Dragon Forever (1988) – DVD

April 15, 2001Posted in1980s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Romance

Dragons Forever
飛龍猛將
Fei lung mang jeung
***/**** Image C Sound A –
starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen Kwai
screenplay by Szeto Cheuk Hon
directed by Sammo Hung & Corey Yuen

by Bill Chambers To my mind, the formation of “the three kung-fu-teers”–Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and Yuen Biao–was more of a shock than their eventual break-up. The latter two are portrayed as the former’s punching bags in Chan’s autobiography, I Am Jackie Chan, whose early chapters recount the Dickensian power structure at the China Drama Academy, known colloquially as the Peking Opera School. The school’s unforgiving master sanctioned his older pupils (collectively, “Big Brothers”) to administer swift, cruel punishments to the younger students; the wrath of Hung, the biggest Brother of them all (in body mass as well as reputation), seemed measureless and reserved explicitly for Chan and Biao. At least in Jackie’s memory.

Twin Dragons (1992) – DVD

January 22, 2001Posted in1990s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts

**½/**** Image C Sound B+ Extras D
starring Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Nina Li, Teddy Robin
screenplay by Barry Wong and Tsui Hark and Cheung Tung Jo and Wong Yik
directed by Tsui Hark

by Bill Chambers The day Steven Seagal inflicts two performances on us within the same film I’ll hang up my film critic’s apron and call it a life. Soap opera actors and fighting stars, you see, are not so much nonimmune as prone to landing the dual role of identical twins, and one muumuu-wearin’ aikido “master” is already too much to bear. But a couple of Jackie Chans, that I can and did handle: Chan’s 1992 action-comedy (emphasis on comedy) Twin Dragons isn’t as seedy as the similarly plotted Van Damme vehicle Double Impact. With action auteurs Tsui Hark and, purportedly, Ringo Lam at its helm, though, and choreographer Yuen Wo Ping (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) behind the stuntwork, one has every reason to expect more combat and spectacle than Twin Dragons actually delivers.

The Matrix (1999)

April 3, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Australia, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Martial Arts, Sci-Fi, Theatrical

***/****
starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving
written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski (née The Wachowski Brothers)

by Vincent Suarez There's an early moment in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves's character retrieves contraband from a hollowed-out copy of one of the canonical texts of Postmodernism, Simulacra and Simulation, in which Jean Baudrillard suggests that modern reality is little more than a series of items and experiences replicating all that has come before; that ours is a reality comprising resemblances. It's details like these which elevate The Matrix above the vast majority of recent science-fiction films. Yet, like the strain of contemporary philosophy informing it, The Matrix is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, holes you could drive a truck through… But it's a scenic drive.

Jackie Chan’s First Strike (1996) + Rush Hour (1998) [New Line Platinum Series] – DVDs

March 1, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Thriller

First Strike
**½/**** Image B Sound A-
starring Jackie Chan, Chen Chun Wu, Jackson Lou
screenplay by Stanley Tong, Nick Tramontane, Greg Mellott, and Elliot Tong
directed by Stanley Tong

RUSH HOUR
*½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Tom Wilkinson, Elizabeth Peña
screenplay by Jim Kouf and Ross LaManna
directed by Brett Ratner

by Bill Chambers Early on in Rush Hour, the smash-hit buddy-cop movie from last fall, there’s a shot of Jackie Chan clinging tenaciously to a Hollywood street sign as he dangles several feet above the L.A. traffic. It’s a powerful metaphor for Chan’s career: Rush Hour represents his last-ditch effort to become a Stateside action star after finally finding a measure of Hollywood success with the popularity of HK imports like Rumble in the Bronx and Supercop. (Indeed, Chan includes said image in the colour stills portion of his autobiography I Am Jackie Chan, annotated by this caption: “On the set of Rush Hour–hanging on to another chance at Hollywood success.”) This final gamble, after striking out in the early-’80s with Cannonball Run II and The Big Brawl, his English-language debut, paid off handsomely. But why?

Rumble in the Bronx (1996) + Mr. Nice Guy (1998) – DVDs

January 25, 1999Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Hong Kong, Jackie Chan, Martial Arts, Thriller

RUMBLE IN THE BRONX
***/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Francoise Yip, Bill Tung
screenplay by Edward Tang and Fibe Ma
directed by Stanley Tong

MR. NICE GUY
**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Jackie Chan, Richard Norton, Miki Lee, Karen McLymont
screenplay by Fibe Ma and Edward Tang
directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo

by Bill Chambers Prior to his breakout stateside hit Rush Hour, Chinese box-office sensation Jackie Chan's Hollywood forays were the terrifically unsuccessful films The Cannonball Run I & II and The Big Brawl (which planted Jackie in Prohibition-era Chicago!). When American studios–namely, "mini-majors" New Line and Miramax–elected to give him a second chance, not by casting him in their movies but by importing, dubbing, and retitling his more recent Hong Kong hits and putting the full force of their niche-adept marketing machines behind them, the results were much different: Rumble in the Bronx made a small mint for New Line, which almost immediately signed him up for Rush Hour (review forthcoming), last year's sleeper hit. (Sadly, Chan's masterpiece, Drunken Master II, has yet to be distributed in North America by a North American company. Perhaps it's too, well, drunken.)