Shanghai Noon
a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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Shanghai Noon, Tom Dey’s high-spirited new action comedy, is a winner.
While the formula’s familiar, the dialogue crackles and the action’s ablaze. It never takes itself seriously for a moment. And while a troubling western boastfulness (“The U.S. is so much better and wiser than the East”) is squirm-inducing, Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan make the adventure a barrel of fun. In a summer when the special-effects-extravaganza blockbusters have been disappointments, here’s a movie that doesn’t promise much, but delivers plenty. It’s the same kind of guilt-free, old-fashioned, get-your-five-bucks’-worth good time that made The Mask of Zorro a pleasant summertime surprise two years ago.
It’s 1881. A Chinese princess (Lucy Liu) is about to enter a forced marriage, and she’s less than impressed with her husband-to-be. What to do when home gets difficult? Go to America, of course. So Princess Pei-Pei makes a secret deal to travel to America, where her plans go terribly awry and she ends up in the hands of a nasty slavemaster who has made a hellish forced labor camp for Chinese immigrants. Meanwhile, the Emperor sends members of the Imperial Guard off to find her and bring her home.
One of those guards is a bumbling oaf named Chon Wang (pronounced, of course, John Wayne.) Chan soon finds himself traveling solo across the old American West in search of his beloved princess, telling himself the story of The Frog Prince as he dreams of winning Her Highness’s favor. Along the way, he is welcomed into an Indian Tribe, finds himself friends and enemies, and takes up with an arrogant, simple-minded outlaw in hopes that he can finish his quest against all odds.
That outlaw, Roy O’Bannon, is played by Owen Wilson, who can take a lot of credit for this film’s success. His mix of Dennis Hopper’s half-sane, bug-eyed enthusiasm and Brad Pitt’s roguish, arrogant machismo makes for an entertaining combination. There’s even a dash of Jeff Goldblum’s “This is easy!” demeanor in his nervous banter during gunfights. He’s dumb enough to trust a villain to set the rules of a gunfight, but valiant enough to sacrifice his vigilante reputation in order to save his friends.
And Jackie Chan gets kudos too, for being so willing to share the spotlight. This seems to be the first movie in which the affair doesn’t feel like a forced repackaging of an Eastern celebrity into a Hollywood star. Chan brings what he usually brings to a role; contagious energy, brilliant martial arts in service of comedy, and the same kind of over-the-top cheer that Roberto Begnini exudes on and off camera. You can tell he loves what he’s doing.
There’s something of a slump in the second act. Chon and Roy end up soaking in tubs at a whorehouse, far less interested in the girls than in their own mid-bath drinking games. That sequence slows the pace considerably, but there’s a full-recovery when the heroes and villains all converge on a chapel for a Mexican standoff (in which, the villain observes, “We don’t got any Mexicans.”)
Director Tom Dey (Bad Boys 2) strikes just the right tone of comedy and adventure. The action scenes are whimsical and spirited, the soundtrack suitably traditional (except for some annoying tangents into electric guitar), and the sets elaborate and convincing. Of course, there is a barfight, a jail break, a duel in the street, and guns that refuse to shoot more than the six bullets they were given no matter how hard the shooter pulls the trigger. The backgrounds are crowded with the usual standbys of dusty cowboys who make a better argument than any dentist for better dental hygiene. And the Indians aren’t any more authentic or politically-correct than those in Disney’s Peter Pan.
The villains, the stereotypical Bad Sheriff and the Chinese slavemaster, lack the detail and development that might have made them memorable. But this is such a light-hearted affair it would seem incongruous for something to make us sit up and come close to the edge of their seats. Yosemite Sam might have walked through the saloon and I wouldn’t have blinked. Better, in preposterous plot like this, to let the bad guys remain relatively uninteresting, keep it simple and playful, and don’t ask too much of the audience.
The film is, however, sorely flawed in its treatment of Eastern culture. Throughout, Chon and Roy are given dialogue that exalts the United States and condemns the traditions of the Princess’s home. While it may be true that Imperial China was guilty of heinous crimes, it is hardly appropriate to say that the life of a self-serving “free spirit” is the answer to all the world’s ills. When Billy asserts, “The sun rises in the East, but it sets in the West”, his words are meant to be a boast, but I couldn’t help hearing a strange foreboding in the pronouncement. Indeed, something bright and beautiful is “setting” here in this wilderness of vigilantes, evil lawmen, and every-man-for-himself. Namely, the beauty and strength that comes from a people who work together and serve each other, the elegance that makes the first scenes of Imperial China in this film strikingly beautiful. Perhaps it would have been better to hear them discuss a fusion of values, a meeting of minds.
But never mind. I have already spent more time making this complaint than the movie spent provoking me. I doubt anyone will walk away any more prejudiced than they already were. This is summertime entertainment, after all, and so we’re lucky to get away with only one objection. Verdict: One quibble, but many memorable bits.
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Director – Tom Dey
Writer – Alfred Gough and Miles Millar
Director of photography – Dan Mindel
Edited by Richard Chew
Music – Randy Edelman
Production designer – Peter J. Hampton
Producers – Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber and Jonathan Glickman
Touchstone Pictures/Spyglass Entertainment. 110 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
STARRING: Jackie Chan (Chon Wang), Owen Wilson (Roy O’Bannon), Lucy Liu (Princess Pei Pei), Brandon Merrill (Indian Wife), Roger Yuan (Lo Fong), Walton Goggins (Wallace) and Xander Berkeley (Van Cleef).