Master II is the perfect intersection of physical comedy, historical epic and death-defying stunt work. It catches Jackie Chan at the absolute apex of his physical capabilities. If you call yourself a fan of action cinema, Hong Kong movies or just pure entertainment, this isn’t just recommended viewing.
(GREAT point about how hard it has been to see the original version of this movie. In the late 90s id heard tell of this movie being his best but it was NOWHERE to rent. So i ended up paying $100 for a 2-vhs copy in Chicago's Chinatown. That was (and is) a LOT of money to spend on a movie. It blew me away. Worth every penny. )
Rumble In the Bronx (1995): When Rumble In the Bronx played U.S. theaters, it was like every nerd like me who had to hunt down bootlegs of Jackie movies and try to explain to our friends why his films blew away any Western action hero finally had a victory. Now, instead of having to beg people to watch my fifth-generation VHS tapes of Drunken Master and Police Story, this was playing in multiplex movie theaters.
First off, let’s talk about the setting. The movie is called Rumble in the Bronx. It is ostensibly set in New York City. It was shot entirely in Vancouver.
The production crew literally spent their days slapping fake graffiti on walls to make it look street, only to have to scrape it off at night. But the absolute best part? Look at the background of almost every outdoor wide shot. There are massive, snow-capped Canadian mountains looming over the Bronx. Roger Ebert pointed it out back in 1996, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. New York has a lot of things, but the Canadian Rockies aren’t one of them. There’s even an NYC police helicopter flying around with a Canadian civil registration number painted right on the side.
Just like the Italian Bronx end of the world movies, we’re not here for a geography lesson; we’re here to see kick ass fights.
Jackie plays Ma Hon Keung, a Hong Kong cop who comes to New York for the wedding of his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung) to Whitney. Uncle Bill is selling his Bronx supermarket to Elaine (Anita Mui), and Keung is just trying to be a good nephew. Instead, he runs right into a cartoonish motorcycle gang led by a guy named Tony. These aren’t Hell’s Angels; these guys look like they stepped right out of, well, Escape from the Bronx. They wear neon, ride dirt bikes and throw glass bottles at Jackie in dark alleys.
Then, because a simple gang war isn’t enough, a low-level thug named Angelo steals a bunch of diamonds from a ruthless syndicate run by a guy named White Tiger. Angelo hides the diamonds in the cushion of Danny’s wheelchair, a sweet kid who happens to be Nancy’s (Françoise Yip) little brother, a lingerie dancer and the gang leader’s girlfriend.
Are you keeping up? Good, because it gets crazier.
Jackie transforms Elaine’s grocery store into a weaponized playground. He uses shopping carts, refrigerators and display racks to dismantle an entire gang. It’s like Buster Keaton hanging out with Bruce Lee if they had a giant, stolen hovercraft. That thing crushes cars, smashes through storefronts and is eventually brought down by Jackie Chan driving a sports car and wielding a giant antique broadsword to rip open the hovercraft’s rubber skirt.
And if that wasn’t enough, the movie ends with Jackie driving the repaired hovercraft onto a golf course to literally run over the main villain, stripping him naked in the process while everyone laughs.
You can’t talk about this movie without talking about the end-credit outtakes. Jackie Chan famously broke his right ankle during filming when he leaped onto the hovercraft. Did they stop production? Nope. They put his foot in a cast, painted a sock to look like a sneaker, slipped it over the cast and kept shooting. I love that all Jackie learned from making Cannonball Run was to put in bloopers, and his bloopers make it seem like he nearly dies in every movie.
Police Story 4: First Strike (1996): When filmmakers hit the fourth installment of a franchise, you expect things to slow down. Maybe the stunts get softer, the plot gets thinner, and the star starts looking for a stunt double to handle the heavy lifting.
But we aren’t talking about some bored Hollywood action star. We’re talking about Jackie Chan.
Police Story 4: First Strike is a different beast entirely. It ditches the gritty, urban police-procedural vibes of the first two films for something much bigger, more international and, honestly? Even more insane.
If the first Police Story was a hard-hitting HK action masterpiece, First Strike is Jackie’s version of a globe-trotting spy flick. We’re moving from the humid streets of Hong Kong to the snow-covered mountains of Ukraine and the urban maze of Brisbane, Australia. Jackie is playing “Supercop” Chan Ka-Kui, but he’s basically operating as a one-man wrecking crew for the CIA and Russian intelligence. The plot? Something about stolen nuclear warheads and a missing drive. Honestly, who cares? You aren’t here for the espionage beats; you’re here for the physics-defying lunacy that only Chan can deliver.
If you haven’t seen the ladder fight in the Australian theme park, have you even lived? And yes, Jackie fights a shark. In a tank. While underwater. It’s the kind of high-concept, they actually did this practical filmmaking that modern CGI-bloated blockbusters have completely forgotten how to do. Or maybe they’re the sane ones. In this same movie, Jackie straps on a snowboard and jumps onto an actual helicopter.
New Line Cinema cut the U.S. release by over 23 minutes and dubbed the non-English dialogue, even though most of this is in English. There’s also a different opening title sequence and a completely new music score composed by J. Peter Robinson.
Police Story 5 was planned to be directed by Jackie’s “brother,” Sammo Hung. It was supposed to be about Chan Ka Kui and May getting married in Australia. When canceled, it became Mr. Nice Guy.
Mr. Nice Guy (1997): By 1997, New Line Cinema had already given western audiences a taste of the good stuff with Rumble in the Bronx, and they were desperate for more. Enter Mr. Nice Guy, a movie that feels less like a cohesive cinematic narrative and more like a beautifully chaotic, live-action Saturday morning cartoon. It’s got a plot thin enough to see through, but when you have the legendary Sammo Hung behind the camera directing his old China Drama Academy brother, who cares about a plot?
The setup is pure, glorious nonsense. Jackie Chan plays… Jackie, a celebrity TV chef living in Melbourne, Australia, who whips up crepes and smiles for the cameras. Meanwhile, a tough-as-nails investigative reporter named Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) grabs video footage of a massive cocaine deal going sideways between a traditional suits-and-shades Italian mob and a colorful street gang called The Demons. What is this, Nightmare Beach? Naturally, she gets spotted, guns start blazing, and she bolts into the busy streets.
