[.ca] Shanghai Knights

Jackie 10, Shanghai Knights 1:
"Shanghai Noon" was one of the funniest and most spontanious films I have seen in months...... so I had no fear when I ponied up 26 bucks for this sequel, and I could not believe how weak it was. Okay... Chan is just fine, the fighting sequences are classic Chan and inventive, and of course he is charming and humorous. The cinematography is well crafted...... AND yes, there are some very major historic and continuity problems with this film.... First of all if you have any passion for historic recreations in film, you are going to be seriously disturbed by the amount of blunders here.. they are too numerous to mention, and on several websites are on-going discussions of what they were and why they were overlooked. Never mind, the first film had historic mistakes as well.. and one can argue that this IS comedy...... but if you KNOW history, they are going to be distracting and you will miss the action, comedy and excitement of the film. However, my main complaint is the musical "jokes" that pepper the film. We are in Victorian London, England and we hear huge chunks of loud musical clips from pop songs of the 1950s and 60s, like the old Roger Miller tune "England Swings", "Singing in the Rain" (no it is not raining and Jackie is not singing when they play it), "Magic Bus" (no, there is no bus in the scene) and "Winchester Cathedral" which plays loudly in a scene filmed at... get this... "Buckingham Palace"!! There are more, very loud musical "jokes" that totally detract and ruin the mood of the setting, comic moments and the action at hand. The main orchestral score itself is actually well composed and performed, but the added outlandish musical jokes are totally inappropriate and go on far too long to be funny.... and in fact... without them, the movie, in my opinion, would have been a lot more fun and enjoyable. As far as Owen's performance... it was clearly NOT up to the fine job he did in the first film. In "Noon" he was funny, loveable, playful and genuine. In this film he seems distracted, over-directed and less expressive. He also does not look like he is having fun with his character.... it's a walk through for him. My suggestion is to get the first film... its a treasure. Far fetched, yes, but it has charm, comedy, continuity, drama, and loads of action. This new film is a series of jokes and parodies (musical and otherwise) that simply don't hold together or keep a person involved in the continuity... and even the great Jackie Chan can't keep it together alone.

this movie kicks a$$, seriously:
This is one of those great action comedies only the best like jakie chan can pull off, this time, their adventure is set in England, where they have to rescue chan's sister, and retrive the emperor's seal from a swordsman with the help of Sir Artur Conan Doyle, creater of the lost world, sherlock holmes and other inmaginary stories, with an all star cast and great action sequence, this movie with keep you hungry for more and rumors on the third flick is "Shanghi Legends" will be finished by Summer of '05.

Not as good or funny as Shanghai Noon...:
This movie was o.k. but I didn't care for it as much as I did Shanghai Noon. In Shanghai Noon I couldn't stop laughing but I didn't find that I laughed but a time or two in Shanghai Knights. The bloopers at the end gave me many more laughs then the actual movie did. I thought the vase scene was way to fake & didn't make a whole lot of sense. I don't plan on watching it again. To be honest, I just saw the movie yesterday & can't remember most of it. It's just not a movie that's going to stick with you. I'd say skip this movie.

Boring:
This sequel to Shanghai Noon is perhaps one of Jackie Chan's worst movies. The story is a cliche--Jackie has to rescue his sister and avenge his father's death. The twist in this story is that he has to go to England to find the killer. Of couse we have to put up with a lot of bad jokes about English food and stereotypical English gentlemen. I particularly hated the performance of Owen Wilson. I simply can't understand why he keeps getting cast as a comedian. He's definitely not funny at all. To make it worse, the character he plays has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Even Jackie Can is not at his best in this one. The fight scenes aren't as fluid as some of his other recent performances. His age really shows in his fight scenes. If you're craving a recent Jackie Chan film, you should stick with the Rush Hour series. I give this two stars instead of one out of goodwill for Jackie Chan.

A step down but still a worthy sequel.:
Don't pay attention to the lack of continuity of SK with Shanghai Noon SN. The guts of this movie is the continuing relationship between the laconic Chong Wang, played by jackie Chan (no longer a NEW mega star, but an authentic one) and Wyatt Earp, who goes by the name of Roy OBannon, played by the new mega star Owen Wilson. The stunt work is not 5 star, but it is still good enough to entertain. This is safe for the family. The bad guy in this one is even better than the three bad guys in SN, maybe because the writers could pile all the badness onto one really great bad guy. This is 3 stars - GOOD. Most people who like Chan and Wilson will enjoy this fun romp.