1197 Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar

[knives]

With a major caveat that I’m missing out on some of his most loved films (despite having seen about 30) my top ten would be:

10. Supercop which has such a great final line and also has the breeziness of someone with nothing to prove

9. Police Story 2 which while a step down from its predecessor manages to astound me with its stunts.

8. TMNT: Mutant Mayhem isn’t strictly a Chan movie, but it uses him beautifully even managing to give a classic ‘how am I doing this’ fight which in real life he couldn’t be capable of. It’s also just a pretty great movie all around.

7. Police Story has a feeling of sui generis while also coming across as a corrective to his American films.

6. The Young Master is a relative sophomore slump, but still contains enough comedy and impressive stunts I couldn’t see anywhere else to impress me.

5. The Fearless Hyena is such an impressive debut. If it weren’t for the rest of his career you’d think it was the film he put all of his ideas into.

4. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow is definitely the little brother of these first two Seasons films, but it still manages to embody joy in a way action films rarely strive to.

3. Miracles is such an atypical Chan that it could only have been one of his best or worst. He forgoes action completely for a quiet Capra inspired comedy that would make a great double bill with the unfairly maligned Harlem Nights.

2. Wheels on Meals was just talked up by me in the list thread, but in short this is a delightful pull away from Chan’s more structured high slapstick with Hung’s low variety meeting in the middle in a way that left me grinning.

1. Drunken Master which is a film so great no words I can make will do it justice. Definitely on my action cinema Mt Rushmore.

[Orlac]

Agreed on all accounts. It’s actually funny with the Lee films Lee directed his own action scenes, but others were done with Wei Lo’s team and you can really tell.

I think too late Wei Lo figured out exactly what you say about Chan’s qualities as the last few films do lean on those qualities.

It's Lo Wei, not Wei Lo.

Lo's Shaw wu xias are pretty decent - I especially reccomend The Golden Sword and Dragon Swamp. He seems to give up around the time of A Man Called Tiger (1973) and enters a rut he doesn't really get out of as a director until Dragon Fist in 1979.

[Mr Sausage]

Lo's Shaw wu xias are pretty decent - I especially reccomend The Golden Sword and Dragon Swamp. He seems to give up around the time of A Man Called Tiger (1973) and enters a rut he doesn't really get out of as a director until Dragon Fist in 1979.

I haven't got around to those yet--I'll eventually do a Cheng Pei-Pei dive--but I wonder how much of their quality was down to being Shaw productions, where Lo Wei would've had access to their stable of fight choreographers, second unit directors, and cinematographers? Once Lo Wei was at his own studio, he no longer had access to such talent to cover his weaknesses, so it was really all him.

[Orlac]

Lo's Shaw wu xias are pretty decent - I especially reccomend The Golden Sword and Dragon Swamp. He seems to give up around the time of A Man Called Tiger (1973) and enters a rut he doesn't really get out of as a director until Dragon Fist in 1979.

I haven't got around to those yet--I'll eventually do a Cheng Pei-Pei dive--but I wonder how much of their quality was down to being Shaw productions, where Lo Wei would've had access to their stable of fight choreographers, second unit directors, and cinematographers? Once Lo Wei was at his own studio, he no longer had access to such talent to cover his weaknesses, so it was really all him.

Yeah, I can buy that. Also, Lo's Golden Harvest films were mostly made outside of Hong Kong, so presumably he was outside immediate studio observance. He spent most of the shoot of YELLOW FACED TIGER (make in San Francisco) sneaking off to gamble in Vegas.

[Mr Sausage]

This is a mediocre box set. Three films are terrible, two are decent, and one not only isn't a Chan film (he cameos), but a sequel without its companion. This is a fine example of a lable just releasing what they have rather than curating an experience. Nothing here shows Chan's emergence; it's just a set of unmemorable films from his transition period plus a random sequel. If I were to curate a boxset on this theme, it'd be Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, Drunken Master, Fearless Hyena, The Young Master, and Project A. You'd get Jackie breaking away from Lo Wei and finding his rhythm under Yuen Woo-Ping, developing his star power in his first couple directorial efforts, and then making his first full-form Jackie Chan film. Obviously a pipe dream given the rights situation, but still, a curated experience where Criterion just gives you some Chan films that few people feel much affection for. Shout's set of early Chan films, tho' more consistently awful on a film-by-film basis, is still the more interesting set for how it clarifies Chan's talents by ignoring or misusing them. There was real historical interest there. Criterion's set felt like I was dutifully filling gaps, not learning something.



