Jackie Chan - Fire Dragon

It isn't the greatest film of all time, of course, but it is certainly one of the oddest. No matter how many times I see this film (and I've seen it quite a bit) I never get tired of the relentless, manic energy this film spews from the screen.

The plot is so inane that I'm tempted to ignore it. It may or may not take place during the Second World War- in any case, the Japanese invade Canada, and, in the process, capture Abraham Lincoln and a handful of other dignitaries. This situation is of course intolerable to our Chinese allies, who immediately hire a crack team of mercenaries to rescue the captives. Wackiness ensues.

At various points we encounter a village full of leopard skin-clad amazons led by some guy in a tuxedo, a haunted house full of hopping zombies, a ridiculous song & dance number in a restaurant, and an army of Japanese Road Warrior-style Nazis who surf on top of old American muscle cars. The movie is hilarious, and, as far as I'm concerned, a must watch.

A hectic martial arts farce, it's a hard movie for casual fans to accept. Drinking helps. By our collective second beer, we stopped caring about glaring anachronisms and Benny Hill-like comedic sequences and just started whooping like baboons at the film's many hilariously bad "high points."

Apparently this is the "Good, Bad and the Ugly" of chop-saki flicks, inasmuch as every character gets his or her own ten-minute introduction to the audience. Yes, there is minimal Jackie, but he makes up for it with a well-choreographed fight scene against a dozen amazon warriors (played by women in the closeups, by men during the stunt sequences) all the while holding a chicken.

Other highlights include a houseful of decapitated, blood-sucking ghosts which falls somewhere between Disneyland's Haunted Mansion and Roger Corman's Death Race 2000; Plus, a young Kate Bush kicking butt in her vinyl thigh-high red booties; Also, Fans of the "Sharp Object Injury to the Butt" school of comedy won't be disappointed.

As for the undubbed musical number at the beginning of the film, what can I say that hasn't been said before? It was at once both mind-bendingly horrible and unspeakably fantastic.

Well worth the $2.99 I paid for it. As long as you approach it as a novelty film rather than expecting a "Drunken Master" out of it, you'll be cheerfully repeating "But first you must call me 'papa.'" with glee and fond memories for days following.

"Oh, Jackie Chan's not in the movie enough.. All these in-jokes no one could POSSIBLY appreciate.. And it doesn't make any sense! Yikes, I'd better come to the conclusion that it's a bad film, and real quick like, lest my hipster friends think me a FUN-ster." Go away. You, who knows nothing of the beautiful Brigette Lin, or Jimmy Wang Yu, star of countless "one-arm" kung fu films, or Jackie Chan for that matter. Go listen to your Radiohead, and read your Spin. Ignorance is truly bliss. To the true fu fans out there, and to the ones that can appreciate original, unusual films like this, I offer props. Mad ones, even. It's World War II.. sort of. From a heavy drug-user's perspective, I suppose. The Japanese (always the Japanese), in a desperate attempt for world conquest, kidnap 4 generals, and one of them is Abraham Lincoln. Various miscreants and misfits from all walks of life are assimilated into an elite military unit, by one super-tough and, this time villainous Mr. "Jimmy" Wang Yu. It's their job to rescue the generals, in four days. This plot may seem contrived, aside from the Abraham Lincoln part maybe.. but it's the way it's carried out, the way this film takes so many different, weird directions at once. Plot twists, you might call 'em. But these are REAL plot TWISTS! None of that, "Ohh.. so HE was on the bad side. Okay." Who's expecting these guys to be fighting flying, color-rope wielding amazons one minute, then playing Mah Johng with ghosts in a haunted mansion the next?? I didn't. I don't suspect anyone else saw it coming either. And this film is so FILLED with such inexplicable and genuinely funny goings-on.. with KUNG FU to boot! And good KUNG FU at that! "But what about the ending, oh it sucked.." Again, WRONG. The way this film ends, and I daren't give it away, NEVER: suffice it to say, it is one of the most nihilistic and insane conclusions to any film ever made. It's as though the film makers, not content to have merely warped your mind with a whole 90-or-so minutes of brilliant, unheard-of plot developments and VERY competent action (especially from Brigette Lin, Jackie Chan too, natch.), they go the WHOLE nine yards by slapping on an ending that could not have taken more than 2 minutes to conceive, but it stands now and forever as the cinematic pinnacle of "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??" You won't be disappointed in this film, not one bit. Well.. no, there are SOME people that don't like it. There's a good chance that these same folks find the musings of Alanis Morisette to be "thoughtful," "energetic," "liberating," and maybe even "scathing." Egad..

What sets this movie apart from other, less funny, movies is a scene near the end. It's supposed to be World War 2. The Nazis are coming, but in old junk American cars from the 60s. They even have swastikas spray painted on the side of them. As far as great scenes in awful movies, it doesn't get any better than that!

My God. I don't really know what to say.. I expected your usual old-school Chan flick. Not even Close. It's a movie about a bunch of goofy characters on a mission to save some people.. I think. Either way, it is TOTAL fantasy with that strange slapsticky Asian comedy that us westerners just don't quite get. Totally off the hook, and here's the clincher. Jackie isn't even a main character! Just an old movie he did as a favor for Jimmy Wang Yu (I think) repackaged under Jackie's name for obvious reasons (moolah).

Definitely one of the strangest movies I have ever seen.