Review of Shanghai Knights (2003) by Jonny Jeremias S — 07 Mar 2013

Shanghai Knights.

08.01.12 at 21.38 - 22.50, Norway.

Let me start of by saying, as I nearly always do. This movie as its prequel, is worthy of a place among my favorite movies. As Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan takes their wild western personalities and eastern fighting style to the streets of London, it would seem they have the entire country against them. As they pursue this mission of theirs they find out, that most of the country is against them.

We go from the orient to Carson City, New York and end up in the capitol city of England, London. This movie is nothing, but fabulous and magnificent, awesome and brilliant. I have nothing negative to say about this movie, at least not right now. If I think of anything I will post a comment to the review.

I love this, I love that, love is a curious thing, don't you think? Love can make you do crazy things you usually wouldn't dream of. Love means many things, but I am not going to stand here like some poet and lecture you on the concept of love. My point was: I love everything about this movie, almost anyhow. And the things I don't love I like very much. I am going to go ahead and mention some stuff that makes the movie so great.

The first thing I am going to mention is of course the indescribably phenomenal choreography, maybe even better than in «Shanghai Noon»! I did not intend to describe the brilliancy of the fighting and choreography, the music and the screenplay, not to start with anyhow, but it looks like I am about to, so hang on to your cowboy hats and beavers.

To the fighting and the stunts I have two words for you: Jackie Chan!, actually that is not two words that is one name, but it is known around the world! Mr. Jackie Chan one of the worlds best actor and stuntman! That in itself should be enough said about that matter.

The music was well timed, if not perfectly. It was suited to the movie of course and it set and controlled the mood of the movie, but I had expected nothing less. Some of it was borrowed, actually, I think most or all of it was. Some of it was well known like the melody from the famous musical «Singing in the rain». Speaking of Singing the rain, they used more than the music from it. They also borrowed, stole or copied, used or improved some of the best choreographed dancing scenes from the musical. They took them and turned them into a violent yet festive musical and dancing routine made of jumps, kicks and flips and punches, grapples, boxes and umbrellas.

This movie has many funny, educational, interesting and especially creative and hilarious moments. What, you don't think it can be educational? Well, it is. It takes on issues like the story behind Jack the rippers death, Sir Artur Conan Doyles source of inspiration and the creation of Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chaplin, the invention of the machinegun and the discovery of Kama Sutra The Art of sexual technique and more. This movie takes us through a tour of the British history. It also takes through the heart of London from Covent Garden to Big Ben to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

It is brilliant this movie! It is pure genius in every possible way you can imagine! I am not going to say It has it all and list up a bunch of things, scenes, places, items, or actions in this movie that makes it great. Usually I would, but I think I will try and mix my writing up a bit.

The acting. There is nothing to say about the acting except that it was flawless and that there is nothing more to say about it. Owen and Jackie both did a great job, had many a hilarious comment, funny expression and shocking action. What I liked about this movie was (no, I am not done with that quite yet) the spoofs, the surprises,and the little things like that Owen likes the Chinese job descriptions, but not the names of the various treats of the finest Scandinavian cuisine. Don't get it? Watch the movie, and you will.

Now this review could have been extremely much longer, but I feel I wrote the same things yesterday when I wrote my review of «Shanghai Noon». So, I am just going to end it here and say that this movie gets 10 stars out of 10 possible ones and a spot on the list of my favorite movies. I have seen it before though, if you wondered.

Bon Soir.

Guten Nacth.

God Natt.

Buenos Noches.

...and Goodnight to the rest of you, may you have a wonderful night and sweet dreams.

«If you have love you can spare everything else».

Yours Truly.

- Shevy.