Who Am I?

This overlong Jackie vehicle looks like a DTV flick (of course it WAS a DTV flick, but that's no excuse), has an exposition-heavy script, and some of the action set-pieces (including the car chase) lack energy, but all's forgiven when we get to the last 20 minutes, where we witness one of the most exhilarating fight sequences ever filmed, followed shortly afterwards by (arguably) THE most breathtaking stunt Chan has ever attempted on-screen - and that's saying something! (**1/2)

Jackie Chan's movie has become modernized since Thunderbolt, and his association with Mitsubishi motors stronger. This movie is the end point or the apex of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong production before he really broke into Hollywood with Rush Hour. Most if not all of his movie since has been of international caliber, not confined to the Asian market.

Jackie Chan is a secret operations commando. He loses his memory while on a mission in South Africa. He gets picked up by the local tribe, then meets a rally driver and saves her brother's life. He becomes somewhat of a local celebrity, but his old colleagues, and South African intelligence is after him.

Jackie Chan is the first Asian asides from the Japanese to successfully created movies of international caliber, and he did this all by himself. The production of this movie is clearly beyond that of traditional Hong Kong movies, and refined to the point of international standards. The movie is beautifully shot, with exciting action scenes that only Jackie Chan seems to be able to create.

This movie has bit more action, and less comedy. Viewer's opinion may vary depending on which side of Jackie Chan movie they prefer to see more of.

Jackie Chan is a special operative, part of an elite military unit who are employed to capture a group of scientist working on a potent force that can be a power source or a weapon of mass destruction. After the job the group is betrayed and their helicopter forced to crash – Jackie is the only survivor. He comes too much later in an African village having lost his memory. When he has regained full strength he begins to try and find who he is – however his ex-employers are also keen to ensure he knows nothing and that they can complete their work.

The story here is solid – not much more can be said than that. It works quite well as a thriller plot but it wouldn't stand up by itself. Happily we have two things saving the plot. The first is the strand of physical comedy that runs through Chan's work – here we have plenty of little jokes scattered around, e.g. Chan is fighting one man and uses the man's tie against him, another man waits to fight Chan but pointedly removes his tie first! The second (and more important) aspect is the fight scenes. For much of the film the action seems to be toned down – indeed there are only 4 or 5 main scenes in the movie where Chan lets rip. However all of these are good, however the final roof top fight (in fact the whole last 20 minutes) is excellent and worth watching the film for.

As always the film doesn't worry about details rather it focuses on choreography. This means we have bad support actors….and we do! It means that things like realism and continuity go out the window…..a car slides on it's side, spins and then turns over again – however seconds later it has no scratches anywhere! And some of the early special effects are a little ropy. Although these are minor problems.

Chan is excellent in the lead and is a real wonder to watch – I wish I could move like him now…never mind when I'm his age. His ability at both martial arts and comedy helps this film immensely. It is hard to fault him for effort.

Overall this is a good Chan movie – it has the same faults as all his movies do, but it's funny, has some good action scenes and ends with a really good conclusion. Well worth watching.

Jackie Chan plays a "special forces" agent in this action/adventure film that is as concerned with spoofing the genre as it is with embracing it. The film starts with Chan and fellow agents descending on a convoy through the "South African jungle" to abscond a handful of scientists who have been working on exploiting unusual properties of a mineral found in the South African mines. With the aid of extensive training and sophisticated technological gadgetry, they complete their mission successfully. But someone in the "squad" is double crossing them. As the men are headed for recreational leave, they're sabotaged. Chan makes it out alive, but barely. He hits his head and acquires amnesia. The bulk of the film has him coping with his situation--he first ends up in the middle of a traditional South African community--while government agents try to track him down and kill him.

There are some details I could not fill in above, because the primary flaw with the film, and this is what brought my score down to an 8, or a "B", rather than a 9 or 10, is that the story is almost absurdly convoluted and difficult to glean (there was also a fair amount of ridiculous English dubbing in the version I saw--it was difficult to tell how intentional the "problems" with the dubbing may have been). But the story isn't really the point; and to the extent that it is, the point may be to make it absurdly convoluted and difficult to glean--this is to a large extent a spoof, after all. More important, the story propels the film from one jaw dropping, action-filled set piece to the next. On a surface level, at least, those set pieces are the raison d'etre of Who Am I. But surprisingly perhaps, Chan, who co-directed and co-wrote the film in addition to starring in it, also has a lot of interesting subtextual things to say.