Spiritual Kung Fu (Lo Wei, 1978)

A weird movie. It’s a serious film of clan intrigue within and around the Shaolin temple, while also being a very silly supernatural comedy. It has, like, three plots in it: one, a secret manuscript is stolen from the temple and used to ravage the other clans; two, there’s a murder in the temple that reveals a secret plot; three, Chan is taught a secret form of kung fu by five white ghosts with red hair. The movie doesn’t crosscut between these effectively, so not only is there no real connective tissue but you’re constantly forgetting this or that plot is still ongoing until it pops up again randomly. The ghosts subplot is the most interesting for its constant special effects and sheer oddness, but also the most tedious for its goofy bad taste (there are scenes of the ghosts farting in peoples’ faces or getting urinated on). At least the fight choreography is handled by Chan. It’s in the style of the times, but there’s a complexity and inventiveness to it that stands out, especially in a long complicated fight between Chan and a group of monks. Chan still hadn’t developed his comic persona, so he plays the goofy, naive brat who’s always getting in trouble and whining about it. It’s a tedious schtick, but at least Chan is being used for comedy.


Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (Chen Chi-Hwa, 1978)

I take it back. I’d’ve taken anything over the comedy here. Imagine being so unfunny that you make people long for one of Jackie Chan’s serious films. Their failures are at least interesting in retrospect. This movie is obnoxious. All its choices seem designed to grate your nerves, soundtrack especially. Even some decent fights in the back third couldn’t save it. Is this the worst film in the collection?


Fearless Hyena (Jackie Chan, 1979)

At least Jackie’s directing. There are some peculiar stylistic techniques Chan would mostly never use again, like heavily distorted lenses to emphasize a moment and freeze frame character introductions. The comedy outside the fight scenes can be tedious, with the worst being a cross dressing Chan, tho’ Dean Shek’s desperate mugging isn’t far behind. On the serious side, there’s this terrific scene where Chan is forced to watch his uncle killed in a fight that’s very effective, all down to Chan’s face. Unfortunately Chan painfully exaggerates all the emotional beats in the moment right after, undoing all he’d just achieved. Chan in this period is a mixture of his later mode with Harold Loyd in his Sly persona. So Chan is always trying to get one over on people, but he has too much bad luck to get away with it for long. The Chan persona comes out when he’s inevitably forced to deal with adversity when his schemes fail. The movie doesn’t show Chan at his best, but does point the way forward. There are some wonderful bits that show Chan’s creativity, like the chopsticks fight or the game to leave the cabin (tho’ I think Lau Kar-Leung did this kind of thing better in Dirty Ho). A pretty good early Chan.


Fearless Hyena II (Chan Chuen, 1983)

Chan’s very own Game of Death. Chan defected to Golden Harvest mid production, so the film’s a hodgepodge of footage Chan shot, archive footage from other movies in this set, and footage of his stunt double (in clown makeup!). The film is bad: dumb, tedious, incomprehensible, and plagued by incompetent filmmaking.


The Young Master (Jackie Chan, 1980)

The movie as a movie isn’t much to talk about—the plot is minimal, the characters thin, the zoom lense abused, and there’s way too much slapstick and over-the-top melodrama. But it’s the first film in the set to show Chan’s genius. There’s so much excitement and creativity that it’s easy to forgive the shortcomings. One of the best decisions Golden Harvest made was to give Chan the time and money to be extravagant. Unfettered, he indulges his artistic side, like twirling fans about, or having Yuen Biao fight with a bench, or Lily Li’s whipping skirts, which Chan later copies. The action has so many confident flourishes. And while the comedy outside the action is at best to be endured, within the action it’s a delight. Chan having to scuttle off on tiptoes as his shoes are whittled down had me giggling, and the aikido demonstration at the end was a masterpiece of painful comedy. You really feel Chan’s frustration as his limbs are twisted every which way—and that’s key here and throughout so much of Chan’s career, his ability to communicate pain and frustration and to involve you in his attempts to overcome it. After all the mediocrity, it was a thrill to finally get a film with some creative magic in it. Not a great Chan movie, but full of Chan’s greatness, if that makes sense.