Diana literally runs into Chef Jackie while he’s carrying a load of groceries. In the chaotic scuffle that follows, which features Jackie turning a market stall into a weaponized obstacle course, Diana’s incriminating VHS tape gets mixed up with a box of Jackie’s cooking show tapes. For the next 80 minutes, everyone in the Australian underworld is hunting down our favorite culinary master, leading to apartment explosions, kidnapping, a massive game of hide-and-seek on a construction site and some of the most ridiculous heavy-machinery destruction ever seen in a movie.
Fresh off breaking his ankle on Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie is back at peak physical agility here. He isn’t playing a super-cop this time. He’s just a regular guy who happens to be able to parkour off buildings and beat up six guys with a step-stool. He’s up against Richard Norton, who plays Giancarlo. The absolute MVP of the film, Norton is a legendary Australian martial artist and a massive staple of B-movie action, having starred in cult classics like Gymkata, Equalizer 2000 and Future Hunters. He frequently crossed over into Hong Kong cinema, playing the ultimate Western villain for Jackie and Sammo (see: Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars and City Hunter). He has an over-the-top, theatrical villainy, punctuating his threats by weirdly slapping his own henchmen with their ties.
This film was originally going to be the fifth installment of Jackie’s legendary Police Story franchise and was set to be shot in Sydney. At the last minute, the script was completely overhauled into a standalone piece, the setting shifted to Melbourne, and it became Jackie’s first movie filmed entirely in English.
If you think the movie is going to end with a standard one-on-one martial arts showdown, think again. The finale features Jackie hijacking a colossal, 120-ton mining dump truck with tires that look 12 feet high. He proceeds to drive this absolute monster directly through Giancarlo’s multi-million dollar mansion, flattening a fleet of pristine luxury sports cars (including a white Lamborghini) into pancakes.
Who Am I? (1998): A group of elite, multi-national commando operatives pulls off a midnight raid in the South African jungle to kidnap three scientists who have been experimenting with a highly volatile, weaponized meteorite ore. The mission goes off without a hitch, but the higher-ups, specifically the crooked, power-hungry CIA operative Morgan (Ron Smerczak), want the prize all to themselves. Morgan sabotages the escape helicopter, causing it to crash into the wilderness.
The lone survivor of the crash is a commando played by Jackie Chan. He wakes up with a massive case of amnesia and absolutely zero memory of who he is, where he came from or how he learned to break bones with lightning speed. He is taken in and nursed back to health by a local African tribe. When they ask him his identity, he repeatedly screams his frustration at the sky: “Who am I?!” Taking him literally, the tribe adopts him under the name “Whoami.“
After rescuing a lost rally car racing team, “Whoami” gets a ticket back to civilization, where he catches the eye of a seemingly sweet but incredibly suspicious news reporter named Christine Stark (Michelle Ferre). Unfortunately for him, his sudden media exposure alerts the corrupt masterminds behind the original double-cross. With assassins, black-ops agents and the CIA hunting him across Europe, Jackie has to piece together his fractured memory while turning everything from Dutch furniture to footwear into deadly weapons.
The movie features one of the most terrifying, legendary stunts in cinema history. Jackie slides down the steep, sloped glass exterior of the 21-story Willemswerf building in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with absolutely no safety wires. The stunt required Jackie to break his fall by tumbling over a ledge at the bottom. He reportedly took multiple takes to perfect it, severely injuring his back and ankle in the process. And in the final seven-minute brawl on top of the Rotterdam building, Jackie uses his improv style against Ron Smoorenburg’s insane flexibility and Kwan Yung’s rapid-fire close-quarters strikes.
Depending on where you watched it, you saw a different movie. The original Hong Kong cut runs over two full hours and keeps the mystery intact, letting the audience piece together the plot alongside Jackie. The North American edit trims the runtime down to around 108 minutes, heavily cutting the early scenes with the African tribe and re-editing the opening special ops sequence so the audience knows exactly what happened right from the start.
Thunderbolt (1995): Rumble in the Bronx blew the doors wide open for Jackie Chan in America. So, naturally, the very next thing the multiplexes threw at us was 1995’s Thunderbolt (released in some regions as Dead Heat). New Line Cinema wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Still, instead of another neighborhood street-brawl comedy, we got something completely different: a hyper-kinetic, multilingual, multi-million-dollar collision of Euro-sleaze villains, legal and illegal street racing, yakuza pachinko hall beatdowns and corporate Mitsubishi product placement.
By 1995, the Hong Kong film industry was facing a serious slump, but Jackie Chan was a one-man economic stimulus package. Thunderbolt was a massive, high-budget gamble that cost nearly 30 million Hong Kong dollars, and it shows. Director Gordon Chan decided to completely eschew the traditional period-piece martial arts aesthetic in favor of a slick, modern racing blockbuster.
The movie plays like a proto-Fast & Furious, but dialed up to an eleven on the psychological instability meter. Jackie plays Foh (or Alfred if you watched the American dub), a brilliant junkyard mechanic and part-time racecar driver who helps the Hong Kong police bust illegal drag racers.
The problem? He crosses paths with Cougar Krugman (Thorsten Nickel), an international criminal driver who looks like an elite henchman from a lost Cannon Films production. Cougar isn’t just a bad guy; he’s a psychopath who drives a black Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 like an absolute demon.
What makes Thunderbolt such a fascinating watch for a B-movie maniac is its absolute refusal to settle on a single tone. It jumps from lighthearted romantic comedy to pitch-black exploitation violence at the drop of a hat.
One minute, Jackie is being cutely harassed by a reporter named Amy Yip (Anita Yuen), and the next, Cougar’s gang is staging a literal terrorist raid on a police station to spring him from jail. People are being gunned down left and right, blood is flying, and Interpol agent Steve Cannon (Michael Wong) ends up shooting Cougar’s girlfriend to death mid-escape. To get revenge, Cougar uses a giant crane to systematically smash Jackie’s junkyard into scrap metal, brutally crushes his father and kidnaps his two younger sisters.
His demand? “Come to Japan and race me.”
Because this is a Jackie Chan movie, we can’t just have racing. When Foh lands in Japan, he storms a Yakuza-owned pachinko parlor to rescue his sisters. This sequence is a masterclass in chaotic action choreography, handled by the legendary Sammo Hung and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Pachinko balls are flying everywhere, bodies are being thrown through neon glass, and Jackie is wielding chairs like a man possessed. It’s glorious.
