Jackie Chan pilote de l'extrême

This is another action-packed movie starring Jackie Chan, where he plays expert mechanic Chan Foh To who runs a small business in Hong Kong with his father and two sisters. He also helps the police weed out cars that were illegally upgraded, including one driven by street racer Warner Krugerman (Thorsten Nickel). After escaping jail, Krugerman seeks revenge on Foh by trashing his business and kidnapping his sisters, betting to race with Foh.

The acting was OK and the movie features an all-star cast, including cameo appearances by Coren Yuen, Collin Chau, Fui-On Shing and Kar-Lok Chin. Anita Yuen plays a great leading lady opposite Jackie Chan and Chan himself did some of his wildest and adrenaline-pumping martial arts moves, taking on one bad guy after the other. The most wild, and what I thought overkill, action scene is when Krugerman and his goons literally upends Foh's business while he and his father and sisters are caught in the mayhem. Lots of action follow afterward, including a long and somewhat drawn-out race car scenes.

There a little chemistry between Chan and Yuen, but it wasn't elaborated upon much. There are some drama here and there about Chan struggles in trying to overcoming the odds in defeating the villain and getting his sisters back.

Despite much of the exciting action sequences, overall, there isn't much of a suspenseful plot in the film and the story is somewhat predictable.

Grade C+

This moving picture deals with Chan Foh To (Jackie Chan) who runs a small garage in Hong Kong along with his father and two sisters who are abducted and the only way Foh can get his sisters back is by racing cougar in Japan. Foh is an expert mechanic an in his spare time, he also helps the police out by checking vehicles that have been illegally upgraded. One night, heinous street racing driver named Warner Krugerman or Cougar (Nickel), speeds past Foh and the patrolmen . Foh gets into a car and stops Cougar heroically but later takes place the kidnapping his sisters by the psychotic nasty. In order to release his kidnapped sisters , sports car mechanic Jackie Chan has to beat a super-criminal street racer . He now must retrain himself in race car driving so he can be at his best to race Cougar .

Exciting film plenty of thrills , over-the-top action with impressive and interminable fights including Chan dangling and downing, ingenious stunts and stirring music . This thrilling 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 hoodlums and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed at the final stock-shots . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual ; the picture is well constructed as well as Chan's ulterior films . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights of the movie hold several spectacular races , Jackie jumping down and fighting ; including when the nasty Cougar lands in jail, but breaks out eventually on some breathtaking scenes . Furthermore , when Cougar gets revenge on Foh by trashing his garage , a breathtaking final race and other extraordinary action sequences in overwhelming style . This is an acceptable action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entries . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actress as Maggie Chung and Michelle Yeoh . However in this outing Jackie teams up again to Chinese actress , Anita Yeun , Miss Hong Kong 1990 . This is a passable action movie distinguished by ferocious sequences , and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's subsequent entries . The motion picture is professionally directed by Gordon Chan who filmed various Jackie Chan and Jet Li vehicles and several art-martial movies such as ¨Fist the legend¨, ¨Kung Fu master¨, ¨The king of fighters¨and ¨The medallion¨

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 is a fine action star in their own right , he is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career . Chan usually pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . 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 . Rating : Acceptable and passable , the picture 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 perfect action film for enthusiast of the genre though only for Jackie fans .

One of the most important things in a Jackie Chan movie is the direction. It is important for us, the viewer, to be able to clearly see what's going on. If we can't then we might've just rented a generic Steven Seagal-type martial arts movie because the fights in those movies are completely incomprehensible as well.

So then. This movie has some great car-chases and relevant crashes, it has some amazing fight-scenes and a few really cool stunts. Most of it is completely lost due to crap direction. We get slow-motion photography at totally inappropriate moments (in one case even during the middle of a fight) and occasionally we even get an effect that shows 6 frames per second instead of 24. The fact that the camera is always about 5 inches away from the action doesn't help matters.

All in all, it would've been a great movie if it was possible to figure out what was happening on-screen. Pity.

I read somewher that Jackie was still recovering from injuries during this film's shooting, and it's blatantly obvious he is doubled extensively in the fight scenes--the great garage fight features a closeup of this guy's face! You can tell it's not quite him in the pachinko parlor sequence, too. Also, not much chemistry in my opinion between Jackie and Anita Yuen. Fortunately this doesn't hurt too much.

Now the good: Doubled or not, the fight scenes are absolutely great! I almost prefer the earlier garage fight though. They're serious and pretty tough, with the great choreography you'd expect. The serious tone of the film is great, too, you can see Jackie act, and do something different, and I think he pulls it off very well, as usual in his less comedic films. And Michael Wong is just the coolest! I love this guy, he's suave, funny, and good with the action scenes. Always a pleasure to see him, even in trash like "Knock off." I like the villain, too though he's unintentionally funny from time to time. This one's got a darker edge, and a good pace, with the fight scenes i mentioned. One of my favorites, actually.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, but I'd much rather watch a better Chan film, such as "Police Story" or "Legend of Drunken master." The Story was good, and the racing was an interesting Idea, but I don't think there were enough fights, and even when there were fights, bad camera work made it impossible to see what was going on. one good thing about the movie, there was one shootout scene, and it was awesome! This one is a good "Renter" but not a "Buyer." If your a fan of Jackie Chan, you need to see this movie, but don't buy it without seeing it first. This is one of the only Jackie Chan films I won't buy, unless I have a lot of money to spare, and i'm in a store with the DVD in front of me.