Word: chan
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...Chan, too, doesn't want to stop. He has been a Hong Kong icon for ages?his breakthrough film, Snake in Eagle's Shadow, opened 25 years ago next month?but he became a Hollywood star only in 1998. And dammit, he's determined to enjoy the ride, however many bumps he may take...
...latest entry, Shanghai Knights, doesn't mess with the Jackie Chan Hollywood formula. It teams him with a goofy American?Owen Wilson here, Chris Tucker in Rush Hour?who sasses his way into predicaments that Chan must get him out of. Knights, like its predecessor Shanghai Noon, is a western, the U.S. equivalent of the Qing dynasty martial-arts films that made Chan famous back home. Wilson's Roy O'Bannion is the self-legendizing cowboy, and Chan's Chon Wang (sounds like John Wayne) is essentially Roy's stern Indian sidekick. That's apt, since, when...
...Conan Doyle to Queen Victoria herself. The stars have an easy rapport, and share it graciously with Singapore TV-diva Fann Wong, who's quite appealing as Chon's sister. It's all disposable, second-rate fun. But at least director David Dobkin had the bright idea to let Chan, for the first time in a U.S. film, supervise the action scenes. Knights atones for Chan's dismal The Tuxedo, which straitjacketed his physical brio in a computerized suit...
...Admirers of his early Hong Kong films will recognize several of Chan's self-homages. His versatility with an umbrella echoes the great battle on a bus in Police Story. The juggling act Chon forces two thugs to perform with several of their boss' expensive vases is reminiscent of Chan's balancing acts in Drunken Master, and a teeming, imaginatively staged free-for-all in an outdoor market recalls Drunken Master II. At the end, when our heroes dangle from Big Ben's giant minute hand, Chan connoisseurs will whisper, "Ah yes. Project...
...Does the reprising of his greatest hits mean Chan has run out of ideas? No: only that he takes as much pleasure as his fans do in playing the oldies, and in proving that, as he nears 50, Chan can still display the grace and strength of his younger self. With a little help from the occasional stunt double...