Mr. Nice Guy - Erst kämpfen, dann fragen

C'mon, all of you! Throw some more votes into the pot if you've seen enough out of everything! Jackie Chan's recent movies including MR. NICE GUY show their prescnce in the Hollywood mainstream thanks to a special ingredient: originality. Take your pick at RUMBLE IN THE BRONX and thereafter! Impressive and fast stunt choreography from TV chef Chan is astounding and well done, something that highly trained professionals have died for. Voices aren't dubbed this time around, but Chan's accent takes some learning. The touch of comedy is another welcome feature, making this one specially entertaining. Fat bicyclist steals the show for fighting back, and the end outtakes are a nice bonus. There are a couple of gripes, though. MR. NICE GUY tends to run the same route as R.I.T.B. from start to finish (like the giant truck finale), and it could have been less on stupidity, but as I said before, the comedy was welcome. More movies like this would (almost) put James Bond 007 in the retirement home! Another must-see for action buffs! Another must-have for the fan of Chan!

Melbourne, Australia, TV Journalist Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) tapes evidence against drug lord Giancarlo (Richard Norton), but on her way away , she is spotted and has to escape . Chinese Jackie (Jackie Chan) is a well known television chef who accidentally gets involved with the news reporter who filmed a drug bust that went awry and is now being chased by gangs who are trying to get the video tape . But when Jackie's visiting sweetheart Miki (Miki Lee) gets abducted for the tape as ransom.

Jackie Chan's vehicle with plenty of over-the-top action , thrills , explosions , ingenious stunts , tongue-in-cheek and amusing music . This exciting movie is packed with adventure , intrigue , unstopped action , overwhelming stunt-work and lots of fights but with humor . Jackie Chan is top-notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous nasties led by Richard Norton and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights movie include spectacular brawls in a mall , Jackie in a crane , jumping down a building , on a roof , in a globe , impressive and interminable fights with Chan dangling and downing , a funny door games , a breathtaking final full of destruction with a giant truck and other extraordinary action sequences in overwhelming style . This is a diverting action movie distinguished by nice cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entry . In the film appears known Outback secondary actors as Rachel Blakely , Barry Otto and Gabrielle Fitzpatrick as an intrepid reporter . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actors as Sammo Hung here as an unfortunate cyclist and also filmmaker and actresses as Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh . In this outing Jackie contends a notorious Kung-Fu actor , Richard Norton , a fine action star in their own right and with a relatively successful career , that stands out as a masked ninja, in ¨Octagon¨ (1980), and their grueling final combat endures as a classic cinematic fight scene , director Robert Clouse chose Norton to be one of the ensemble heroes in ¨Force Five¨ (1981), an international hit, and the young martial artist's career in movies took off , his reputation for stellar performances emerged largely from high-energy Hong Kong films directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo and starring Jackie Chan in the mid-'80s. Muscular charisma made Norton the perfect Anglo bad boy for ¨Winners and sinners¨ (1985) and ¨Millionaires Express¨ . His collaborations with Cynthia Rothrock catapulted him to a high level of fame . Sammo Hung encouraged Norton to play in ¨Superchef¨ the "Guy" nemesis, a well-heeled gangster, with eccentric edginess, Norton embraced the assignment and delivered one of the best , though some excessive, co-starring performances in all of Chan's films.

¨Superchef¨ is a passable action movie distinguished by ferocious sequences , and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's former and subsequent entries . Furthermore , moving and thrilling original musical score fitting to action . Good cinematography by Raymond Lam filmed in Chinatown Mall, Fortitude Valley, Queensland, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia . The picture achieved success in China and around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan usually pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . Chan is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career . He went on playing ¨Cannoball¨ , ¨The protector¨ and "Rumble in the Bronx", until getting all American success with ¨Shangai Knights¨ , ¨The tuxedo¨ , ¨Around the world in 80 days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his biggest hits were ¨The Police story¨ series that won the Golden Horse Award, a Chinese version of the Oscar , the first was titled ¨Police story(1985)¨ directed by the same Chan , it was a perfect action film for enthusiastic of the genre ; the following was ¨Police story 2(1988)¨also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches. It's followed by ¨Supercop¨ or ¨Police story 3¨ and finally, ¨Police story IV : Crime story . ¨Superchef¨ rating : Acceptable and fun film that has its sensational moments here and there , but also with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie . It's a satisfying action film for enthusiast of the genre and specially for Jackie fans .

