Review of Shanghai Noon (2000) by Jesse O — 13 Aug 2015

Don't ask me why I decided to watch this movie last night, but I did. As far as Jackie Chan's US expedition, this might actually be one of the best, if not the best. I'd honestly have to watch the first Rush Hour to make that distinction.

I'm not even bothering with Rush Hour 2 or 3, because it's obvious that those aren't any good, particularly Rush Hour 3. Anyway, this is clearly not one of Jackie's best as it relates to action or out of this world stunts, but it does offer a good alternative to that.

With that said, I do think the film spends its sweet time getting to where Jackie and Owen team up with each other, but I still enjoyed everything leading up to that. I will say that, if you're watching on Netflix, and are using the English subtitles, there are lines of dialogue spoken in Mandarin and Sioux that will not be translated into English.

So unless you know mandarin or Sioux, you will not understand what they're saying in any of these scenes. They do, however, show the translations if you used the Spanish subtitles instead of the English ones.

Good thing I come from a Spanish-speaking island. But talk about annoying, it actually took me like 30 minutes before I figured this out. It's not like the first 30 minutes are all in Mandarin and Sioux, but there's still a good chunk of the film that people who only speak English will not be able to pick up on, unless Netflix fixes the English subtitles.

Don't even know why I pointed that out, I guess it just really annoyed the shit out of me. With that said, it's not like I have much to say about this. It's an older movie that isn't really what you would call memorable.

With that said, I did think Jackie's action scenes were probably closer to what he would actually do in Hong Kong than he managed to do on this side of the world. Not that Rush Hour didn't have some of that, but I just think there's more of it here.

And there's some solid chemistry between Owen and Jackie, there's the usual, goofy banter and the growing respect between the two that have been cliches in these films forever, but I found it entertaining regardless.

This is the type of movie that you'll see playing on your local cable channel at 6pm right before the primetime shows come on. It's something that might even be used as background noise. I've probably even used this film as background noise while I do something else, but it is a fun little movie.

It's nothing special and, 15 years later, it's not like anyone actually remembers this. I still think this is a pretty good movie all things considered. I'd recommend it if you have Netflix, it's that type of movie.

Fun stuff that's very easy to watch.