SHANGHAI NOON (2000)
Grade: C+
Director: Tom Dey
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Mallar
Starring: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Lui, Brandon Merrill, Xander Berkely, Roger Yuan, Rafael Baaz, Ron Guang Yu, Russel Badger
In SHANGHAI NOON Jackie Chan, once again, is given the opportunity to beat villains with various bits of scenery while Owen Wilson is given his first chance to truly shine in a major film. By now Chan has become something of a cultural icon, and unlike many flash in the pan symbols (Mr. T, The Brat Pack, The Backstreet Boys…well, one can hope, can't he?) he has endured. His Bruce Lee by way of Buster Keaton schtick not only hasn't atrophied, it's gaining popularity with each new AMERICAN film he puts out. And yet the guy can still pull the proper punches and perform more than the necessary stunts with a crazed kamikaze glee that he's retained since his start in 70's Hong Kong pics. Less established is Wilson, who by now is a veteran of third banana comic relief roles in noisy, empty-headed blockbusters like ARMAGEDDON (where he was one of the first to die though, because of Michael Bay's severely haphazard direction, I hadn't noticed that he had died until the credit crawl when I was able to decipher that the fellow was MIA for half the picture hence he must have been killed, unless Bay simply lost track of him) and ANACONDA (a film in which he became snake chow within the first thirty minutes…not as bad a fate as poor Eric Stoltz who had to spend that film's entire duration in a coma…sadly his career has yet to come out of one), but began his career co-writing idiosyncratic gems like BOTTLE ROCKET (in which he also starred) and RUSHMORE with college buddy Wes Anderson. Here he could be playing an ancient ancestor of his BOTTLE ROCKET character, a wannabe bad ass with shades of ironical California surfer dude.
When we're first introduced to Wilson his character is stalling in the midst of a train stick up he helped orchestrate, in order to flirt with a hot chick; "Is this your first robbery," he coos. With his sun-bleached hair and oddball, corn-fed Zen cadence Wilson gives off a self effacing Harrison Ford vibe…it's like he's winking at the audience as if to say "not to worry, when I'm on screen we're gonna have fun". And we do. Unfortunately the film's talented duo is made to twaddle about in a threadbare Saturday Morning Cartoon plot with a script that mistakes ingenuous puns for wit.
Placing these wildly disparate performers together in a Western buddy flick is surely inspired (certainly more inspired than the pairing of Wilson's much less charismatic brother, Luke, with Big Momma himself, Martin Lawrence in BLUE STREAK). Yet they never come together to ignite the chemistry of Gibson and Glover in LETHAL WEAPON or even Stiller and Norton in KEEPING THE FAITH. With the exception of one very amusing bit (a Chinese drinking game that the two play while sharing a bubble bath; a scene that belongs in a much funnier movie), they seem too enamored of their own considerable talents to ever create any palpable comic tension.
Stars as energetic as these can certainly make bad movies more tolerable (depending on how much screen time is allotted to their improvisations… sometimes this can turn out badly as well…just check out MYSTERY MEN if you doubt me), but they can rarely turn them into bonafide good movies. It has happened but such an occurrence is as rare as Steak Tar Tar. The original BEVERLY HILLS COP was a formula thriller given hints of social satire solely because of Eddie Murphy's inspired clowning, but what of THE GOLDEN CHILD or BEST DEFENSE, turgid feature length skits that sunk despite Murphy's charisma. His presence may have made those films less torturous, but it also served to italicize how good those flicks could have been had the material been up to par. As a result, most films like these feel bizarrely uneven. Example: Chris Tucker's fast paced performance in the very slow paced MONEY TALKS.
SHANGHAI NOON surely would have been much worse without Chan and Wilson, both of whom seem to be improvising through much of the been there\done that story line which, here, is a good thing. Whenever the film focuses on Chan and Wilson playing off their surroundings, and sometimes each other, it works. But it all comes back to the plot and the boring paces each character is put through. For every inspired bit we get three uninspired formula moments designed to push the creaky plot forward: the initial dislike between characters who will inevitably love each other in a very heterosexual way of course, the bonding, the mistrust, and so on.
It's not a bad idea to put Chan in a Western and have whites mistake him for an Indian (or on one occasion, a Jew,) but the possibilities of an Asian in the Old West are never explored other than at a juvenile pun level (which I suppose is fine if you happen to be ten years old). In the film, Chan plays a Chinese imperial guard who travels to America with fellow guards (all quickly dispatched) in order to rescue Princess Pei-Pei (see what I mean?). He stumbles across Roy O' Bannon (Owen Wilson), a good-natured thief in the middle of performing a train robbery that goes awry when Roy's buddies turn against him. Chan and O' Bannon don't like each other but since fate keeps tossing them together, they ultimately choose to partner up and save the princess. Many pee-pee jokes ensue.
The majority of Jackie Chan's foreign imports (most of his films) may be lacking in the script area, but they do however provide some breathtaking action sequences. So far, Chan's American endeavors have not. In RUSH HOUR, another dopey buddy movie nearly saved by the pairing of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, director Brett Ratner hardly used Chan's physical strengths at all, and when he did, the action was shot lethargically; Chan was adequate but he was essentially asked to perform the same kind of stunts Steven Seagal used to do back in the days when he was able to lift his leg. Why hire Chan if you're gonna treat like Van Damme or some other action star who can't really fight? Dey makes better use of him, though he doesn't seem to know how to film him. Dey keeps his camera up close on Chan while the actor performs his gonzo stunts, making it more difficult to see exactly what the hell he's doing. In Chan's Hong Kong films the directors knew to pull back and let Chan do his thing. In America, this terrific performer has yet to be fully taken advantage of.
Note: I present to all those loyal readers out there (yes, all three of you) an exclusive thought that came to fruition within my cluttered noggin approximately seven minutes following the writing of this review: As I scanned through my nitpicky write up I realized that maybe I've been a wee bit harsh on what is basically a piece of cornball escapism that I probably would have cherished in my pre-teen years. It may be unfortunate that since then I have become much more jaded and harder to please. Which is to say if you are a child (or one at heart, to borrow the cliché…trust me I'm returning it right this second) you'll most likely really dig this hodgepodge of corny sh…jeez there I go again. But if you happen to be an elitist film snob like myself, the kind who prefers THE FRENCH CONNECTION to LETHAL WEAPON 2, well, than you know the drill.
http://www.geocities.com/incongruity98 Reeling (Ron Small
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