# Shanghai Noon (2000)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    SHANGHAI NOON
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

A kidnapped princess, 100,000 pieces of gold and Jackie Chan's exhilarating stunts: if you think that these sound like the perfect ingredients for a high old-time at your local cinema, you're right. As they say in commercials, "But wait, there's more!"

Based on an idea of Jackie's, SHANGHAI NOON, directed by Tom Dey, is set in the Old West. Expanding on Jackie's story outline, Miles Millar and Alfred Gough's hilarious script starts in the Forbidden City before it heads for the Chinese mining camps in Nevada in 1881. (This permits the story to subtly but effectively explore the rampant racism in that period in our history.)

Last, but not least, Jackie is perfectly matched with Owen Wilson, as a sidekick who can best be thought of as the anti-Jackie. Owen's character is as unsure and lazy as Jackie's character is bold and energetic. Hands down, however, Owen gets almost all of the best lines.

Owen plays Roy O'Bannon, a robber who couldn't shoot the broadside of the proverbial barn and who would rather spend his time with the ladies anyway. (When Roy finds his mug on a wanted poster, he goes wild with delight. "It'll drive the girls crazy!" he declares, barely able to control his excitement.) His ladies are all women in red who occupy a bordello so chaste that it could appear in a PG-rated picture. (SHANGHAI NOON is a mild PG-13.)

Jackie plays Chon Wang, an Imperial Guard who is sent to America as part of a contingent sent to deliver 100,000 pieces of gold as a ransom for a kidnapped Chinese princess. Through a series of misadventures, Chon ends up partnering with Roy. The two try to make themselves into a couple of tough Western dudes so they can rescue the princess. When Roy finds out how Chon Wang's name is pronounced, he laughs. "John Wayne -- that's a terrible cowboy name," Roy tells Chon. "That's not going to work."

Well, something that certainly does work is the chemistry between these two charming actors. Even if their characters are opposites, their eventual friendship is as genuine as is the rough road to it. Acting a bit like Mel Gibson -- the writers collaborated on Mel's LETHAL WEAPON 4 -- Roy doesn't leave all of the physical antics to Chon. "I don't know karate, but I know crazy, and I will use it," Roy explains.

As always, Jackie dazzles the audience with his good-spirited stunts that are choreographed with ballet precision. With his baby-faced looks and his broad smile, he would be a hard actor not to love. And when he gets hurt, as he often does while doing his own stunts, you can truly feel his pain. In every movie he manages to find fresh approaches to the fighting sequences. This time he wields everything from moose horns -- sans moose -- to a horseshoe on a rope.

It is perhaps a little know facet of Jackie's oeuvre, but Jackie is just as funny when he isn't showing off his athletic dexterity. SHANGHAI NOON's funniest sequence -- even more so than the wonderful outtakes -- has Chon and Roy taking a bubble bath in adjoining tubs. They ham it up singing a drinking song that it is side-splittingly funny.

As the resilient Princess Pei Pei (you can guess how her name can be mispronounced), Lucy Liu is underutilized but still manages to give her character an inner spark. In a variation on a shotgun marriage, Chon ends up with a wife through a peace pipe marriage. Native American model Brandon Merrill plays Falling Leaves, Chon's new sharpshooter wife.

The movie's delights don't end with the acting and the script. Thanks to Daniel Mindel's lush cinematography and Randy Edelman's old-fashioned western film music, the movie is a real treat for the eyes and ears. A thoroughly enjoyable film, it is (arguably) Jackie's best movie ever.

SHANGHAI NOON runs a fast 1:45. It is rated PG-13 for action violence, some drug humor, language and sensuality and would be fine for kids around 8 and up.

My son Jeffrey, age 11, adored the movie, awarding it a full ****. He said that he thought it "was really funny, yet in a cool sense." His favorite character was Roy.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

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