Movie Review: Chinese Zodiac (2012)

In this sequel (sorta?) to the Armour of God series (1986 and 1991), Jackie Chan plays a treasure hunter, and together with his merry band of thieves he goes about swindling ancient Chinese statues that represent the 12 signs of the zodiac. Though Chan is initially sponsored by a multinational with an interest in selling the statues to private collectors, he becomes convinced that his true mission is to return the statues to China. Some other jerks are after the statues, and eventually (eventually...) they come into conflict. Now, there's two versions of the film out there: one is the original Chinese version released in 2012, and the other is an edited version released this year by Universal. Unfortunately, both are boring films.

I picked up the original, unedited version of Chinese Zodiac at my local Chinatown market a few years ago. I was not impressed by the film at all. It's 20-30 minutes of decent material stretched to two hours. Clearly, Chan is no longer capable of the same virtuoso fights he was capable of even 10 years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. It's the law of the universe, this growing old business, but it's still disappointing. For about 20 minutes near the end of the film, though, Chan seems young again. He seems inspired. There's some decent choreography in a portrait studio and a lounge area, but the rest of the film is boring at best, and childish at worst. If this is Chan's last true action film, it's a depressing end to his career.

The edited American DVD release from this year is better simply because it's shorter. This version removes about 20 minutes of the meandering plot, and throws in some horrible (even by the standards of kung fu cinema) English dubbing, but it's not enough. Nonetheless, the edited version is your best option. There's even a career retrospective in the form of a highlight package that plays over the end credits. All it does is remind you of his older and much better Chan films.

Finest Fights: Gorgeous (1999)

Life has been busy for you pals at Code Redd Net. We apologize for our inattention and promise to be more prolific once the academic busywork winds down. In the meantime, please enjoy this fantastic fight scene from Jackie Chan's Gorgeous. It may not be our favorite Chan film, but this is certainly one of his best scenes.

Finest Fights: CZ12 (2012)

For over two years, Code Redd Net's Finest Fights series has brought you the very best of action cinema available on the web. For real, I mean it, we started this business over two years ago. Finest Fights rolls on this week with a selection from Jackie Chan's latest, and potentially his last, action film.

In limited release today is Jackie Chan's CZ12, aka Chinese Zodiac. Though I haven't seen the version being released to North America, I purchased a copy of the film on DVD from my local Chinatown market. It's not very good. There's about 20 minutes of quality material near the end of the film, but the rest of it is decidedly mediocre. It's not Tuxedo bad, but it's not far off from it either, and at least the Tuxedo was short. CZ12 is overlong, meandering, and childish. This is by far the best scene in the entire film, but it's not nearly enough to save the rest of the film. But I suppose that's what Finest Fights is for: bringing to you the best in action cinema, condensed and filtered for optimum enjoyment. Look for a full review of CZ12 soon.

Jackie Chan in... CZ12 (2012)

Here's the North American release trailer for Jackie Chan's latest film, CZ12 aka Chinese Zodiac. Might be better than The Tuxedo. We'll see.

Classic Chan: The Accidental Spy (2001)

Classic Chan concludes today on a bit of a downbeat, as The Accidental Spy is not one of Chan's best. Regardless, it's been a real pleasure bringing you this series on one of our favorite performers. Chicken Man and I have enjoyed this chance to revisit some of the key films in our history, films that somehow escaped our critical eye. Stick around for more Chan coverage coming your way on Code Redd Net.

