Railroad Tigers: The Jackie Chan Stunt Team Rides the Rails

Wouldn’t it be nice if Chinese cinema devoted one fiftieth of the time and attention they spend on the Japanese occupation to the events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the Cultural Revolution instead? At least the war and the resistance offer opportunities for good action sequences, which is all we’ve really asked of Jackie Chan. To his credit, Chan has found ways to act his age and still be an international action movie star, most notably in collaboration with director Ding Sheng (including Little Big Warrior and the bizarrely under-appreciated Police Story: Lockdown). Produced with the Mainland market in mind, Ding’s Railroad Tigers (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

Ma Yuan is the grizzled leader of a gang of petty thieves ostensibly working various jobs related to the railroad. They regularly pull off small-scale capers targeting the Japanese authorities and collaborators as best they can. However, they get the call-up to the big leagues when Ma Yuan shelters a wounded Eight Army commando charged with blowing up a critical supply-line bridge. The dedicated soldier isn’t going to make it, so Ma Yuan and his tigers adopt his likely suicide mission.

Of course, they will need help, so they manage to recruit Fan Chuan, a Rick Blaine-like noodle shop owner, who was once the sharp-shooting bodyguard of a Nationalist warlord. Unfortunately, the Japanese also get reinforcements when legendary Inspector General Yuko Nakashima arrives. She is fierce (played by Lanxin Zhang, a frequent femme fatale henchperson in Jackie Chan films), but one could argue her high rank makes the occupying Japanese look weirdly progressive.

Once again, Chan largely (but not entirely) acknowledges his sixty-some years during RR Tigers. Throughout most of the film, he is the terse-speaking center of the team, sharing the action duties with the rest of the ensemble on equitable terms. Of course, he takes over the big climatic set piece sequence, but by that time many characters will be dead, in accordance with the conventions of Dirty Dozen-style big mission movies. Old Man Chan also develops some truly appealing chemistry with Fan Xu, glammed down to look at least ten years older as his love interest, the widowed Auntie Qin. Frankly, it would have been nice to see more of them together.

The first two acts have their share of entertaining stunt work, but nothing that will really dazzle fans’ minds. However, the climatic blowing-the-bridge sequence is a doozy. It is nice to know JChan can still get the job done. It is also always good fun to watch Zhang Lanxin throw it down.

RR Tigers has also garnered attention for the unheralded return of Chan’s son Jaycee after his pot conviction. They even share a scene together that Mainland-HK audiences have read considerable irony into. You have to feel a little for Chan fils. If he grew up in the Hollywood establishment, nobody would care about a minor pot bust. He’d working again after a quick “mistakes were made” non-apology. It also seems tough that he was transparently named after his father, but does not have the benefit of being a “junior.” As a further Easter Egg, look out for a fleeting cameo from one of the world’s biggest movie stars in the wrap-around framing device.

If you are already a JChan fan, you can watch RR Tigers without any cringing or regrets. The Jackie Chan Stunt Team aims to please and their skills are admirable. It is not bad, but for those who are not rabid Chan loyalists, this latest outing from Chan, Ding, Zhang and company is probably too uneven to win over ardent converts. Recommended for the faithful, Railroad Tigers opens this Friday (1/6) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Double Trouble: Jaycee Chan Takes Over the Family Business

Some were skeptical when fifty-eight year old Jackie Chan announced his retirement from the action movie genre at Cannes.  Whether this is one of those Depardieu retirements or he actually really means it, only time will tell.  Regardless, the scheduling is fortuitous for the release of an old-fashioned action-comedy starring Chan’s son.  Jaycee Chan steps into some big shoes as half of a pair of mismatched security guards trying to foil an art heist in David Hsun-wei Chang’s Double Trouble (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jay is a take-charge loose cannon, which earns him plenty of demerits for poor team-building skills.  However, his reckless disregard for procedure is rooted in a tragic episode from an earlier period of his life.  He is the one Taipei Palace museum guard an elite gang of art thieves would not want to tangle with, but he is the perfect candidate for a frame-up.  Frankly, that was not part of the plan for two slinky Cat Woman-attired robbers, but the result of the bumbling interference of Ocean, the comic relief security guard-tourist visiting from Beijing.  Dragging along Ocean is a lot like taking the proverbial accordion into battle, but Jay is forced to, for the sake of clearing his name.

As the earnest Jay, Jaycee Chan exhibits something of the rubber face and rubber bones that made his father an international movie-star.  He also has a similarly likable on-screen demeanor.  Unfortunately, Double Trouble is a bit too much like late Hollywood period Jackie Chan than his early cult favorites for fans to pronounce the baton has been fully passed.  However, it is safe to say HK model Jessica C. (a.k.a. Jessica Cambensy) has arrived as an action femme fatale.  After all, there is a reason she is on the poster with Chan, even though they are bitter foes in the film.  As for his reluctant crime-fighting partner, a little of Xia Yu’s Ocean goes a long way.

Indeed, the bickering bromance is laid on rather thick and the humor is almost entirely of the slapstick variety.  Nonetheless, the depiction of border-crossing friendship (and maybe even romance with another member of Ocean’s tour group, appealingly played by Deng Jiajia) is rather pleasant, because it never feels overly soapboxey or clumsily forced.

There are some nice stunts in Double and it also has Jessica C. going for it.  It sincerely aims to please, but it is hardly has the grit or heft of a Police Story or even the relatively recent Shinjuku Incident.  A harmless distraction, Double Trouble may indeed be remembered as a stepping stone for its promising young cast.  It opens this Friday (6/8) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7, as well as in San Francisco at the AMC Cupertino and Metreon, courtesy of China Lion Entertainment.