The final third of the movie takes us to the Sendai Hi-Land Raceway in Japan. After Foh’s initial yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III gets totaled, the daughter of a Mitsubishi executive (because why not?) just hands him two brand-new white Mitsubishi GTO race cars.
Soon, cars are flipping over, exploding, and spinning out in a high-speed parade of practical effects and miniature work. The finale features a photo finish in which both cars slide backward out of control into a gravel pit, and Jackie wins by literally shifting into reverse and flooring it across the finish line.
Of course, Cougar tries to run away after losing, leading to a violent, fiery crash where Jackie has to pull him from the burning wreckage just so the cops can lock him up.
Thunderbolt is a beautiful mess. It’s got a villain straight out of a Euro-trash actioner, incredible real-car destruction and some of the most bizarre tonal shifts you’ll ever see in a major studio release.
'WHEN YUEN WOO-PING CHOREOGRAPHED JACKIE CHAN'S BRAWLS' DOUBLE FEATURE!
ReplyDelete138.- TWIN DRAGONS (HONG KONG/USA, 1992/1999, AMAZON PRIME). Also streaming on TUBI, PLEX, ROKU CHANNEL.
Two legendary Hong Kong action directors, Ringo Lam ("City on Fire") and Tsui Hark ("Once Upon a Time in China"), worked together in this action comedy in which Jackie Chan plays the dual roles of twin brothers separated at birth. Now grown men unaware of each other's existence (except when the script finds it convenient to have one twin feel what the other one is doing), the one in HK, Boomer, is a formidable fighter who's deep in debt with the criminal underground alongside friend Tyson (Teddy Robin, annoying as f*ck). The one who grew up in America, John Ma, is a musical composer and piano prodigy with no fighting skills whatsoever. Wackiness ensues when John Ma visits HK for an important concert, intersecting with Boomer at a hotel where both brothers mix it up with each other's lady friends (Maggie Cheung and Nina Li Chi) before accidentally being forced into assignments (driving a getaway car to free an imprisoned crime boss for Ma, conducting an orchestra for Boomer) neither brother is equipped for. Comedic action doesn't get any nuttier (aka cool as hell) than dozens of police/mob cars crashing/exploding near a dock while Ma listens on the radio as Boomer waves around Ma's conductor baton to create musical magic like a Looney Tunes-trained maestro. 😎😋
Special effects when both Jackie Chans are on-screen simultaneously look a little ropey (expected for a low-budget Asian film in the early 90's), but the acting/comedy hijinks are handled by the dual directors like pros. There are only a handful of actual brawls (one inside a Mitsubishi vehicle testing facility) where Yue Woo-ping's fight choreography, along with the star's willingness to put his neck on the line, delivers the action goods. It also gives Jackie a chance to showcase his comedic timing by playing Ma as a coward with no fighting skills, which makes it easier to tell when Boomer delivers the ass-kicking. Now, if there was a way to remove Tyson from "Twin Dragons" entirely... 🤔😓3.85 EXPLODING BARRELS BURNING BAD GUYS' CLOTHES (out of five).
Thanks for the reminder about Twin Dragons, J.M. It is not one of the classics, but my wife and I enjoyed the goody fun. There was less high flying Jackie, but twice the comedic timing. Also, it is always a joy to see Maggie Cheung.
DeleteIt holds up better than l expected for '92 Jackie. Having two directors must have really helped Chan keep Boomer and Ma personalities in check. 🙃🙂
Delete139.- THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (USA/CHINA, 2008, SYFY CHANNEL). Also streaming on PLEX, FAWESOME, HOWDY, TUBI.
ReplyDeleteJackie Chan and Jet Li (their names arranged in such a way both are THE leading man) headline this $55 million USA/Chinese martial arts fantasy epic (from the director of the animated "Lion King") that was clearly influenced by 2000's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (one of many masterpieces whose fighting was also choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping). An American teenage kung fu movie fanatic (Michael Angarano, "Sky High") is transported back to ancient Chinese times carrying a magical staff that will awaken the Monkey King from a centuries-old curse keeping him locked in stone. Though he knows his martial arts movies, young Jason isn't skilled or good at fighting... so a group of warriors trying to fulfill the staff's destiny help train him for the dangerous mission ahead. Though Chan and Li are in a bulk of the narrative and star in its most memorable action set-piece (a fighting duel between the two action megastars that is more for show than important to the plot), this is Jason's story and he's too much of a dopey cipher for audiences (foreign or American) to relate to. Yifei Liu (as Golden Sparrow) and Li Bingbing (as White-Haired Witch) add some much-needed female presence, though the story doesn't do either of them any favors. 🫤'It's fine,' but even when it's at its best (Jackie's drunken teacher reacting to a life-giving potion) you can feel this is punching below everybody's (in front and behind the camera) much higher standards. 3.15 CHINATOWN MOM & POP STORES WITH BOOTLEG SHAW BROS. MOVIE DVD'S IN CANTONESE WITHOUT SUBTITLES (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 25!
ReplyDelete140.- PINK PANTHER AND SONS: SPINNING WHEELS, PINKY AT THE BAT (9/8/1984, YOUTUBE)
The last original 'Pink Panther' cartoon of the 1980's, courtesy of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon assembly-line (with Friz Freleng credited as 'creative producer'), "Pink Panther and Sons" passes the baton to the Panther's two offspring (pre-teen Pinky and toddler Panky, whose diaper is constantly dragging) and their 'Rainbow Panthers' crew of friends. It's basically a test-run for 1986's "The Flintstone Kids" with talking cartoon felines, or an attempt to latch onto the "Muppet Babies'" popularity.
Every 10 min. episode (two per show, plus the OG PP doing silent wrap-around 1 min. segments) the Rainbow Panthers have to defeat the gang of Howl Angels (troublemaking teen lions) led by colored-mohawk leader Finko (Frank Welker) from whatever competition they're challenged for. For 'Spinning Wheels' is winning a bike race fair and square to earn the right to a free bike and sponsorship money; the Panthers are honorable, the Angels are cheating d!cks. For 'Pinky at The Bat' it's who gets to play in the neighborhood baseball field after winning a winner-take-all match; L.A. Dodgers' coach Tommy Lasorda guest-stars as himself, coaching the Panthers at first and eventually deciding the game's final call at the plate. It's all as Saturday morning dopey as it sounds, but I've seen worse from H-B. 2.65 CONSTRUCTION SITE PHONY DETOUR SIGNS (out of five).
