Shanghai Noon

Jean-Luc Godard was famous for saying that the best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie. Roger Ebert said in his review, “In that spirit, "Shanghai Noon" is the answer to "Wild Wild West," although I am not sure these are the kinds of movies Godard had in mind.” Jackie Chan’s 2000 action comedy is a combination of a Western, martial arts and buddy movie – enhanced by a hilarious performance by Owen Wilson, who would dominate the movie if Chan were not as smart at sharing it with him.

The basic story is that it takes place in China, the Forbidden City in 1881. The princess, played by Lucy Liu, hates her destiny and hates her arranged husband. Her teacher, played by Henry O, offers to help her escape to the United States. She is kidnapped and held for money in Nevada. The three best imperial guards (Rongguang Yu, Cui Ya Hui and Eric Chen) are selected to rescue her. Chan goes along as a baggage for his uncle, who is their interpreter. In Nevada, Chan joins with a train robber named Roy O’Bannon (Wilson), and they rescue the princess with a lot of help from an Indian maiden (Brandon Merrill).

Ebert noted, “The plot, of course, is only a clothesline for Chan's martial arts sequences, Wilson's funny verbal riffs and a lot of low humor. Material like this can be very bad. Here it is sort of wonderful, because of a light touch by director Tom Dey, who finds room both for Chan's effortless charm and for a droll performance by Wilson, who, if this were a musical, would be a Beach Boy.”

Wilson had reached a point where people started to like him. Most movie fans didn’t know who he was. Ebert said, “If you see everything, you'll remember him from "Bottle Rocket," where he was engaging, and "Minus Man," where he was profoundly disturbing.” This movie made him into a star. He is really smart and flexible to be casted in a small role (his career also had him writing for “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore”), but seeing what he did in “Shanghai Noon,” he could play the same roles as Adam Sandler.

Chan’s character is named Chon Wang (yes, we all know what it really sounds like). Just like in “Rush Hour,” he plays a man of small words and a lot of fist. Chris Tucker in “Rush Hour” and Wilson in this one are fast talkers who make up for Chan’s poor English, which is nothing because his martial arts scenes are the best. Ebert said, “He's famous for using the props that come to hand in every fight, and here there is a sequence involving several things we didn't know could be done with evergreen trees.”

Liu, as the princess, is not a pretty girl that needs to be saved, but brave and spirited, and motivated by the troubles of her Chinese country men who have been made indentured servants in a Nevada gold town. Ebert said, “She doesn't want to return to China, but to stay in the United States--as a social worker or union organizer, I guess.” Not so greatly played is Merrill’s Indian woman, who is married to Chon Wang in a ceremony that nobody really takes seriously and that the movie itself has evidently forgotten all about the time that last scene was done.

Ebert noted, “Her pairing with Jackie Chan does however create a funny echo of "A Man Called Horse," and on the way out of the theater I was challenged by my fellow critic Sergio Mims to name all the other movie references. He claimed to have spotted, I think, 24. My mind boggled.”

What “Shanghai Noon” does – and here was a problem people had with “Wild Wild West” – is that no matter how much effort is in the production values and special effects, a movie like this finally depends on dialogue and characters. “Wild Wild West,” which came out exactly a year before this, had an all-star cast (Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh) but what were they tasked with? Ebert answered, “Plow through dim-witted dialogue between ungainly f/x scenes. Here Wilson angles onscreen and starts riffing, and we laugh. And Chan, who does his own stunts, creates moments of physical comedy so pure, it's no wonder he has been compared with Buster Keaton.” If you see only one martial arts Western (and there is a high chance of that), this is the one.

This is another hilarious buddy movie that Chan had starred in. Owen Wilson is one of the funniest comedians ever, hands down, and he works will with Chan. If you liked the “Rush Hour” movies, like I do, then see this one just to see how Chan works with another comedian. Also, what’s good about this is that it’s just not one genre. It’s a combination of different genres, which I listed earlier. You’ll love this movie, I promise you that.

Look out next week to see how the sequel to this movie was in “Jackie Chan Month.”