Xiong mao ji hua

When I sat down to watch the 2024 action comedy "Panda Plan" here in 2025, I was actually looking forward to doing so, as it was a Jackie Chan movie.

But lo and behold, my excitement was cut brutally short, because this movie was cringeworthy in so many ways. It was painful to watch Jackie Chan in this movie, and I have to say that this was definitely a contender for the top three of the worst of Jackie Chan movies, and it is not like there are many of those.

I find it rather impressive that three writers collectively could manage to put together a laughable heap of a storyline that this turned out to be. The movie had next to no coherent storyline whatsoever.

The only familiar face on the screen was Jackie Chan. I have to say that the acting performances in the movie were not overly great, and Jackie Chan seemed like he was forced against his better judgement to star in this dumpster fire of a movie.

I watched a terribly dubbed version of the movie, and even Jackie Chan was dubbed, just adding to the cringe that is "Panda Plan". It is simply baffling that dubbing still takes place in this day and age. And just to add insult to injury, then the dubbing was atrociously bad.

The panda cub in the movie was CGI animated, and not impressively so.

What keeps the movie afloat and elevated from being a total bottom scraper, is the archetypical Jackie Chan action and stunts.

My rating of "Panda Plan" lands on a three out of ten stars.

International movie superstar Jackie Chan is all tired from filming his new movie and wants a worthy break. The non-filmy activities doesn't excite him much until he is convinced to adopt a baby panda at the Noah zoo. Unknown to him and others, the baby panda's kidnapping is planned and the deal is made with a group of mercenaries. When they make the move to kidnap the baby panda, Jackie Chan has to step up and do what he does best on screen to save the baby panda.

What the film gets somewhat right are the action sequences which are not entirely fun but atleast not outright bad. It's fun to see Jackie Chan doing those stuff for the millionth time and he stays committed. Setting aside the meta references, the film fails in it's attempt to strictly aim at the kids and the stale jokes don't appeal to anybody irrespective of the age. The supporting characters remain irrelevant and overact at cue which would have been okay for the 80s or 90s but not now. I am not being lenient is because after a long time I watched an English dubbed version and I was not happy with the dubbing at all. Having said that, I doubt I would have enjoyed this better in it's original language either.

Uniquely looking panda bear Hu Hu is born at Noah Zoo amusement park. An Arab prince is willing to pay any price for it. Soon, criminals are trying to kidnap Hu Hu for the bounty. Movie star Jackie Chan gets invited to adopt Hu Hu. He, his agent, and the zookeeper try to save the panda from the criminals.

This film has Jackie Chan going to an amusement park. I would hate going to this all-panda themed park. It looks modern and dead inside. Then there are the CGI animals. I'm not necessarily talking about Hu Hu. I understand the need for some CGI on that. It is all the other unnecessary fake-looking CGI animals in the background. Talk about dead inside. I do appreciate that Jackie tries to do some of his action stunts. He's an old man and shouldn't be expected to do that much. I did laugh once when the girl asks him those two questions. It's a funny safe meta joke. On the other hand, I do not like the ending where they try to salvage the villain. It completely destroys the stakes. All in all, this is pretty bad.

Bad CG. Bad writing. Bad... everything. A high budget, low effort project designed to appeal to those with little to no expectations.

Barely even scraps by as a silly ride for children with gags and jokes that very rarely lands on target.

And our poor little panda. A poor excuse of a bundle of pixels, which would look great and adorable on its own, but it is cheaply shoved it into scenes, as if it was another unwelcomed Chinese actress there to appeal to impressionable men for the mainland.

Come to think of it, this whole project stinks of someone who had money hell bent on making a movie because he had a genius idea... that nobody believed in.

Upside? Seems like they had fun making the movie.

Good for them.

Whoever casted all the russian actors in the movie should never do any casting ever in his life. Especially the russian actor that played the role of the father of the child. The acting is so bad. Its only jackie chan doing mini stunts and thats it. Not worth going to the cinema for this movie.

Whoever casted all the russian actors in the movie should never do any casting ever in his life. Especially the russian actor that played the role of the father of the child. The acting is so bad. Its only jackie chan doing mini stunts and thats it. Not worth going to the cinema for this movie. Not at al.