Tigri all'assalto

I went to see RAILROAD TIGERS because Jackie Chan is in it... and found a nice mix of comedy and drama as an inept group of railroad thieves during the Second World War discovered they were Chinese first and out for themselves second.

I have been watching a goodly number of Chinese movies in the theaters over the last few years and have been impressed by the manner in which those movies mix and match elements from genres that, for more other national cinemas, seem impossible; a movie might start as a Noir caper, turn into a coming-of-age romance and mutate into a time-travel story. So, looking at RAILROAD TIGERS, I don't see much stretching. Service comedies began to penetrate the cinema with WHAT PRICE GLORY? in the 1920s; comedies in which thieves and con men discover a love of country so fierce that they are willing to die for it were handled well in the 1940s with MR. LUCKY; so this movie, which starts off as slapstick and ends in a desperate, deadly battle, is neither disrespectful nor unprecedented. It is simply well done, thanks to Mr. Chan and and a cast and crew that includes a fine performance by Kai Wang as the former warlord's soldier who finds his commitment to China in the face of Japanese oppression.

Finally a nice Jackie Chan movie, that reminds on the old days and let forget the so many bad movies he has done in the last decade. This one is funny, full of action, with a good cast including a cameo of andy lau. Even more enjoyfull speaking chinese and some japanese, so I recommand to watch in original, because much more fun. Also great to see jackie acting together with his son. Could be about 15 minutes shortes, but still nice jackie-movie.

A good Jackie Chan movie is about the slapstick action scene and the death defying stunt works and this movie have some of it but the rest is pretty disappointed.Directed by Ding Sheng who you may familiar with movie like:Little Big Solder(his best works yet) and Police Story Lockdown.Railroad Tigers is one again a action war comedy movie staring Jackie Chan as the leader of a bunch of railroad worker fighting again The Japanese in China 1941.With a plot sound very historic and epic the movie we got is a slow pacing movie over 2 hours full of dull character when they make unfunny jokes and bad decision left to right both from the good guys to bad guys.The horrible CGI train robbery to weird movie jump cut scene through out the movie almost make this unwatchable but thank to Jackie Chan movie charm on screen,a couple of good stunt work and a epic shootout scene in the finale saving this this movie from becoming a disaster

Jackie Chan leads a motley crew of Chinese resistance fighters, called the Tigers, against their Japanese occupiers. Their main mission will be to sabotage and blow up a railroad bridge that is a vital Japanese supply route.

Although some of the slapstick comedy works at times, I felt the movie was severely hampered by very drawn out action sequences that become quite tedious. In my opinion, this could have been a better film with a 90 minute running time, instead of being over 2 hours.

All in all, this movie, directed by Ding Sheng, just meanders way too much and loses focus. Therefore, the rather low rating on my part.

One is never too late for a Jackie Chan's movie, especially a comedy action movie of his. First of all, the way the story plot being presented is very straight forward like, literally doing a presentation with sub-titles of what to expect in the scenes as we go along. It's clean cut in such a way and you won't feel any interruptions. And with the theme on, 'let's do something big in this lifetime' coming out from average railroad workers, you know you are going to be in for rides filled with laughters. The bgm matched well with the scenes and helped to raise the dramatic-ness from the comedic aspects.

To me, the most crucial point of this movie fell on the good chemistry among the quite star-studded casts. They matched each other so well in their rhythms and one can really feel their comrades and brotherhood, which at times really what made their actions/sayings funny. There were many times that I was really laughing my heads off and I knew this movie is such feel-good humor movie worth watching. I like how Jackie Chan was not a one-man show in this movie and helped to bring out the acting skills of others casted in this movie through their interactions. In fact, it was an eye opening for me to see Wang Kai with his supposedly 'cool-I-know-what-I'm-doing-in-war' Fan Chuan character turned out to be a hilarious character with his constant 'rational' thinking. Another hilarious character akin to Fan Chuan was the Japanese Captain played by Ikeuchi Hiroyuki, which I see in the movie as to now wonder why he and Fan Chuan 'battling' it out the most.

I got to admit that my initial thought before I started to watch this movie was half expecting it to be typical China-produced war era movie, focusing much on patriotism. However, despite this movie having its patriotic moment, it wasn't shove down the audience throat like the usual ones. The feeling of "patriotism" (wanting for the freedom fighters to win despite their average tricks and fighting skills) was somewhat built into me as I watched the progress of how desperate this group of average men, dreaming of doing big things as they kept putting it in the movie, wanted to help the army to blow up the bridge.

I am not the type who rewatch but if I ever do catch this movie on TV or something, I won't mind rewatching just for the laughters.