141.- PINK PANTHER AND SONS: ARABIAN FRIGHTS, BROTHERS ARE SPECIAL (11/25/1984, YOUTUBE)
DeleteAfter 13 half-hour episodes the "Pink Panther and Sons" show was cancelled by NBC, though it came back in 1986 on ABC as re-packaged repeats. The next-to-last episode (couldn't find the final one online, so these will have to do) starts with 'Arabian Frights,' in which a sleepy Panky being read the 'Arabian Nights' story by brother Pinky. The Howl Angels are the 40 thieves equivalent, complete with remote controlled 'Open Sesame' cave where the lion gang hide all the candy they steal, which drives Panky sugar crazy. In 'Brothers Are Special' Finko wants to win a talent show at all costs, even if he and pals Howl and Liona have to cheat to win the top prize. Pinky has rehearsed hard for his solo act, but that's forgotten when Panky goes missing in the carnival's most dangerous area. Looks like this was a consistent Hanna-Barbera cartoon from start to near-the-end... consistently bad-to-mediocre compared with the Panther shorts that came before it. 2.60 DEFECTIVE MAGIC CARPETS WITH ENGINE TROUBLE (out of five).
Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1991, dir. Jackie Chan)
ReplyDeleteAdventurer and treasure hunter Jackie a.k.a. "Condor" is hired by a Spanish count working for the UN to find a massive stash of gold the nazis buried somewhere in the Sahara desert in the last days of World War II. On the way, he teams up with Ada, an expert in the region, and Elsa, the granddaughter of one of the nazi officers who buried the treasure.
Expertly crafter fight scenes and stunts, unfunny comedy, and a plot that's incidental at best. It's a Jackie Chan movie is what I'm saying. Plays like a mixtape of 70% Indiana Jones, 30% Roger Moore-era James Bond.
This was my pick yesterday, too. I just didn't finish the movie until this morning. My thoughts echo yours. Great fights and stunts. Not much else, but the fights and stunts are mostly the point.
DeleteThe bit with the granddaughter of the Nazi officer was bizarre. The movie seems to want us to sympathize with her efforts to clear Grandpa's name in regard to the whole gold snafu... but hey, movie, Grandpa's still a Nazi!
First Strike (1996)
ReplyDeleteJackie Chan tries to do some Bond stuff. Is the spy stuff or plot interesting? Not really. But there's a couple all-time action set pieces here. Ladder fight? Climactic fight in the aquarium, including an EXTENDED underwater sequence?
Jackie really is a miracle of a physical actor, never missing an opportunity for a comedic beat even while freezing in the snow or fighting underwater.
Unrelated - but does anyone have direction on Heroes and Villains or PM Entertainment? Both seem super vague.
DeleteHere's the list of every movie PM Entertainment made.
DeleteHeroes and Villains! seems pretty wide open to interpretation. Anything from a 007 movie to Oscar winners like "Spotlight" (hero journalists bring down villainous church covering for known crimes), "Heat" (good cops versus bad robbers, but you get to know everyone as individuals) and "L.A. Confidential" (grey area of the law has hero cops and villain ones pretending to be good... or not) to WWII war movies or Indiana Jones vs. Nazis/Russians fairytales. World's your movie oyster. 🙃🙂
DeletePM Entertainment is a crapshoot in that you choose a movie from a studio notorious for DTV production values that was the 90's equivalent of the Cannon Group. As in most things in life, Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_Entertainment 🙂 And if l may be so bold, Day 1 of this year's Junesploitation! (90's Action!) include a couple of PM Ent. flicks l review and strongly endorse: https://www.fthismovie.com/2026/06/junesploitation-2026-day-1-90s-action.html 😎
I'm not very familiar with PM Entrtainment, so I'm scrolling through this list, and thinking "that sounds amazing", and then I scroll some more and my jaw drops. Not sure I can settle on only one.
DeleteOne could probably construct an entire Junesploitation! watch list of PM Entertainment flicks!
DeleteThe other day I started fiddling with Letterboxd themes and nanogenres to cross reference against my various lists. Can be handy if you use that website.
DeleteFor Heroes and Villains, I started by finding an example movie (such a Mission Impossible installment) and then looked at its themes. There I saw the "Explosive and action-packed heroes vs. villains" theme, which uses the URL fragment mini-theme/action-packed-villain-hero-adrenaline-explosives... You can add that on to your watchlist or other list URL like below, and then filter further if you want:
https://letterboxd.com/asymmetricblaze/list/maybes-and-other-scary-sploitation/mini-theme/action-packed-villain-hero-adrenaline-explosives/
I'm so glad I asked for clarification before my dumb ass started skimming old Skinemax movies for something appropriate. Thanks all!
Deletewooo hooo! Jackie Chan Day!!!!!!
ReplyDelete(Editors Note: Jackie Chan is 100% one of my personal heroes. I dont use that term lightly. I was fortunate enough to discover his work in the early 90s (a smidge before the release of Rumble in the Bronx...see Patricks great repost on that one!) and quickly tried to consume as much of his portfolio as possible. His skillset in cinema is unmatched as he is prolific across departments: stunt man, stunt team lead, action choreographer, director, comedy filmmaker, above/beyond risk taker, driver of evolution of action cinema, and so so much more)
(Editors note 2: There is a newly released 4k Chan box set that ill have to wait and get as its $$ BUT it contains a 4k of my all time fav chan flick and all time fav action movie: Drunken Master II. If i had that in hand, it would be my watch today.)
Jackie Chan: My Stunts (1999)
As Chan has a HUGE list of incredible movies to choose from, i just couldnt decide what to watch for today! Therefore i defaulted to this reallllllllllllllllllllly great documentary made, in my opinion, at a perfect point in Chans career (The era of his films i love most starts in the late 70s and goes to mid 90s). This documentary does a phenomenal job showing his approach to creating stunts and action scenes. It also shows that even in the late 90s, the hong kong stunt teams STILL relied on very low tech options for dangerous stunts (ie: stacks of "apple boxes" (cardboard boxes) and flimsy mattresses are STILL used for incredibly dangerous high falls).