Most viewers will come to this film as Chan fans. As such, they'll be hoping to see his "trademark" martial arts abilities, impressive stunt work and notorious sense of humor; they will not leave disappointed. During the climax, Who Am I has one of the longer extended martial arts sequences in any Chan film, and it unexpectedly gets back to the basics. For at least ten minutes, Chan fights just two "big baddies" who are close matches in skill. He uses relatively few props and relies very little on moving about his environment in fancy ways.

Of course, there are plenty of props and a lot of well-choreographed, complicated blocking elsewhere. A few of these more ostentatious scenes are intentionally hilarious in their absurdity. One of the most memorable spoof scenes involves an extended car chase. Chan imports physics from an alternate universe for about half of this sequence.

As an adventure film, Who Am I presents a kind of James Bond-like travelogue. We go from the jungles of Malaysia (doubling as South Africa) to the South African plains (where Chan disguises himself as a tribesman) to Namibia for a cross-country 4 x 4 race (partially across what looks like the Etosha Pan) to the Netherlands. Those familiar with South Africa will find it amusing that during one sequence, Chan and the cohorts he picks up along the way travel from the Sun City's Lost City to downtown Johannesburg to Pretoria in a matter of minutes. But this is the movies, after all, and a fantastical work of fiction at that. The varied environments were very well chosen, providing a lot of eye candy while also providing great fodder for comic and action scenes.

While it's funny that Chan's character (who is referred to as "Jackie Chan" at one point) comes to be known as "Whoami" once amnesia sets in, there is much more intended than a silly comic device. It's significant that the film is set in South Africa, a nation with a complicated multicultural history and not a little turmoil over the same. The title isn't just a reference to amnesia or Chan's character; it's a rhetorical question about cultural and ethnic identity. The members of Chan's special forces squadron were all loaded with different passports from different countries. They were told to forget their identities. It's never clear who they were, where they came from or who they were working for--a point is made to not let the audience know, and to not even let us know whether they were "good guys" or not.

Chan has to fit into tribal culture. He becomes associated with a Chinese race team in or near Namibia, and then befriends a reporter who appears half Asian and half Caucasian. The American CIA is prominent in the film. They have their hands in every culture shown in the film. There are subtexts about globalism and how first world technology is affecting the development of non-first world countries. The ease of travel, symbolizing ethnic mobility, is a prominent theme. Chan makes sure that the film ends in the Netherlands, which has had a strong presence and influence in South Africa for hundreds of years. The villainy in the film is centered on building better weapons, which of course tend to be used to annihilate persons from opposing cultures or ethnicities. Cultural and ethnic identity has become far more complex in the last couple centuries than it ever was before, even if it was never the clear issue that many people around the world assume it to be.

That the film is able to bring up such interesting issues, all while awing us with graceful action sequences and making us laugh, makes Who Am I a very enjoyable experience. Chan fans shouldn't miss this one.

Some of the most exciting action movies came out in the 90's, and this espionage gem is no exception, as it keeps you engaged from start to finish with its death-defying stunts - all of which don't feel as forced as they do in other Jackie Chan action flicks - and intriguing blend of humor, drama, and suspense. Taking place across a variety of locations (including South Africa), it's an adventurous epic that gives you a lot to see. The plot also unfolds primarily as a mystery, keeping you guessing to the end, as Jackie is trying to find out exactly why everyone from the secret police to the CIA is after him. Like most Jackie Chan films, there's also a strong reliance on humor, except this film doesn't have nearly as much slapstick as, say, "Police Story", to the point where it becomes annoying. The humor is carefully blended into the proceedings, and even when it reaches unintentional levels, it somehow makes the movie all the more enjoyable.

I won't spoil the various stunts performed in the film, you just have to see them to believe them, but needless to say, they are jaw-dropping. Speaking of jaw-dropping, the rooftop fight, which also serves as the final fight sequence in the film, is one of the best I've ever seen. It goes on for a while, but it's so well choreographed and stunningly executed that you'll want it to keep going for a few more minutes afterwards. The score by Nathan Wang, while nothing remarkable, fits the movie well, and sometimes goes so far as to raise the excitement factor, specifically during the chase sequences. It must be hard for anybody to direct themselves in a film, especially in an action film on such a large scale as this one, but Jackie Chan does so admirably here, alongside Benny Chan. It's some of his best work of the 90's alongside "Operation Condor".