The Canton Godfather

This is terrific! One of his most lush, great looking, and well-directed (by himself) films, "Miracles" is engaging, charming and absolutely likable! The humor's perfect, along with the setting, and the cast is wonderful! The fighting, though less prevalent, is in my opinion some of his best work! This one pays great attention to story and detail, and not only is it very entertaining, it's really pretty beautiful to look at, as well....

It is well known that 'Miracles' is one of Jackie Chan's favourite

movies, mainly due to the artistic freedom he got to make it.

We're all accustomed to Jackie Chan movies in the style of the

high octane martial arts action thriller, but up until this production

Jackie had little chance to show off his cinematographic skills,

often criticised for being very one-dimensional in his movie

making. 'Miracles' was the answer to all that.

Having secured the largest budget in HK movie history for this film

(which was yet still extremely modest by Hollywood standards),

Miracles was produced slightly differently from HK films we're

used to. The result was a lavish set with excellent costumes, and

most of all, flowing, extravagant shots throughout the film.

Unfortunately though, the storyline is a bit weak.

This is certainly not the traditional Jackie Chan movie we're used

to, but it is nice to see Jackie show off some of his other skills in

movie making, and that he's not just an all-action hero.

Before Miracles (inspired by Pocketful of Miracles and other films), Jackie had already done several movies set in the early 30s, including Project A and the sequel Project A II where Jackie homages silent movies and recreates stunts by Buster Keaton, etc.

In this film, Jackie creates a film that would let him be recognised as a first-rate director. Miracles is a story of Jackie who gets involved with a local triad gang, who's boss dies proclaiming Jackie to be the new boss. The film follows Jackie's exploits and his quest to make the gang into a non-criminal type gangsters mob.

The film has fantastic camera work and wonderfully detailed in all costumes and the set design. The story is a mis-mash of action and a warm hearted story of Jackie and his relationship with a Lady who sells Roses, and how he buys a rose every day for luck.

When the rose vendor learns her daughter is coming, she breaks down - realising that her lie of her living a grand life will be exposed - and soon Jackie and his mob try their hardest to help the vendor any way they can.

Although this is more story and well acted out script, the film seems slugglish and when action happens its over too quick. Fortuently Jackie throws in some typical comic moments and homages to several silent films as well.

Action fans may be disappointed with the lack of gun-toting gangsters or the lack of tommy guns blazing or lack of kung fu, but the film isn't meant to be for that, its a story based movie.

The film is excellent to watch, but probably not all that great for Martial art fans as it has a lack of genuinely good fight sequences, bar two (one being when Jackie is tested as the new boss and the other being at the end with Billy Chow).

Overall a good movie, but did it really need so much money to be spent on it?

Overall: 6/10.

I didn't even know that Jackie made this movie for a long time. Lavishly shot with all star cast. This is one fantastic movie.

Kwok (Jackie Chan) arrives in Hong Kong looking for a job. Within hours, he's swindled of all his money by Tung (Bill Tung). Lamenting his misfortune, he meets the rose lady who's selling roses. Kwok buys one rose from her. Next thing he knows, he's involved in a gang chase. The chase has the boss fatally wounded. He murmurs in his last breath pointing to Kwok that "This man is the new head". Overnight, Kwok becomes the boss of a crime family. He declares "No more crime and killing", but the old habits die hard. Kwok is called in by Tiger - an another gang boss for negotiations. Each time he goes about his business, he buys a rose from the rose lady to give him good luck. One day, he doesn't find the rose lady. He searches for her, and she's in distress. Asking her why, she confesses that her daughter in Shanghai is getting married to a wealthy man's son. But she's been telling her that she's rich which is so far from the truth, and is afraid that when the groom and his father gets to Hong Kong, and sees her, they will cancel the wedding. Kwok has an idea to make the rose lady look rich, and invite all of other gang bosses and make them act as dignitaries in Hong Kong for the wedding party. But two other rival gangs, and inspector from Hong Kong police is about to foul up the whole plan.

There's action, romance, and lot of feel good scenes in this movie. The story telling, and timing things happen can only be experienced in Jackie Chan movies. The actors all perform better than usual attesting to Jackie's ability as a director. The choreography of the fight sequence is one of the best also.

Anita Mui plays the role of Ming - a singer for Kwok's club, and Kwok's love interest. She's great. Her talent will be missed.

This is one heck of a movie, and one of the best movie Jackie Chan produced in the '80s.

This 1989 Jackie Chan movie differs from most of his usual movie in terms of being less action-filled and having less slapstick comedy in it. This is one of the more 'serious' of movies in his career, although he did manage to put in some comedy elements here and there.

Jackie Chan directed "Miracles" (aka "Qi ji") himself and also starred in it alongside with Anita Mui. The two do have good on-screen chemistry together and do compliment one another well throughout the course of the movie. However, Bill Tung (playing Tung) and Richard Ng (playing Captain Ho) were also really good throughout the movie and added a lot of charm and humor to the movie. I didn't even realize that Biao Yuen had a cameo in the movie until after I checked the full cast list on IMDb, nor did I see Simon Yam as a police man either.

There is, of course, martial arts, stunts and action throughout this movie, as it is a Jackie Chan movie after all. But it is not as prominent a key element to the movie as seen in most of his prior and later work. And with this being a Jackie Chan movie, the action, martial arts and stunts you get is of course excellent and so well choreographed and equally well executed.

The story in "Miracles" is about a newcomer to Hong Kong in the 1930's who is hustled out of his last remaining money. He reluctantly becomes a mafia boss and finds himself trying to do good in a world run by criminals and hoodlums.

I will say that the story was good, although the movie felt a bit too long running at two hours and nineteen minutes. It could have used some trimming down here and there. But all in all, it was enjoyable and a good wholehearted Jackie Chan movie.

The cast in "Miracles" was quite good, with a handful of some very familiar faces (as listed earlier above), especially if you are familiar with the Hong Kong cinema. The cast ensemble did perform well in their given roles and characters.

I think that with this 1989 movie then Jackie Chan also established himself as being capable of branching out to other genres than his all too familiar martial arts action comedies. And that was a good achievement.

All in all, "Miracles" is an enjoyable movie to watch for fans of Jackie Chan and newcomers alike. And for us who are a fan of the traditional Jackie Chan movies then "Miracles" was a much welcomed breath of fresh air and a foray into new territory for the beloved action star.