| Shanghai Noon |
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| Rating: Fair Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures Rating: PG-13 Genre: Action/Adventure Release Date: May 27, 2000 Running Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes Genre: Comedy/Adventure Director: Tom Dey Cast: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Lui, Roger Yuan, Walter Goggins |
| Plot: Jackie Chan plays an emperial guard named John Wen, (which is supposed to be a reference of course to John Wayne) who partners up with a mediocre thief (Owen Wilson), to save a princess (Lucy Lui) who has been kidnapped by a traitor. The two of them manage to be arrested, after becoming drunk, and have about a half dozen showdowns which their respected enemies. The princess decides she wants more of her life than just to be a fancy pampered girl in being taken to America, which complicates things. Plus, Jackie Chan has a Native American wife that bails him out often. |
| Critique: Shanghai Noon starts off a funny, and entertaining. Although it copied a few scenes from a certain famous western (think Paul Newman, and Robert Redford, 1969), I got over it. It seemed like it was going to be worth my time. I was sorely mistaken. As it moved along it slowly turned into your average mediocre dumb action film. The jokes which started pretty well, got worse and then disappeared. The last half an hour the film turns into garbage, and the last 15 minutes it dissolves into corny, melodramatic sap. Owen Wilson really helped make this film better than it could have been, he lightened it, gave it a likable turn. Jackie Chan did not really seem to care about what was going on, he really didn't have his heart in it. The supporting characters in general were pretty stale, they needed some batteries I think. The direction wasn't terrible, but I guess Shanghai Noon didn't demand incredible direction. If you see the first hour of this film you should laugh, but you might try turning it off after that because it turns into a shallow cliched star vehicle for Mr. Chan. The final few minutes in fact will extrapolate on that for me, you'll watch in horror as every single string of the film turns into the happiest, most melodramatic piece of idiocy I had seen in a long time. That's about all I have to say on this film, and in conclusion I really don't recommend it, but if you're a Jackie Chan fan, well you could try I guess. review by supernothingman for questions, comments, email me at [email protected], thanks! |
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| picture above from www.video.go.com/shanghainoon/ |