Movies - Friday, February 12
The Age
Thursday February 11, 2010
The Medallion (2003)Channel Nine, 10pmJACKIE Chan was already 41 years old when the somewhat cheap, amusingly cliched and casually dubbed Rumble in the Bronx finally broke him out of the Asian film market, where he'd long been a superstar. Chan was the anti-Bruce Lee, an uncomplicated good guy somewhat slow on the uptake and incapable of taking advantage, and who, when put to the test, proved to have amazing reflexes and bones that could seemingly carry his weight even when they were broken. His stunts would have given an insurance salesman heart palpitations. Soon after Rumble in the Bronx, he found his Hollywood niche in buddy movies opposite screw-loose screen presences such as Rush Hour (with Chris Tucker) and Shanghai Noon (with Owen Wilson). His Hong Kong co-productions, made €” and often re-edited €” for different markets, didn't always click. The Medallion, directed by long-time associate Gordon Chan, brought Hollywood B-players Claire Forlani, Lee Evans and Julian Sands to Hong Kong for the tale of a police officer who finds a magical medallion that gives him superpowers. It is an odd concept: the whole point of Jackie Chan is that he already has superpowers €” why does he need magic to help him do things no one else can? The film's great crime, however, is a surprising reliance on digital effects. There is something dispiriting about seeing a physically gifted actor being reduced to a sequence of zeroes and ones on a Santa Barbara hard drive.
© 2010 The Age