In my review of 'Who Am I?', I mentioned that 'Rumble in the Bronx', 'First Strike', 'Mr Nice Guy', and 'Who Am I?' all followed a similar formula as Jackie tried to capture western audiences. After watching 'Mr Nice Guy' again, I was actually kind of surprised to realize that it was almost a carbon copy of 'Rumble in the Bronx' - a Rumble in Melbourne's Central Business District, anyway.

Giancarlo (Richard Norton), Melbourne's top drug lord is angry because Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) has a tape that incriminates him. Jackie (Jackie Chan), a TV chef and arse-kicker extraordinaire comes into possession of the tape, making Giancarlo angry enough to kidnap Jackie's girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee). This makes Jackie angry. The end.

Wow. It seems like I've written out the whole plot and embellished upon it rather than summarized it. I'm just kidding - or am I? 'Mr Nice Guy' might be a contender for the thinnest plot in the universe prize, and the so called "supporting actors" don't even seem to be trying to act. Almost everything that happens in 'Rumble in the Bronx' is recycled for this. Unfortunately, the hovercraft was replaced by heavy machinery. Nothing can be an adequate substitute for Rumble's hovercraft.

Jackie kicking arse is the only reason for anyone to watch 'Mr Nice Guy'. It doesn't feature anything new or innovative, but any keen fan of Jackie should notice various 'Protector', 'Police Story' or 'Rumble in the Bronx' moments. It is a fun and exciting action film though, and that's what Jackie is all about.

And now for something completely different: Yet again, 'Mr Nice Guy' features Jackie playing a character called Jackie. I'm convinced that Jackie quit acting for several years, and took up a life as a cop, spy, chef, etc. All the while he had a film crew filming his adventures in order to create easy action movies. It's the only logical explanation - the writers can't be that lazy, right?

'Mr Nice Guy' reeks of being direct to video, but that doesn't stop it from being a fun action movie. Fans of Jackie Chan or Sammo Hung should give this a look - 7/10

Thin on plot and fat with exciting stunts, Jackie Chan's "Mr. Nice Guy" is more like a speedy carnival ride than a movie. Chan plays a television chef who gets mixed up with a female reporter with an incriminating videotape that drug lords are after. Along the way Jackie Chan has his prerequisite close calls and death defying stunts mixed with his affable humor. All the stunts are good ones and there's a set-piece that requires Chan to escape his enemy in an unfinished building where all the blue doors are already installed that is my favorite. It's quite a farce having people opening and closing doors in pursuit and escape and never knowing who or what's behind the next door. One extended scene is a guilty pleasure for me and involves Chan commandeering a large earth moving vehicle and wreaking havoc with it. When I say large, I mean LARGE. The tires alone must be 12 feet tall in and of themselves. It's pretty cool to see the devastation this vehicle incurs. A fun film. Had the plot itself been a bit more thickened my rating would've been higher.

The thinnest plot imaginable (1: Bad guys think Jackie has an incriminating tape, 2: Bad guys go after him), but it doesn't matter; the movie serves up one virtuoso action sequence after another, and some priceless comic dialogue as well ("Oh my God, you want the tape too? If you find it PLEASE take it"). Jackie was 43 when this was filmed, but he sure hadn't lost a bit of his physical dexterity. This film is much better in every way than his American "breakthrough" hit, "Rumble In The Bronx", and Richard Norton makes an enjoyable villain. (***)