Even when Jackie Chan is at his most mediocre, he still brings the goods. To wit: though The Accidental Spy is pretty pedestrian stuff, there's an excellently choreographed fight in a Turkish* bath that saves the film from totally descending into Tuxedo territory. But first, the evergreen wacky plot: Jackie is an exercise equipment salesman who foils a robbery. Some strange old man then approaches Jackie about another strange old man, this one wealthy and on his deathbed. He sends Jackie off on a globetrotting quest for clues of some sort or another, all the while unknowingly working for a shadow American intelligence operation. By even the loosest narrative standards of the genre, The Accidental Spy makes no sense. Why Jackie goes to certain places, why certain clues are deemed important, and why certain characters show up at certain times and do certain things, barely any of it is adequately explained. I suppose it's a bit of a throwback to the oddball political affiliations Jackie dealt with in First Strike, but for all the James Bond-lite intrigue and exoticism of locales, it doesn't add up to anything substantial, let alone anything really comprehensible. Still, though, there's nothing like Chan acrobatics to distract you from the confusing story. The aforementioned Turkish bath bash is a true highlight, as Jackie not only defends himself from his assailants, but also defends the dignity of his naked body from exposure. It's a subtle technique of layering the choreography that Jackie is particularly adept at executing. He doesn't simply fight an opponent or a mob of opponents: often, he also has to contend with the elements, with the environment, with physical restraints (such as handcuffs or that odd rope apparatus in Mr. Nice Guy), with notions of decorum and cultural heritage (recall the complicated vase choreography in Shanghai Knights), and so on. Unfortunately, the dynamism of the Turkish scene isn't present in all the fights, as some of them are fairly bland and lack that trademark Chan structuring. If it's your kind of thing, there's plenty of vehicular stuntwork going on here, especially the impressive tanker sequence that concludes the film. Nevertheless, The Accidental Spy should be ranked fairly low in Chan's oeuvre. I recommend checking it out for the Turkish bath fight scene, but you can snooze through the rest and not miss anything important.

*"Oi, did someone say Turkish? One of me many names it is."

Classic Chan: Gorgeous (1999)

Welcome back Chanphiles for another installment of Classic Chan. This time we have Thrasher's review of the supremely weird Gorgeous, an often baffling film, but not one without some show-stealing numbers that make it worthwhile. Better get ready for next time, as Chicken Man will take you all back to the year 2000 with a review of the always enjoyable Shanghai Noon.

Gorgeous is a silly film, and one that's all over the map; it moves from sappy sub-Disney Channel romance to mature martial arts exhibition like that. It's like zapping through your cable channels only to find Jackie Chan featured on every network, even the weird ones you never watch. Consequently, of all the films we've covered thus far in the Classic Chan series, this one is the hardest to pin down, to fit within the general trajectory of his career. Part of that stems from the odd premise: Jackie Chan is C. N. Chan, a billionaire trash tycoon and indolent playboy content to own expensive things and be cool. It's only when Chan's business rival hires a professional martial artist to humiliate him that things get interesting. The rest of the film follows the childish infatuations of Bu, a little Lolita played by Shu Qi, who heads to Hong Kong to find the author of a weepy love letter, and from there she becomes entangled in Chan's love life. Sad to say, but the scenes not involving Chan (and there are a good many of them) can be quite boring for all their saccharine flavor. At times it can be difficult to make sense of the extraordinarily cheesy music as well as the odd dubbing, but there are times when Gorgeous can be genuinely charming (I particularly like the banter between the anonymous thugs Chan dispatches, characters we do not typically think of as having other lives, let alone hot dates to pick up). Like most Chan outings, however, any deficiency in plotting is more than made up for with a few fights. Gorgeous is a bit different in this regard, as Chan's character has no urgent need that makes him fight. He's not an ordinary guy made to do extraordinary things here, he's not a cop out to clear his name or a chef seeking to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. Instead, he's a rich Wall Street trader who fights because he wants to, not because he has to, and that subtle difference gives the fights of Gorgeous a unique register. As such, the contests between Chan and the professional fighter have an official quality to them at odds with the usually desperate situations Chan accidentally walks into. It's a subtle move that lends a high degree of novelty to the brawls, which are right up there with his best choreography. Unfortunately, there's too few of them to make Gorgeous a truly noteworthy Chan film. As it stands, Gorgeous is an strange entry that our fellow Chanphiles will undoubtedly appreciate, but it's one that ultimately lacks enough of the good stuff.

