6/10
Funny and spectacular Jackie Chan movie in his first American super hit with highlights provided by a hovercraft
7 April 2013
Amusing and entertaining Chan film in which he demonstrates his sensational skills as a great action man . It deals with a young man named Keong (Jackie Chan) visiting and helping his uncle in New York City finds himself forced to fight a street gang and the mob with his martial art abilities . His uncle has a local Chinese supermarket, which he owns and is in the process of selling to Elaine (Anita Mui). Later on , Keong befriends a neighbor kid and his sister (Francois Yip) and beats up some neighborhood thugs .

Hong Kong/US/Canada action comedy full of over-the-top struggles , excitement , thrills , ingenious stunts , slapstick , lots of brawls but with abundant humor and tongue-in-cheek . This fun movie is plenty of intrigue , unstopped action , and overwhelming stunt-work with breathtaking ending images including a hovercraft . Jackie Chan is top notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous villains and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed at the final credits . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual ; the picture is better constructed than Chan's predecessors films . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights movie include spectacular fights , including bounds and leaps , impressive and interminable struggles , an impressive final struggle between Jackie Chan and enemies . The warehouse fight scene took twenty days to film, with Chan having to teach the local stunt players to fight "Hong Kong style". In addition other fine action sequences in overwhelming and extraordinary style . The script called for a leap from the top of a parking lot to a fire escape on the floor below on the building across the street , as is his custom, director Stanley Tong attempted the stunt before asking any actors to do so. He tried it with the help of a cable harness, but quickly decided it would be safer without the harness. The landing point was not visible from the point where the jump began, so tape was placed on the take-off point as a guide ,the jump was completed perfectly by 'Chan, Jackie' on the first attempt, doing his own stunts as is his custom . The jump was captured by four cameras.

This is an acceptable action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor as well as previous entries . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actresses as Maggie Chung and Michelle Yeoh . In this outing Jackie teams up to gorgeous Francoise Yip (who broke her leg while filming the scene where she rides a motorbike across the tops of parked cars , she insisted on returning to the set after her leg was plastered at hospital) and prestigious Chinese actress Anita Mui , a fine action star in their own right but sadly she early died by cancer . Both of them starred together several films such as ¨Mr Canton and Lady Rose¨ and ¨Legend of the drunken master¨ . Filming in Vancouver, Canada on October 6th, 1994, Chan broke his right ankle while attempting the scene where he jumps onto the hovercraft. Despite the injury, he was present at the premiere of ¨The legend of the drunken fighter¨ at the Vancouver International Film Festival that night. Later in the production, Tong sprained his ankle, completing the film on crutches . Two stunt women also broke their legs during the filming of the motorcycle chase.

The picture achieved big success in China , USA and all around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career . Chan usually pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . He went on playing ¨Cannoball¨ , ¨The protector¨ and "Rumble in the Bronx", until getting all American success with ¨Shangai Knights¨ , ¨The tuxedo¨ , ¨Around the world in 80 days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his biggest hits were ¨The Police story¨ series that won the Golden Horse Award, a Chinese version of the Oscar , the first was titled ¨Police story (1985)¨ directed by the same Chan , it was a perfect action film for enthusiastic of the genre ; the following was ¨Police story 2 (1988)¨ also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches . It's followed by ¨Supercop¨ or ¨Police story 3¨ and finally , ¨Police story IV : Crime story¨ . The picture is well produced by the great Asian producer Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest production and compellingly directed by Stanley Tong and helped by Jackie Chan . Rating : Acceptable and passable , the picture has its sensational moments here and there , but also with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie stunningly accompanied by Anita Mui and Francois Yip . It's a perfect action film for enthusiasts of the genre and especially for Jackie fans .
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