We rented Shanghai Knights the other night. We didn’t see it in the theater. We saw Shanghai Noon at home too. Sound bad? It wasn’t. I like Jackie Chan. The best part about every movie he’s ever made are the credits. He’s the funniest there.
In this movie, Jackie’s father (who guards the Emperor’s Seal [a giant diamond]) is killed by the guy who’s 10th in line for the British throne, at the behest of the Chinese Emperor’s brother. Jackie’s sister sends him a note, and heads to England to find the Seal, and kill the bad guy.
Jackie and his side kick head to England to find his sister, the Seal, and kill the bad guy.
The plot was mostly predictable, but they did some clever, LoEG-esque stuff with historical references. Jack The Ripper was wandering around London during the time period of the movie. Jackie’s sister was walking alone on a bridge at night and bumped into him. And kicked him right off the bridge.
Jackie’s partner invested all of the money they got from the first movie in zeppelins. He said there was no money in those new “auto mobiles”. At the end of the movie, his new plan was to go to southern California where they’d found a way to moving pictures. Jackie would be great in that, he said. He could do all that crazy kung fu stuff, and even do his own stunts.
There was a street urchin that played a significant role, who’s name was Charlie. At the end of the movie, he put on a skinny little black mustache so that he could sneak to California and be in those new movie things.
The music was also interesting in this movie. Jackie did one of his famous fights in the street, and used an umbrella. They played a version of Singin’ In The Rain. They did things like that all through the movie, though I’m not sure how many people caught them, nor how many I didn’t catch.
It was a classic Jackie movie; entertaining, action-filled, clever, funny, etc. Again, not the pinnacle of cinematic glory, but fun nonetheless.