Classic Chan: Rumble in the Bronx (1996)

Classic Chan rolls on with Rumble in the Bronx/Vancouver, also known as Rumble in Vancouver or Rumble in the Vancouver Bronx around these parts. Take your pick; Thrasher thinks it's a fine action film any way you slice it. Next time around Chicken Man takes up Jackie Chan's First Strike, so get your ladders ready now.

As Chicken Man hinted at in the introduction to his review of the always super Supercop, we affectionately refer to this film as Rumble in Vancouver primarily because of the charmingly discordant NYC skyline:

The awe-inspiring and majestic beauty of the Bronx Mountains.

There's plenty of other equally wacky aberrations spread throughout Rumble in the Bronx, including our favorite high-strung, cushion-loving Sega Game Gear enthusiast, Danny, and his unstoppable, perpetually cheerful magic-out-of-mire disposition:

He's got no game, but at least he saves a lot of money on batteries.
"It's powered by my imagination!" says the stupid, positive child.

These "goofs", to speak like IMDb, become something more to us Chanphiles. They become markers of our fascination with his cinematic exploits, the attention to (and eventually love for) these mistakes an unmistakable result of repeated viewings.

Like many others new to Chan, Rumble was one of our key introductory texts. It has since become one of the yardsticks used to judge the success/failure of subsequent films. It's not his best film, not even close, really, but it's everything you could possibly want or expect from a film of this kind. Jackie plays Keung, visiting the Bronx nee Vancouver to help his Uncle Bill sell a supermarket. Keung hangs around to help out its new owner, Elaine, while Uncle Bill goes off on his honeymoon. Soon enough, Keung runs afoul with a local gang and from then on it's on. The admittedly poor dubbing adds another layer of humor to the film, and at least Jackie dubs himself rather than letting some other doofus do it. Sappy as the story may be, it takes us where we need to go, often hilarious so: supposedly hardcore gangsters turn over a new leaf following a lukewarm moral browbeating from Jackie; yokels easily fall for the old "I'm with the FBI because I'm wearing a nicely-tailored suit and have the build of an ex-pro wrestler" bit; and wholesale destruction of both public and private property in the name of justice is, well, justifiable (aesthetically if nothing else). Yet, as always, it's the stunts that matter most. Rumble scores fairly high in this regard, though few stand out as especially noteworthy. I suppose the pool-pinball fight would make a career highlight package, but everything else is merely serviceable, particularly in comparison with the showstealing numbers that make First Strike and Who Am I? truly memorable. That said, there's nothing at all wrong with Rumble. In fact, it has a rightful spot among his most significant, solid, and truly enjoyable films.

Classic Chan: Digging Around in the Archives

Seems a bit impractical, Jackie, but impressive nonetheless.

If you haven't had a look yet at our ongoing Classic Chan review series, we implore you to do so by checking out our reviews of Police Story and Police Story 2. Keep an eye out for more reviews in the coming weeks. In the meantime, though, you should know that there's a wealth of Jackie Chan content already awaiting you on Code Redd Net. Here's what you may be missing:

Reviews:

Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster
The Forbidden Kingdom
The Medallion
Rush Hour
Rush Hour 2
Rush Hour 3
Shanghai Knights
The Tuxedo
Twin Dragons

Code Redd Net Awards:

Best Jackie Chan Movie
Finest Fight

From our Finest Fights series (featuring spectacular embedded videos!):

Police Story
Jackie Chan's Thunderball
Jackie Chan's First Strike
Rumble in the [Vancouver] Bronx
Who Am I?

and, of course, there's always the golden Time Life CD box set Solid Gold Chan.

Danny should upgrade to a PS Vita. A higher resolution screen
would be much better for playing those games which Jackie always
forgets to give him.