Shanghai Knights

As Seen On DVD

Shanghai Noon was fun. Apparently, Jackie Chan had long held the idea of martial arts in a Western for quite some time, and it worked quite well; it gave him a new arena for his unique style of martial arts and the interplay between him and Owen Wilson was great. I also liked the play on words, the slightly-knowing in-jokes (Jackie's character name sounding like John Wayne; Wilson quoting James Brown when he says, "I don't know karate but I know kerr-razy.") and of course Jackie Chan doing his thing. However, it Noon not a great film, so a sequel is quite a surprise.

Like the majority of sequels, this film isn't very good. It is quite lazy, putting the protagonists in a similar scenario but in yet another country equals originality. The plot, as it is, involves the stealing of the Imperial Seal by an English lord with his eyes on the throne of Queen Victoria, so Jackie and Owen head to London to save the family honour. This is all flimsy stuff, with no character development, little humour and a London (borrowed but cleaned up from Oliver Twist) that only exists in the minds of Americans.

The best stuff is watching Jackie again, particularly his little homage to Gene Kelly, which is the main reason for watching his films. But the rest of the film hangs off this like flabby, vestigial limbs dangling off a torso. The silliest part is the 'humorous' interaction with British history. Here, they introduce Charlie Chaplin as a child, have our heroes responsible for setting Arthur Conan Doyle on the path to writing Sherlock Holmes, as well as killing Jack the Ripper in the midst of his spree.

It's all a lot of silly nonsense with lots of plot holes, strange accents and a stupid approach to history. (Is it because Americans don't have any that they don't know how to use history in their stories? Just a thought.) An indication of how little I enjoyed the film is the fact that I didn't watch the special features. I love special features; deleted scenes, featurettes, behind-the-scenes, commentaries. Love. Them. And I couldn't be bothered. Not a good sign. It almost makes me feel bad for enjoying the first film.

Rating: DA (mostly for the fight scenes)