DRAGON FIST (1979)
ReplyDeleteJackie plays a martial arts student who seeks revenge for the death of his teacher. But not all is as it appears. They play it straight in this one. It’s an action/drama, a serious historic epic with none of Jackie’s trademark slapstick fighting. It deals with themes of penance, forgiveness, sacrifice, and so on. The good news is there are plenty of fights along the way. Rather than big stunts, it’s all lightning-fast close-quarters combat, and skillfully choreographed throughout. The internet alleges that Jackie went with some other production company for this movie, rather than his usual collaborators, and it shows. I enjoyed it just fine, but it’s a real outlier in his filmography.
30 days of fan films, day 25: SPAWN THE CURSED (2024)
A troubled young man named Richard is possessed by an evil spell book, putting him in the path of both Spawn and Violator. On the plus side, the Spawn costume looks terrific, and it’s one that doesn’t translate easily to live action. On the other hand, the movie spends way too much time with this Richard guy and not enough on the McFarlane characters you came here to see. But it’s only twelve minutes long, so no complaints. You’re in, you get some Spawn, you’re out.
POLICE STORY (1985, Jackie Chan, HK)
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, Junesploitationers, I have never seen a Jackie Chan film (not counting several flicks in which he played a bit part or was uncredited). Chan’s blend of comedy and kung fu just didn’t strongly appeal to me.
Thus, I hesitatingly waded into today with his signature Hong Kong flick, and for the most part, POLICE STORY did not disappoint. While it was a little wacky for my tastes, much of the humor was endearing and often as physically impressive as the fighting. And oh, the fighting! The lengthy shootout and chase that kicks (literally) off the film, the achingly hard falls that had my bones actually hurting, and the incredible ending assault at the mall—incredible sh!t! If there was pane of glass in the vicinity, someone was going through it! Oh, to be a glazier in Hong Kong in 1985! I also enjoyed the end credits/outtakes, they really made me reflect on all the work that went into choreographing both the combat and the comedy.
As mentioned, the mix of action and comedy isn’t always my jam, hence my reluctance to watch Jackie Chan’s efforts. It still isn’t my jam, but I’m happy I checked this out, as it held many spectacular thrills and spills. The next time Jackie’s name gets called for the Junesploitation! category sweepstakes, I’ll be wholeheartedly ready for more!
You don't like Jackie Chan's action/comedy template? 🥵😳 Dude, you must lead a charmed existence to not need Jackie Chan in your entertainment life. He's like my "hot coffee": once you go black, you never go back.😉😁
DeleteJ.M.: My brand is just too INTENSE for Jackie's high jinks hahaha. That being said, I really enjoyed this.
DeleteI'm in the same boat, zillagord. I love JC's kung fu skills and stunts, but his comedy has never appealed to me.
DeleteThe stunts are beyond crazy in Police Story.
DeleteThe goofy comedy mixed with the action is very common in Hong Kong cinema. It took me several years to learn how to not let annoying comedy bits derail a viewing experience. Seems like you are on your way toward that, Zillagord.
ACL: I've been more tolerant of the comedy in horror films-- it's a genre I enjoy more than action. Moving this aspect of HK films from derailing to distracting is the goal!
DeleteJC's physical comedy skills are top-notch, no doubt; the bit with the phones and the pencil was really engaging, for one. Coulda done without the slapstick cake fight scene, tho!
Fearless Hyena (1979)
ReplyDeleteVintage slapstick kung fu of the highest order. Jackie (credited as "Jacky Chan") is living in seclusion with his grandfather who teaches him crazy fighting techniques. He's strictly forbidden from showing off his special brand of kung fu around other folks, though, because, unbeknownst to Jackie, his grandfather is being hunted by some bad guys. Of course that goes about as well as you expect. Jackie wrote, directed and choreographed this banger himself. Almost every scene is him fighting or training, and it's glorious. At one point he dresses up in drag like Bugs Bunny to confuse his opponent. It's a non-stop ballet of insane physical feats and fighting choreography that makes you shake your head and wonder how on earth is it possible for a human being to do all this stuff.
#JUneSPLOItaTION Day 25: Jackie Chan!
ReplyDeleteDRUNKEN MASTER (1978) dir. Yuen Woo-ping
Not even the most god awful dubbing on Tubi could ruin this movie. Chan is half Mikhail Baryshnikov, half Charlie Chaplin, and half brick shit house. His character is a full on spoiled jackass and that almost ruins the movie. But the creativity, beauty, and sheer impressiveness of the kung fu won me over in the end.
First Strike (1996, dir. Stanley Tong Gwai-Lai)
ReplyDeleteEntertaining fights, but the movie didn't stand out for me among Jackie's filmography.
The Protector
ReplyDeleteJackie Chan is partnered with a streetwise cop to go from New York to Hong Kong on the trail of a kidnap victim. No, it’s not a Rush Hour sequel, it’s an early attempt to get Jackie to break out in the states. It didn’t work, and that’s probably for the best.
There’s some cool action here, but nothing as inventive as Jackie’s best. It’s weird hearing Jackie curse and seeing him use guns to do most of the crime fighting, but that’s an ‘80s cop movie for you. Good stuff: an awesome chase that has him jumping from boat to boat in a busy harbor, Danny Aiello as his partner, and a handful of deeply satisfying squibs. Less good stuff: pretty much everything else. His actual US breakout hit, Rumble in the Bronx, is also not great but it’s way more fun and lets him show off his unique personality rather than try to just stuff him into the generic cop movie box like this one does.
Ride On (2023 dir, Larry Yang)
ReplyDeleteJackie plays a has-been stuntman who specializes in horse stunts with his beloved horse Red Hare. He navigates the modern film industry, dodges debt collectors and tries to become closer with his estranged daughter. It's good! Jackie can still kick ass, although he's slower, there's more editing and more stunt doubles now. There is an interesting part where Jackie is preparing to do a big horse jump and the director tells him they will do the stunt with digital stunt doubles.
Jackie: Red Hare and I will do the fall for real.
Director: What for? No one falls for real these days.
Jackie: If not, what are people watching?
This all leads to Jackie courageously NOT doing a very risky stunt for the first time in his career out of love for his horse and his daughter. It's not perfect, and the last 20 minutes should have been deleted. But I still really enjoyed it. Long live Jackie!!!
