The latest Hong Kong action film by Jackie Chan has been taking a bit of a drubbing from a few outspoken, hardcore fans and critics.
And, as far as I'm concerned, it is all totally unwarrented. This is the best Jackie film in recent years--perhaps even the best in a decade!
Some criticize it for not having enough action or enough of Jackie's trademark fight choreography. Well, all you need is a stopwatch to see this is not true. Every few minutes brings a big action setpiece! There is much more action in this film than in "Supercop", "First Strike" or "Rush Hour". And certianly more than his foray into screwball romantic comedy, "Gorgeous". What critics are reacting to is a marked improvement in the quality of the filmmaking--which they see as getting in the way. This film has none of the drawbacks of Jackie's last all-action HK movie, "Who Am I?". In "AS", the cinematography, direction, musical score, and overall look is easily on a par with a Hollywood production. And even though the dialog is a bit under the best of Hollywood action films, "AS" contains none of the embarrasing, out-of-place comic sterotypes, horrible second-player acting, or lazy dialog-writing of "WAI?". So, the characters actually do stop to have dialog evey once in a while, the camera does slow down to establish the location from time to time, so the locations are lushly photographed--gee whiz, aren't those things supposed to happen in a good movie? Teddy Chan is the best director jackie has collaborated with (Sammo Hung and Stanley Tong run close second and third and perhaps could have done as well given the same budget as "AS").
And, by the way, we cannot expect JAckie to do the physical stunts he did in his best 80s films like "Operation Condor", "Police Story 1&2" or "Project A 1&2". There is a difference between 30 and 45---face it!
Sure, the plot of "AS" is off-the-wall, implausible, and at times difficult to follow--but certainly not moreso than Hollywood action/spy hits like "Ronin" or the "Mission Impossible" films (in fact, "AS" makes much better use of biological warefare than "MI2" did).
Some also criticise the film's big finale as derivative of "Speed". Well, in a way it is--except this time it was done better and makes more sense. "Speed" never seemed dangerous to me--this does. Clint Eastwood's "Sudden Impact" ripped off Jackie's "Police Story 2" by using the idea of a mad bomber using a model car rigged with explosives. It happens.
IN any case, I believe "The Accidental Spy", once properly dubbed into English, could be a big hit in US theaters. Hey, no one thought "Rumble in the Bronx" would be a hit, did they?
This is just an example of what high expectations people have of an artist as succesful as Jackie Chan.
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