JACKIE CHAN'S FIRST STRIKE
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
**1/2 (out of four)
The commercials announce, "Jackie Chan fights for America..." Yeah, even though Jackie Chan's never been to America and this movie was made in Hong Kong. FIRST STRIKE is an accurate title for this movie, which isn't nearly as good as RUMBLE IN THE BRONX. Two more movies like this and he may indeed strike out in America. I saw this one the week after its release and there were only twenty people in the theater. METRO, which opened the same day as FIRST STRIKE, was packed. Moviegoers in this hemisphere apparently prefer people who speak their language.
Jackie Chan movies are like porno movies. There's one attraction and everyone knows what it is, but you have to sit through a bunch of poorly-written dialogue and bad acting to get to the good stuff. It's a good thing Chan is a master at what he does. The action sequences in his movies are always amazing, more so because all the stunts are real -- no blue screens and no stuntmen. The actors are the stuntmen, and they do a much better job with the stunts than the acting.
The plot this time is a continuation of the POLICE STORY series (which previously brought us the English-dubbed SUPERCOP), with Chan working for the Hong Kong government to follow a woman to the Ukraine. Her brother has a nuclear device and everyone wants it, including the new KGB, not nearly as cagey as before. Midway through the movie, Chan's own organization turns on him and he has no one to turn to when framed for the murder.
The plot is always convoluted in these movies, and always a mere accessory to set up the action, so forgive me if I screwed up the details. All you need to know is Chan's the good guy and everyone he fights with is the bad guy. As always, there's a beautiful Asian woman to protect, only this time the woman doesn't get into the act by doing any of the action herself. As an employee of UnderWater World (the sister theme park of Under Dances With Wolves), she does provide the setting for the movie's climactic fight sequence.
There are four main action sequences in the movie. The first comes in the Ukraine with a combination snowmobile / snowboard chase that ends with Chan falling from a helicopter into an icy river. Next is the Australia scene in which Chan is on vacation and two burly men visit his hotel room, followed shortly by Chan fending off a school of black belts with a table and a step ladder (the best scene in the movie) and the climax at UnderWater World, involving sharks, stingrays and a bunch of bad guys in wetsuits.
It's like a real-life James Bond movie because Chan and everyone else is doing everything onscreen with no special effects. Every Jackie Chan action sequence is eye-popping; it's the rest of the movie that seems unbearable. What the world needs is an all-action Chan movie with no plot -- a greatest hits package, maybe. I mean, my God, the man's starred in at least twenty movies. That would improve his standing with American audiences, because we all know Chan could beat up Arnold, Stallone, Van Damme and the rest using only two fingers on his left hand.
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