Dragons Forever (1988, dir. Sammo Hung)
ReplyDeleteThe fights are good, especially Jackie vs Eyeliner Guy. I'm not in to the "boyfriend Jackie" parts, where I dunno... it's just too goofy for me. Sammo Hung is okay in this one, but I could do with a little less of him. A decent movie that I don't think I'd come back to.
I also watched the Fearless Hyena (1979)
ReplyDeletePlot pretty much beside the point. Really just a succession of fights with some triaining scenes in the second half. All of these movies have their comedic elemetns, but this one has several full on "BOING!" sound effects. The first half is very silly and then things take a more serious turn in the second half. The climactic fight is amazing.
Jackie Chan is an internationally beloved Actor, master of kung fu, action and comedy superstar played by internationally beloved actor, master of kung fu, action and comedy superstar, Jackie Chan. Chan is tired of the usual PR and decides to adopt a Panda from the zoo. Sadly, a band of mercenaries has chosen that day to steal the panda from the zoo for a billionaire businessman. Jackie and his assistant team up with the zoo attendant who raised the panda to make sure the animal stays safe. Comedy hijinks and martial arts ensue. Jackie wins by using "Checkovs acting queue" which I believe may be a first for cinema.
ReplyDeleteThe moral of the movie seems to be stealing a panda is wrong unless you got a sick kid. Also I need to mention that I don't think there is any real pandas in this. Instead, we get bad cgi Panda and stuff pillow stand in panda. We do get Jackie Chan milking a Rhino though.
DeleteShaolin Wooden Men (1976)
ReplyDeleteJackie Chan is a mute student at a Shaolin school, learning all he can while plagued with memories of his father's murder at the hands of a masked kung fu practitioner.
From the extended opening fight scene that is his try out to the school, I knew i was going to like this.
To be fair, I'm generally predisposed to like a Jackie Chan movie...
Hidden Strike (2023) dir. Scott Waugh
ReplyDeleteIt's not a great Jackie Chan movie, not even a great John Cena movie but both have enough chemistry to keep it fun even if it is a bit all over the place toneably.
CRIME STORY (1993, dir. Kirk Wong)
ReplyDeleteAlthough I would not say this is as memorable a Jackie Chan vehicle as Police Story, there is a lot to like in this story of a kidnapped Hong Kong businessman. A very serious Jackie Chan is on the case with a fellow detective as they go around Asia to determine who the kidnappers are and where the businessman is being held. When I write serious, I really mean a serious Jackie. There is no clowning around in Crime Story. Some fans may be disappointed by that, but I appreciated it. There are some good action set-pieces in the film, with the fiery finale being the highlight. There is a lot more gunplay than martial arts action.
Drunken Master II (1994): It took America too long to get behind Jackie Chan.
ReplyDeleteWhen this was released, Jackie Chan was already a global icon, but he decided to return to his roots in traditional, old-school kung fu for the first time since 1983’s Fearless Hyena Part II. He teamed up with the legendary director Lau Kar-leung to unleash a cinematic hurricane that completely redefined what an action movie could be. Don’t believe me? Time Magazine called it one of the top 100 best films of all time. The BFI ranked it among the top 10 action movies ever made. They aren’t wrong.
The story takes place in early 20th-century China. Jackie plays the legendary Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. On the way home from a trip, Fei-hung accidentally switches a box containing a valuable ginseng root with another box containing the Imperial Seal. It turns out the British consul is trying to smuggle priceless Chinese artifacts out of the country, and now they want that seal back.
Fei-hung tries to cover his tracks by cutting a root off his dad’s favorite bonsai tree to pass it off as the missing ginseng. After a massive public brawl, Fei-hung’s strict father (played by Ti Lung) finds out about the fake ginseng, disowns his son and kicks him out into the street. Now he has to restore honor to his family name and, oh yeah, get wasted. Luckily, he has help from Anita Mui, who steals every single scene she is in as Fei-hung’s stepmother, Ling. She’s hilarious, fiercely supportive and literally encourages Fei-hung to get plastered so he can unleash his drunken boxing on the bad guys.
Ken Lo (who was actually Jackie’s real-life bodyguard and a legit Taekwondo champion) plays John, the consul’s chief enforcer. The guy’s legs move like lightning. To beat him, Jackie breaks his vow of sobriety, chugs industrial alcohol and goes into a full-blown, fire-breathing, drunken berserker mode. It’s one of the wildest things ever captured by a camera.
When Dimension Films brought it to US theaters in 2000 as The Legend of Drunken Master, they did what US distributors always did back then: they dubbed it, swapped out the incredible original musical score, altered the sound effects, and cut the final 35 seconds of the film. Why? Because the original Hong Kong ending shows Fei-hung blinded and mentally crippled as a comedic side-effect of drinking industrial steel-factory alcohol. Played for laughs in HK, the US distributors thought it was way too dark.
For decades, fans had to rely on out-of-print Mei Ah LaserDiscs or cropped bootleg DVDs just to see the real movie. Not anymore.
Drunken Master II is the perfect intersection of physical comedy, historical epic and death-defying stunt work. It catches Jackie Chan at the absolute apex of his physical capabilities. If you call yourself a fan of action cinema, Hong Kong movies or just pure entertainment, this isn’t just recommended viewing.
It’s everything.
(GREAT point about how hard it has been to see the original version of this movie. In the late 90s id heard tell of this movie being his best but it was NOWHERE to rent. So i ended up paying $100 for a 2-vhs copy in Chicago's Chinatown. That was (and is) a LOT of money to spend on a movie. It blew me away. Worth every penny. )
DeleteRumble In the Bronx (1995): When Rumble In the Bronx played U.S. theaters, it was like every nerd like me who had to hunt down bootlegs of Jackie movies and try to explain to our friends why his films blew away any Western action hero finally had a victory. Now, instead of having to beg people to watch my fifth-generation VHS tapes of Drunken Master and Police Story, this was playing in multiplex movie theaters.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, let’s talk about the setting. The movie is called Rumble in the Bronx. It is ostensibly set in New York City. It was shot entirely in Vancouver.
