Jackie Chan: The Prisoner

I see reviews about this being a decent movie.... Have i been watching something different to everyone else?

The entire thing feels like seven movies all randomly edited together with totally nonsensical plot lines and timings. It's jarring, weird and quite frankly, crap.

The dubbed version obviously made the acting look and sound worse than it probably really was but wow, what an interesting hour and a half this has been.

Also, definitely NOT a Jackie Chan film. He's like a random, almost unnecessary secondary character.

Overall: Loads of unfinished threads, messy ending, messy editing, unanswered questions. 3.5/10.

First of all, this movie doesnt really have main character. There are five of them. Like the original trailer says, "five stories in one", the film is about five main characters, whose life are somehow related to each other. Jackie Chan does a different role in this movie. Role is similiar to Heart of the Dragons. There are only few fight's, but it didnt bother me. I didnt watch this as a Chan movie.

Movie is touching especially the ending. Surprising is the violence level in this movie. Endings big shootout and some other brutal violence too. The way jail-staff(movie happens in jail)treats the main character's made me wanting them to die. Guards are real a***oles.

Movie success as a drama too. Samo Hung's character is most touching. He desperately escapes from jail to meet his son and pays for it, with pain. Ending is surprising and shocking. This movie is very very good. I can recommend this movie to every one who likes HK movies. Great actors. Great plot. Great emotions. I loved it.

Island on Fire (1990) was released in three different version, the Hong Kong theatrical run, the badly dubbed nonsensical U.S. version and the original two hour plus Taiwan cut. The best one out of the three is the Taiwanese print. This film was a "charity" film that was made to help the director who was in some real "financial" trouble with some shady characters.

The director's best friend "Jimmy" Wang Yu called up some actors who "owed" him some favors. The top flight actors did the work for little or no pay. They were making a movie that was going to make some money, not a classic or anything like that. Just a quick film that'll make some fast bucks. Let's take a look at the different prints shall we?

1.) The Hong Kong cut is a fast paced action film. Only the bare bones are left. Little plot is left in the way of seeing some of the actors on the screen. The story is simple, someone is hiring dead criminals to whack important people. Tony Leung Ka Fai get's involved when his fiancée's father get's whacked by the "dead" assassin. After snooping around he finds out that they're coming from a Taiwanese prison. So, old Tony gets himself arrested and his buddy pulls a few strings to get him inside the "big house".

2.) The United States print re-dubs a lot of the scenes making many of them nonsensical. The dialog is drastically changed and some scenes are just re-dubbed (i.e. Jackie Chan is thrown in prison for accidentally killing Andy Lau's brother).

Whilst in prison Andy Lau tries to have some of his inside men try and kill Jackie. Wang Yu doesn't want the prisoners killing each other or stupid things like that. He wants it civil inside. So to placate Lau's men he slices his arm and squeezes out some blood whilst telling them, "Let Lau know that I have bled for his brother, there will be no violence in my prison." Well, to that effect any way.

In the U.S. version he just cuts his arm to show the two how "crazy" he can get. "You wanna see crazy! I'll show you crazy!!" he tells the two as he cut's his arm?! Doesn't make any sense. It goes on like this for ninety minutes! The DVD is horrible, not only is it badly dubbed but the "commentary" is worthless. Hell I know more about the movie than the guy they put on it.

3.) The Taiwanese cut is over two hours long and it fleshes out the characters. Unlike the Hong Kong version, the film is fully subtitled in English (the subs disappear during the last eight minuted in the Hong Kong print). What I like about the Taiwan version is that the true motives of the characters are revealed. The movie makes a lot more sense and you call feel for them. It's also not as jumpy and confusing.

The rest of the movie is real interesting. You'll be in for a surprise by the wild ending and the shocking conclusion!

Highly recommended!

Taiwan print: A+

H.K. print: B

U.S. print: F-

Deranged, but pretty decent prison drama. Jackie's pretty cool in it, playing a somewhat unlikable character. My favorite though is Sammo Hung, who keeps escaping the prison, just to see his son, and the all-star cast is cool to see. It's not really bad, but the ending comes out of nowhere, even though it is cool to see. Jackie did this one to pay back a debt....

With a stellar line up of HK stars including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Tony Leung and Andy Lau (some of whom appeared as a favour to the director, who was in dire financial trouble with some 'dodgy types'), this brutal film mixes emotional drama, savage violence and OTT action to deliver an effective little addition to the prison movie sub-genre.

Tony Leung plays Andy, a cop who gets himself sent to prison after his future father-in-law is murdered by a supposedly executed convict. Whilst trying to figure out how a dead prisoner can become an assassin, he befriends various other prisoners, but himself becomes a target of some of the less desirable characters in the prison.

Those drawn to this film by the presence of 'wacky Jackie' will be sorely disappointed, since Mr. Chan appears in only a few scenes, and even the fights he participates in are not up to his usual acrobatic standard. However, fans of the other big stars should get their money's worth; Prison on Fire may be no classic, but it is entertaining enough to be worth a go.

Anyone who has seen their fair share of prison movies will know what to expect from this kind of affair: nice guy prisoners who we are supposed to root for; bad guys who make our hero's life a living hell; prison escapes and riots; and the occasional 'funny' scene to lift the mood (in this case, Sammo's ogling of a big breasted woman whose car breaks down near to his work detail). This one has it all!

It also has a rather enjoyably silly ending which features loads of gunfire and some slow-motion squib effects, and more disturbingly, a shocking scene which features an Alsatian being kicked in the head (the poor mutt flies through the air and lands awkwardly on its back!).

If you wish to check out this movie, find either the Taiwanese version, or the Hong Kong Legends DVD; the Taiwanese cut features several scenes missing from the US release, whilst the HK Legends disc includes them as an extra.