Okay, first things first. Last night I watched a movie (Savages) starring Aaron Johnson acting opposite a character named Chon. Tonight I watch with Aaron Johnson where he gets third billing (also what he got in Savages) where he plays opposite another character named Chon, this one played by Jackie Chan. The statistical improbability of my doing this seems pretty staggering. I'm guessing in all of the movies that feature Aaron Johnson and a character named Chon (not to mention Aaron Johnson in third billing) these have to be the only two. And then to randomly check them out and watch them back to back? There is some kind of cosmic message here. If only I can figure it out, I think I might be unable to unlock my superpowers. Wait, did I actually write that last bit? I can hear a particular friend calling me a dork already.
How often can you truly say that the movie was exactly what you expected? This is one of those movies. Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson reprise their roles from Shanghai Noon and this time go to London to fight bad guys. It had plenty of martial arts action, much of it with a comic edge as has become Chan's trademark. There is lots of witty banter between the two leads, well banter anyways and much of that entertaining if predictable. There is a pretty girl for Wilson's character to pine over. They mess around a little bit with history doing silly things like having Arthur Conan Doyle working as a detective at Scotland Yard while they are in London, and a street urchin by the name of Charlie Chaplin. Not to mention the best little play on time, when Jack the Ripper mistakenly targets the beautiful Fann Wong playing the character Chan's character's sister. She easily dispatches with him sending him to a watery grave in the Thames. Who knew?
While I thoroughly enjoyed this film, I can see why they didn't make a third. After this, Chan went on to make the Rush Hour movies with Christ Tucker and Wilson tried his hand at a couple of serious films and then teamed up with Eddie Murphy for a comedic spy thriller, before moving on to team-up with Vince Vaughn for a bunch of shitty comedies. ('I left out all of Wilson's wonderful work with Wes Anderson which was going on before he teamed up with Chan and continued after it as well.)
Shanghai Knights on IMDb
No comments:
Post a Comment