The production crew literally spent their days slapping fake graffiti on walls to make it look street, only to have to scrape it off at night. But the absolute best part? Look at the background of almost every outdoor wide shot. There are massive, snow-capped Canadian mountains looming over the Bronx. Roger Ebert pointed it out back in 1996, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. New York has a lot of things, but the Canadian Rockies aren’t one of them. There’s even an NYC police helicopter flying around with a Canadian civil registration number painted right on the side.
Just like the Italian Bronx end of the world movies, we’re not here for a geography lesson; we’re here to see kick ass fights.
Jackie plays Ma Hon Keung, a Hong Kong cop who comes to New York for the wedding of his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung) to Whitney. Uncle Bill is selling his Bronx supermarket to Elaine (Anita Mui), and Keung is just trying to be a good nephew. Instead, he runs right into a cartoonish motorcycle gang led by a guy named Tony. These aren’t Hell’s Angels; these guys look like they stepped right out of, well, Escape from the Bronx. They wear neon, ride dirt bikes and throw glass bottles at Jackie in dark alleys.
Then, because a simple gang war isn’t enough, a low-level thug named Angelo steals a bunch of diamonds from a ruthless syndicate run by a guy named White Tiger. Angelo hides the diamonds in the cushion of Danny’s wheelchair, a sweet kid who happens to be Nancy’s (Françoise Yip) little brother, a lingerie dancer and the gang leader’s girlfriend.
Are you keeping up? Good, because it gets crazier.
Jackie transforms Elaine’s grocery store into a weaponized playground. He uses shopping carts, refrigerators and display racks to dismantle an entire gang. It’s like Buster Keaton hanging out with Bruce Lee if they had a giant, stolen hovercraft. That thing crushes cars, smashes through storefronts and is eventually brought down by Jackie Chan driving a sports car and wielding a giant antique broadsword to rip open the hovercraft’s rubber skirt.
And if that wasn’t enough, the movie ends with Jackie driving the repaired hovercraft onto a golf course to literally run over the main villain, stripping him naked in the process while everyone laughs.
You can’t talk about this movie without talking about the end-credit outtakes. Jackie Chan famously broke his right ankle during filming when he leaped onto the hovercraft. Did they stop production? Nope. They put his foot in a cast, painted a sock to look like a sneaker, slipped it over the cast and kept shooting. I love that all Jackie learned from making Cannonball Run was to put in bloopers, and his bloopers make it seem like he nearly dies in every movie.
Because he does.
Police Story 4: First Strike (1996): When filmmakers hit the fourth installment of a franchise, you expect things to slow down. Maybe the stunts get softer, the plot gets thinner, and the star starts looking for a stunt double to handle the heavy lifting.
ReplyDeleteBut we aren’t talking about some bored Hollywood action star. We’re talking about Jackie Chan.
Police Story 4: First Strike is a different beast entirely. It ditches the gritty, urban police-procedural vibes of the first two films for something much bigger, more international and, honestly? Even more insane.
If the first Police Story was a hard-hitting HK action masterpiece, First Strike is Jackie’s version of a globe-trotting spy flick. We’re moving from the humid streets of Hong Kong to the snow-covered mountains of Ukraine and the urban maze of Brisbane, Australia. Jackie is playing “Supercop” Chan Ka-Kui, but he’s basically operating as a one-man wrecking crew for the CIA and Russian intelligence. The plot? Something about stolen nuclear warheads and a missing drive. Honestly, who cares? You aren’t here for the espionage beats; you’re here for the physics-defying lunacy that only Chan can deliver.
If you haven’t seen the ladder fight in the Australian theme park, have you even lived? And yes, Jackie fights a shark. In a tank. While underwater. It’s the kind of high-concept, they actually did this practical filmmaking that modern CGI-bloated blockbusters have completely forgotten how to do. Or maybe they’re the sane ones. In this same movie, Jackie straps on a snowboard and jumps onto an actual helicopter.
New Line Cinema cut the U.S. release by over 23 minutes and dubbed the non-English dialogue, even though most of this is in English. There’s also a different opening title sequence and a completely new music score composed by J. Peter Robinson.
Police Story 5 was planned to be directed by Jackie’s “brother,” Sammo Hung. It was supposed to be about Chan Ka Kui and May getting married in Australia. When canceled, it became Mr. Nice Guy.
Mr. Nice Guy (1997): By 1997, New Line Cinema had already given western audiences a taste of the good stuff with Rumble in the Bronx, and they were desperate for more. Enter Mr. Nice Guy, a movie that feels less like a cohesive cinematic narrative and more like a beautifully chaotic, live-action Saturday morning cartoon. It’s got a plot thin enough to see through, but when you have the legendary Sammo Hung behind the camera directing his old China Drama Academy brother, who cares about a plot?
ReplyDeleteThe setup is pure, glorious nonsense. Jackie Chan plays… Jackie, a celebrity TV chef living in Melbourne, Australia, who whips up crepes and smiles for the cameras. Meanwhile, a tough-as-nails investigative reporter named Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) grabs video footage of a massive cocaine deal going sideways between a traditional suits-and-shades Italian mob and a colorful street gang called The Demons. What is this, Nightmare Beach? Naturally, she gets spotted, guns start blazing, and she bolts into the busy streets.
Diana literally runs into Chef Jackie while he’s carrying a load of groceries. In the chaotic scuffle that follows, which features Jackie turning a market stall into a weaponized obstacle course, Diana’s incriminating VHS tape gets mixed up with a box of Jackie’s cooking show tapes. For the next 80 minutes, everyone in the Australian underworld is hunting down our favorite culinary master, leading to apartment explosions, kidnapping, a massive game of hide-and-seek on a construction site and some of the most ridiculous heavy-machinery destruction ever seen in a movie.
Fresh off breaking his ankle on Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie is back at peak physical agility here. He isn’t playing a super-cop this time. He’s just a regular guy who happens to be able to parkour off buildings and beat up six guys with a step-stool. He’s up against Richard Norton, who plays Giancarlo. The absolute MVP of the film, Norton is a legendary Australian martial artist and a massive staple of B-movie action, having starred in cult classics like Gymkata, Equalizer 2000 and Future Hunters. He frequently crossed over into Hong Kong cinema, playing the ultimate Western villain for Jackie and Sammo (see: Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars and City Hunter). He has an over-the-top, theatrical villainy, punctuating his threats by weirdly slapping his own henchmen with their ties.
