Shanghai Noon
***
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre)
Released in the UK by Buena Vista International on August 25, 2000; certificate
12; 110 minutes; countries of origin Hong Kong/USA; aspect ratio
2.35:1
Directed by Tom Dey; produced by Gary
Barber, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Glickman. Written by
Alfred Gough, Miles Millar. Photographed by Dan Mindel;
edited by Richard Chew.
CAST.....
Jackie Chan..... Chon Wang
Owen Wilson..... Roy O'Bannon
Lucy Liu..... Princess Pei Pei
Roger Yuan..... Lo Fong
Walton Goggins..... Wallace
Xander Berkeley..... Marshal Nathan Van Cleef
I went into "Shanghai Noon"
expecting a lot of standard Wunza Movie jokes about the differences
between the protagonists' backgrounds -- and I wasn't exactly deprived of
them -- but I also got something I didn't expect: a genuinely warm and
affectionate undercurrent. When, for example, a standard scene of falling
out occurs late on in this kung-fu comedy-western, it somehow leaves us feeling
quite touched.
The Wunza Movie, as defined in the glossary of
clichés compiled by Pulitzer-winning movie critic Roger Ebert, is
one of those high-concept pictures that people sum up by describing the main
characters in terms of "one's a... [insert noun]", "one's a... [insert
contrasting noun]". In "Shanghai Noon", which is set in 1881, one's a Chinese
imperial guard sent to the States to rescue a princess, one's an American
outlaw who winds up as his partner.
Owen Wilson plays the cowboy; Jackie Chan plays
the Chinese guard. Chan's last American movie, "Rush Hour", was also a Wunza
comedy, but "Shanghai Noon" is much better. As the two men navigate their
way around the Old West, trying to locate the princess, dodging malicious
lawmen, avoiding gunfights and engaging in bar brawls, they seem fascinated
by each other's cultures, discuss them, and treat each other with an amiable
camaraderie and respect. When they argue with each other, they (and we) know
it's just banter, so it's fun to watch.
You'd expect the gags to simply be satire of western
clichés, but they're more inventive that that -- conventional western
situations appear in the plot, and the screenwriters, Alfred Gough and Miles
Millar, use them to create the most bizarre comic happenings imaginable.
The best example of this comes when Chan and Wilson have to break out of
jail. Chan, whose job requires him to be dextrous and quick-witted, urinates
on his robe to strengthen it, then twists it round the bars, bends them,
and escapes.
I don't enjoy many of Chan's chop-socky fight
films because they're grimy, cheap, repetitive and annoying in their
hyperactivity. "Shanghai Noon" finds the right balance between physical humour,
wordplay and surrealistic set-pieces; it's one of those rare comedies that
makes you gasp with laughter until your eyes are watering and you start choking
Diet Coke up through your nose. My only complaint is the ending, which goes
on far too long, doesn't have enough humour in its violence, and has irritating,
corny scenes involving Chan and the princess. After successfully using sharp
humour to involve us in its central relationship, it's disappointing that
the filmmakers couldn't also have found a way to avoid the obligatory schmaltz
that closes most Hollywood movies.
"Shanghai Noon" still leaves us feeling good,
because the credit cookies redeem the minutes that precede them. Usually
I leave movies with teeth clenched and a cold stare that could rival the
look of John Lydon at a meeting of the Malcolm McLaren Fan Club. This time
I was wearing a grin. It was only wiped off when I realised I had to walk
through a rainstorm to get to my bus stop.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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