Jackie Chan

Watching The Forbidden Kingdom the other day reminded me of Jackie Chan’s glory days, the string of movies from Project A to Drunken Master II or perhaps Rumble in the Bronx. It is unfortunately hard to see those movies in theaters these days; they used to be shown regularly in Hong Kong film retrospectives. In those movies, which combine light comedy with amazing stunts, Chan is essentially a modern day Buster Keaton.

Keaton is by far my favorite of the early silent screen comedians. His stories seem casually improvised but are clearly carefully planned and rehearsed. The plots are very sketchy. The core of the movies is Keaton’s remarkable athletic ability. In some ways the natural descendants of Keaton’s films are Gene Kelly’s dance movies: all the director needs to do is put the camera down and watch.

Chan’s more recent American films, like the Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon series, are much less interesting. The stunt work is toned down significantly and the comedy is more heavy-handed and basically pretty dumb. On the other hand, the plots make more sense–like Keaton, Chan’s earlier films don’t bother with much in the way of plot or character development.

Chan of course differs from Keaton in the use of Chinese martial arts. Keaton always ducks out of fights in his movies. In many of his movies Chan tries to duck out but fails. He is an excellent on-screen fighter, but unlike, say, Bruce Lee, often puts himself up against somebody who, at least in the story and choreography, is better. The fight scenes are fun but are not usually the best parts of his best films–the best parts are the other action scenes. That said, the fight scenes at the end of Wheels on Meals (with Benny Urquidez, a successful martial arts fighter in real life competitions) and Drunken Master II (with Ken Lo) are absolutely amazing.

It would be a real shame if Chan’s legacy in the U.S. is the films he made with American actors. Hopefully his earlier Hong Kong films will be the ones that are remembered.