This film was originally going to be the fifth installment of Jackie’s legendary Police Story franchise and was set to be shot in Sydney. At the last minute, the script was completely overhauled into a standalone piece, the setting shifted to Melbourne, and it became Jackie’s first movie filmed entirely in English.
If you think the movie is going to end with a standard one-on-one martial arts showdown, think again. The finale features Jackie hijacking a colossal, 120-ton mining dump truck with tires that look 12 feet high. He proceeds to drive this absolute monster directly through Giancarlo’s multi-million dollar mansion, flattening a fleet of pristine luxury sports cars (including a white Lamborghini) into pancakes.
Who Am I? (1998): A group of elite, multi-national commando operatives pulls off a midnight raid in the South African jungle to kidnap three scientists who have been experimenting with a highly volatile, weaponized meteorite ore. The mission goes off without a hitch, but the higher-ups, specifically the crooked, power-hungry CIA operative Morgan (Ron Smerczak), want the prize all to themselves. Morgan sabotages the escape helicopter, causing it to crash into the wilderness.
ReplyDeleteThe lone survivor of the crash is a commando played by Jackie Chan. He wakes up with a massive case of amnesia and absolutely zero memory of who he is, where he came from or how he learned to break bones with lightning speed. He is taken in and nursed back to health by a local African tribe. When they ask him his identity, he repeatedly screams his frustration at the sky: “Who am I?!” Taking him literally, the tribe adopts him under the name “Whoami.“
After rescuing a lost rally car racing team, “Whoami” gets a ticket back to civilization, where he catches the eye of a seemingly sweet but incredibly suspicious news reporter named Christine Stark (Michelle Ferre). Unfortunately for him, his sudden media exposure alerts the corrupt masterminds behind the original double-cross. With assassins, black-ops agents and the CIA hunting him across Europe, Jackie has to piece together his fractured memory while turning everything from Dutch furniture to footwear into deadly weapons.
The movie features one of the most terrifying, legendary stunts in cinema history. Jackie slides down the steep, sloped glass exterior of the 21-story Willemswerf building in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with absolutely no safety wires. The stunt required Jackie to break his fall by tumbling over a ledge at the bottom. He reportedly took multiple takes to perfect it, severely injuring his back and ankle in the process. And in the final seven-minute brawl on top of the Rotterdam building, Jackie uses his improv style against Ron Smoorenburg’s insane flexibility and Kwan Yung’s rapid-fire close-quarters strikes.
Depending on where you watched it, you saw a different movie. The original Hong Kong cut runs over two full hours and keeps the mystery intact, letting the audience piece together the plot alongside Jackie. The North American edit trims the runtime down to around 108 minutes, heavily cutting the early scenes with the African tribe and re-editing the opening special ops sequence so the audience knows exactly what happened right from the start.
Thunderbolt (1995): Rumble in the Bronx blew the doors wide open for Jackie Chan in America. So, naturally, the very next thing the multiplexes threw at us was 1995’s Thunderbolt (released in some regions as Dead Heat). New Line Cinema wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Still, instead of another neighborhood street-brawl comedy, we got something completely different: a hyper-kinetic, multilingual, multi-million-dollar collision of Euro-sleaze villains, legal and illegal street racing, yakuza pachinko hall beatdowns and corporate Mitsubishi product placement.
ReplyDeleteBy 1995, the Hong Kong film industry was facing a serious slump, but Jackie Chan was a one-man economic stimulus package. Thunderbolt was a massive, high-budget gamble that cost nearly 30 million Hong Kong dollars, and it shows. Director Gordon Chan decided to completely eschew the traditional period-piece martial arts aesthetic in favor of a slick, modern racing blockbuster.
The movie plays like a proto-Fast & Furious, but dialed up to an eleven on the psychological instability meter. Jackie plays Foh (or Alfred if you watched the American dub), a brilliant junkyard mechanic and part-time racecar driver who helps the Hong Kong police bust illegal drag racers.
The problem? He crosses paths with Cougar Krugman (Thorsten Nickel), an international criminal driver who looks like an elite henchman from a lost Cannon Films production. Cougar isn’t just a bad guy; he’s a psychopath who drives a black Nissan Skyline GT-R R32 like an absolute demon.
What makes Thunderbolt such a fascinating watch for a B-movie maniac is its absolute refusal to settle on a single tone. It jumps from lighthearted romantic comedy to pitch-black exploitation violence at the drop of a hat.
One minute, Jackie is being cutely harassed by a reporter named Amy Yip (Anita Yuen), and the next, Cougar’s gang is staging a literal terrorist raid on a police station to spring him from jail. People are being gunned down left and right, blood is flying, and Interpol agent Steve Cannon (Michael Wong) ends up shooting Cougar’s girlfriend to death mid-escape. To get revenge, Cougar uses a giant crane to systematically smash Jackie’s junkyard into scrap metal, brutally crushes his father and kidnaps his two younger sisters.
His demand? “Come to Japan and race me.”
Because this is a Jackie Chan movie, we can’t just have racing. When Foh lands in Japan, he storms a Yakuza-owned pachinko parlor to rescue his sisters. This sequence is a masterclass in chaotic action choreography, handled by the legendary Sammo Hung and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Pachinko balls are flying everywhere, bodies are being thrown through neon glass, and Jackie is wielding chairs like a man possessed. It’s glorious.
The final third of the movie takes us to the Sendai Hi-Land Raceway in Japan. After Foh’s initial yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution III gets totaled, the daughter of a Mitsubishi executive (because why not?) just hands him two brand-new white Mitsubishi GTO race cars.
Soon, cars are flipping over, exploding, and spinning out in a high-speed parade of practical effects and miniature work. The finale features a photo finish in which both cars slide backward out of control into a gravel pit, and Jackie wins by literally shifting into reverse and flooring it across the finish line.
Of course, Cougar tries to run away after losing, leading to a violent, fiery crash where Jackie has to pull him from the burning wreckage just so the cops can lock him up.
Thunderbolt is a beautiful mess. It’s got a villain straight out of a Euro-trash actioner, incredible real-car destruction and some of the most bizarre tonal shifts you’ll ever see in a major studio release.
Dude, SIX mega reviews for Jackie Chan Day! 😳😮 You must be a superfan of Jackie's. 😄👍
DeleteI second J.M.s comments! Phenom job with the Chan movie viewage and reviews!!!!!
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