Winners and Sinners (Sammo Hung, 1983)

Not in the set, but I figured I should watch it before the sequel. There’s something so toxic and cynical about these otherwise jaunty, high spirited comedies. Their vision of Hong Kong is of top-to-bottom corruption. The characters here are all thieves and con men who are pathetic not because they’re criminals, but because they unsuccessful. Charlie Chin’s arrested jewel thief, Vaseline, asks another thief if he’s impressed at his, Vaseline’s, elaborate ruse, only to be told: “No, because you got caught!” Crime is endemic to Hong Kong, criminals are men plying a trade, and their gulls are merely pathetic. Even the Lucky Stars friend group is defined by their repeated attempts to get one over on each other. As for the police, they’re as corrupt as they are incompetent. Jackie Chan’s police inspector is introduced beating a confession from an innocent man. There is little to distinguish police officers and criminals. Anyway, this is not a Chan film (it’s an extended cameo), and not even a Sammo Hung vehicle: it’s a formless hangout film where a group of down-and-out criminals find themselves in various comic scenarios with the occasional piece of astonishing action thrown in. The loose set-piece structure resembles Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind and Millionaire’s Express, while the weird names, comic banter, and hang out vibes reminded me of the John Shum / Mang Hoi / Tsui Hark sections of Yes, Madam!, which may be deliberate given that Hung appeared in that film, too, as a kind of mentor (several others appear in both films, like John Shum as part of the central comedic group, James Tien as the villain, and Dick Wei as a thug). With rare exceptions, HK comedies are one of two things: unfunny films that are a slog, and unfunny films that have a kind of charm. This is the latter. I rarely laughed, often groaned, but was kinda entertained. Indeed I found this more tolerable than Chan’s own Police Story and Armour of God, both of whose middles are taken over by boring comedy. Sammo’s film has more comedy and less action than either, but the comedy didn’t seem so boring, while the action is of the same calibre (that passing under the truck—holy shit!) and woven throughout rather than saved for the beginning and end. Unlikely to be a favourite of mine—I’d rewatch Spooky Kind and Millionaire’s Express before it—but a good time for all that.


My Lucky Stars (Sammo Hung, 1985)

Hong Kong would do these kinds of sequels that weren’t continuations but reimaginings. Same basic cast, premise, tone, and style, but many of the incidental details are different, as tho’ the same people had made the same film but in an alternate timeline where they started, say, a day earlier and so ended up with slightly different ideas. What is there to say about this one? The action’s a bit better, the comedy a bit worse, and the rest the same as Winners and Sinners. There’s a large handful of films by these same actors and filmmakers I’d rather watch, but I didn’t mind watching this one.


Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (Sammo Hung, 1985)

Again, not in the set, but may as well watch it, too. A direct sequel to My Lucky Stars rather than a further reimagining. You know what annoyed me about this movie? It has Michelle Yeoh and Kara Wai in it, but just has them cameo, and in a non-action role in Wai’s case! How I would’ve rather seen the two of them plus Sibelle Hu form a Lucky Stars group instead of watch Sammo and co. fuck around aimlessly for the third time. Like, all the real talent is crowded into the margins here (Sammo excepted, naturally) while unfunny annoyances like Eric Tsang and Michael Miu hog the screen. Once again, the same film when two was already too many. If you’re going to watch one of these, Winners and Sinners is all you need.

[MichaelB]

1. Drunken Master which is a film so great no words I can make will do it justice. Definitely on my action cinema Mt Rushmore.

The scene in which Chan first meets the woman who turns out to be his aunt has me giggling like a loon every single time (and I must have first seen it a full forty years ago) - while also marvelling at the physical dexterity. There are no subtitles in this clip, but they're honestly not necessary.