★★½
(M) 124 minutes
Now in his early 60s, Jackie Chan seems very much a figure from a bygone age – and not just because he's far past his physical prime.
More Trailers Videos
- Video duration
- 01:04
Trailer: Railroad tigers
Trailer: Railroad tigers
A railroad worker in China in 1941 leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese in order to get food for the poor.
Up Next
Trailer: Revolting (The Real Housewives of ISIS)
- Video duration
- 01:46
- Video duration
- 01:46
Trailer: Revolting (The Real Housewives ...
Trailer: Revolting (The Real Housewives of ISIS)
A BBC2 comedy series satirising the state of the nation.
Up Next
Trailer: Gold
- Video duration
- 01:45
- Video duration
- 01:45
Trailer: Gold
Trailer: Gold
From director Stephen Gaghan and starring Matthew McConaughey, Bryce Dallas Howard and Edgar Ramirez comes an incredible true story of one manâs dream to find gold.
Up Next
Trailer: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
- Video duration
- 02:23
- Video duration
- 02:23
Trailer: Lemony Snicket's A Series of ...
Trailer: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
We regretfully present you with the official trailer, a word which here means a collection of the unhappy happenings surrounding the lives of the three Baudelaire orphans and one despicable Count Olaf.
Up Next
Trailer: The Music of Strangers
- Video duration
- 02:28
- Video duration
- 02:28
Trailer: The Music of Strangers
Trailer: The Music of Strangers
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and other international artists of The Silk Road Project discuss their philosophies on music and culture.
Up Next
Trailer: The New Celebrity Apprentice (sneak peak)
- Video duration
- 02:53
- Video duration
- 02:53
Trailer: The New Celebrity Apprentice ...
Trailer: The New Celebrity Apprentice (sneak peak)
Sixteen celebrities are set to compete when The Celebrity Apprentice shifts to Los Angeles for its eighth season, where Arnold Schwarzenegger reigns over the Boardroom.
Up Next
Trailer: Bright Lights
- Video duration
- 01:53
- Video duration
- 01:53
Trailer: Bright Lights
Trailer: Bright Lights
Starring Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, Bright Lights is a documentary about their warm-hearted relationship.
Trailer: Railroad tigers
A railroad worker in China in 1941 leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese in order to get food for the poor.
As a 20th-century megastar, he was able to trade on our knowledge that he really was performing his breathtaking stunts in front of the camera, establishing a complicity with his audience that would no longer be possible after action cinema was transformed by digital effects.
Yet Chan, a born entertainer, isn't about to slip quietly into retirement. In the new action comedy Railroad Tigers there are almost none of the acrobatics that were his trademark; what remains is the strength of his unassuming persona, the everyman forced to step up and become a hero.
The setting is East China in 1941, and Chan plays the leader of a small group of railway workers who have found their own ways of resisting the Japanese occupation.
Eventually, they graduate from small-scale acts of sabotage to a bigger mission that involves blowing up a bridge – a scenario that allows director Ding Sheng to pay tribute to Buster Keaton's silent classic The General, still the greatest of train movies.
Chan's character here isn't developed very far, but the material he's given is well-suited to his self-deprecating style – banter about his big nose and all. The images are inviting too, especially those which set brightly painted trains against pale wintry skies.
On the other hand, the storytelling is often clumsy, with a pointless present-day framing device and elaborate introductions to characters who prove barely relevant to the plot.
Some of the fighting is played for knockabout comedy; other scenes are casually brutal, even in the absence of blood. These shifts in tone could have been interesting if deliberately used to throw us off balance, but Sheng seems to be hoping we won't notice anything amiss.
All this could be forgiven if the action was spectacular enough. But where it was once possible to build a film simply around Chan's extraordinary physical abilities, here Sheng – who serves as his own editor – has to fuse digital effects, miniatures, stunts and footage of his stars into a seamless flow. Faced with this tricky task, he often falls short.
Certainly, there's nothing here to match the impossible yet thrilling train chase at the climax of Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger – another tribute to The General – let alone the virtuoso blend of practical stuntwork and digital trickery in Mad Max: Fury Road.
0 reviews
New User? Sign up