I'm glad I didn't trust the numerous negative reviews of Railroad Tigers and decided to purchase the film. This epic war movie convinces with a set of sympathetic characters, a vivid pace and flow, stunning settings, spectacular sound and visual effects and an intriguing story partially inspired by historic events.
The film includes an atmosphere reminding me of old American westerns with train robberies in isolated places, incorporates a few martial arts sequences that contrast the shooting duels and instills a few humorous elements that are though never getting annoying as they focus on situation comedy rather than misplaced slapstick moments. Railroad Tigers is entertaining from start to finish and makes you want to experience the whole film again once the vivid roller coaster ride is over. Despite its length above two hours, not one single minute is wasted here.
As a matter of fact, there were so many characters with intriguing background stories such as the charismatic leader of the Railroad Tigers or the resilient noodle shop owner, that the film could have easily been even half an hour longer without getting boring. Even though a few characters weren't perfectly fleshed out, antagonists and protagonists were intriguing enough to stimulate potential spin-offs. The closing scene of the film hints at a potential sequel which would be very welcome in my book.
Railroad Tigers got some unfair criticism for promoting communist propaganda which is completely exaggerated. The film features a communist soldier fleeing from Japanese troops who has about ten minutes of screen time and doesn't look too heroic and the final battle concludes with an ambush of arriving communist troops that might get five minutes of screen time but that's all. The film truly focuses on a group of railroad workers who are attempting to destroy a strategically important bridge to stop Japanese supplies to conquer the northern parts of China. The film doesn't include any obvious political propaganda and rather underlines values like courage and friendship. Other critics claimed that the Japanese weren't portrayed accurately in this film and even suggested that the movie might be slightly disrespectful or racist. Once again, this is nonsense since the film shows two quite dangerous Japanese antagonists, a brutal male military and a determined female investigator who aren't easily fooled but rather never give up and fight back until the very end. Other people criticized the film for being one of Jackie Chan's most disappointing films but along with the sinister The Foreigner, this film is the best he has made since 2011 and easily beats more shallow family entertainment in the key of Chinese Zodiac and Kung Fu Yoga. I would even consider this movie a late career highlight by Asia's most famous actor of all times.
In the end, the epic Railroad Tigers is an unfairly underrated war movie that will entertain you from start to finish with its explosive mixture of intense action sequences, character development, historic inspiration, humorous elements and western atmosphere. Some of the fight scenes are slightly grisly as some blood is shown and as the body count is quite elevated, so I would rather recommend this film to older teenagers and adults since this isn't your typical Jackie Chan movie for the whole family.
