Shanghai Noon Review by Tim Wick
Shanghai Noon is a popcorn film in the finest tradition of popcorn films.
I'm not saying it's great filmmaking, but I am saying that it does exactly
what it tries to do - keep you distracted from the outside world for a couple
of hours.
The movie is filled with inconsistencies and plot holes, but you just don't
really care because you are too caught up in the fight scenes and verbal
banter to worry.
This is a North American Jackie Chan film (for those of you who did not know
this was a Jackie Chan film, now you know). That means that Jackie does his
own fighting, but he doesn't do his own stunts. To fans of Chan, this is
probably a bit of a let down. I have to admit it was strange to watch a
stunt that required a cut becase it wasn't Jackie doing it. I would guess
that fans of his Hong Kong films would be bitterly disappointed with this one
as a result.
I, however, have only seen a few of his Hong Kong films. I thought they were
fun. This film is fun as well, so I guess I don't mind. Frankly, my
enjoyment of his Hong Kong films was not tied up in his nearly inhuman stunt
work, but in his great fight scenes. While Shanghai Noon doesn't have as
many fight scenes as one might expect, it had enough to keep me entertained.
For a North American Chan film to work, however, you need a good sidekick who
can speak English. Fact is that Chan doesn't have the best acting ability in
English and you need someone who can talk when Chan isn't fighting. In Rush
Hour, that person was Chris Tucker. Owen Wilson fills that role in Shanghai
Noon and he does it better.
(Here come a couple spoilers)
Wilson has a real gift for witty dialogue and he needs it becase Chan isn't
good for much more than being a straight man most of the time. My favorite
thing about Wilson's Roy O'Bannen was that he couldn't shoot worth a damn.
How many Westerns have we seen where our heroes are the best shots in
existence? This film give us the opposite. We want our heroes to win, but
hope to god they never have to use a gun to do it.
Lucy Liu is probably going to take some flack for being little more than
pretty set dressing, but the fact is that she actually does a little more
than that. Her character actually grows from a spoiled princess to something
more, even if she spends much of the climactic battle screaming and running
away.
The reason this film isn't great is not because it wasn't fun, but because of
the inconsistencies within it. When Chan was fighting and Wilson was
talking, I loved it. When Roger Yuan's villain was sneering, I lost interest
because I never really knew what he was all about.
In a film that did a good job developing Chan, Wilson and Liu's characters, I
hoped for a bit more character development from the villain. Instead he was
a sadistic ex-imperial guard who enslaved his own people for reasons that
were never made clear. I expected such poor character develpment from
Mission: Impossible 2, but this film made
me hope for better.
Other inconsistencies bugged me a little. Chan is married to an Indian woman
who consistently shows up to save the day. Each time we are supposed to be
surprised it's her, but after the first time, we know who the saviour is.
Why waste time trying to make it mysterious?
In the final battle, Liu's character spends a lot of time running and
screaming, but once she has a sprained ankle, she learns how to fight all of
a sudden. One of Wilson's gang kills Chan's uncle early in the film and
there is never any pay off. All of these things could have been caught with
a minor re-write, so they are kind of annoying.
But they don't really make the film less enjoyable. This is another film
that cries out for a half beaker so I could give it three and a half. I
guess that I'll just have to call it a four.
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