by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
1999 is already turning into the Year of the Bard. Shakespeare in Love won the Oscar, A Midsummer Nights Dream is coming to theaters soon, a Taming of the Shrew update is already there. So I suppose it shouldn't come as a complete surprise to anyone that Jackie Chan has remade The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Well, perhaps that's a bit of a stretch, but the story of twins separated at birth that fuels Twin Dragons is at least as old as Shakespeare's tale. Jackie Chan steps out of his usual Hong Kong cop screen persona to play mismatched twins -- one a successful American pianist and orchestra conductor, the other a Hong Kong mechanic with ambitions to drive race cars. They cross paths in Hong Kong and, predictably, are swiftly mistaken for each other. The mechanic gets crossways with one of the Hong Kong street gangs, who are generous enough to provide any number of henchmen so that our heroes can beat the stuffing out ot them.
Up to now, the Jackie Chan movies (that have been released in the US) have always worked because they've been balanced in two important ways. First, there's been a balance between Chan's formidable rock-'em sock-'em skills and his equally formidable skills as a physical comic. The fun thing about Jackie Chan movies is not that he beats up on the bad guys, but how he beats up the bad guys -- with impeccable comic timing, just as though he were in a Roadrunner cartoon. Secondly, there's always been a balance between the technical deficiencies of Jackie Chan movies -- the poor dubbing, the silly scripts, the overall averageness of the supporting cast -- and the excellence of the stuntwork and the imaginativeness of the One Big Stunt that redeems the movie's flaws.
It's a tough balancing act for Chan, but he's always pulled it off up until now. The few movies that have gotten theatrical release in the States have all been a hoot to watch. Remember the scene where Jackie uses that samurai sword to stop that out-of-control hovercraft in Rumble in the Bronx? Or the giant Kevlar hamster ball in Operation Condor? Or the scene where he wrecks that Pepsi truck in Mr. Nice Guy? (Probably the greatest product-placement scene ever, next to the one in Wayne's World.) But in Twin Dragons...
it...
just...
doesn't...
work.
There. I said it. I didn't want to say it, believe me. I love Jackie Chan movies. I've been a consistent defender of his work against those who would dismiss his film career. Why, I even kept my mouth shut after seeing Rush Hour because I didn't want to rain on Jackie's parade. But even in the most generous light possible, Twin Dragons isn't good.
Shakespeare's work aside, there just isn't a lot that can be done with the concept of mismatched twins. The best Twin Dragons can do is use the wrinkle that one twin is affected by the muscle movements of the other. We see the mechanic twin's hand twitching when the pianist twin plays, and we see the pianist twin thrash around violently while the mechanic twin is fighting. I grinned a little at that, I'll admit, but the gag just gets worked to death. So is the gag where people faint when one twin, then the other walks by. Not to mention that the twins both have girlfriends, and they keep crossing paths as well.
With all the really lame comedy present in the movie, you would hope that the fight scenes and the stunt scenes would counterbalance things enough to make Twin Dragons entertaining. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen. The fight scenes aren't all that bad, really, and the final fight scene in an auto factory is probably worth a ticket if you have a dollar movie theater handy. But the One Big Stunt that characterizes Chan movies is absent. For whatever reason -- low budget, or that Chan's body isn't quite so resilient anymore -- there isn't the one grand, gooey, destructive stunt scene that's the signature of Jackie's work.
Twin Dragons is a disappointment, but it's not a bad movie. Instead, it's a reminder of just how good the other Jackie Chan movies are. They've all had to keep their balance in an unforgiving critical climate. Twin Dragons loses its balance, true, but it's a narrow high wire at best with heavy winds.
-- Curtis D. Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
"First, you show up. Then you see what happens."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
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