Thunderbolt - Sfida mortale

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.

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.

First off, I found the plot a bit problematic at times. Not atypical for a Chinese movie, no offense to the Chinese movie makers intended.

As a race fan, the auto racing scene did not look realistic to me much of the time. I read that they drove at slower speeds and sped up the film, which is exactly what it looks like. They are going way too fast for sports cars in some scenes.

Besides the excess speed, the cars are not smooth. Skilled race drivers are not driving all over the track - that would obviously cause you to lose time, and probably control :) Not a big deal maybe to a general audience, but people familiar with racing will notice it.

Some of the fighting scenes were pretty good, as expected. I did not feel my time was wasted. I just wish they had done the racing in a more realistic way.

Jackie Loh Chan is a motor mechanic whose father helps the police identify illegally modified vehicles to confiscate them from boy racers plaguing the area. During one such confiscation Chan witnesses a car evade capture and almost kill a policeman. The police are after this car as the driver is suspected to be criminal and speed freak Cougar – wanted across the world by several different Governments. Chan gets involved in a high-speed chase that results in the capture of Cougar but when he escapes he targets Chan for a violent second race.

Jackie Chan movies are never the best place to look if you're after strong plotting and well written dialogue and this is no different. The plot itself is very basic and quite full of holes – it's even pretty thin in explaining how Chan gets mixed up in the police business originally. But like I said plotting is never his main thin and only occasionally does the weakness of the plot become annoying – mainly when the drama is played out in words exchanged.

At these points the weaknesses of the script are exposed – the dialogue is unconvincing and, sadly, totally lacking in humour, preferring a more hard edged approach. It's a shame cause Chan's better films mix his trademark humour and his amazing stunt work – this has him at his toughest and, while the stunts etc are all great, it's not a good look for him.

While the fighting and driving are all very enjoyable the director occasionally works hard to spoil them – he doesn't do a good job here. Basically all I wanted him to do was set up two cameras and point them at the action. However instead he uses far too many edits and fast cuts to make some fight scenes almost unwatchable. I think specifically to the great scene in the games place. It starts as a tough scene with great martial arts action but the director first edits too quickly and then slows it down in some weird slowmo that blurs everything badly.

The action is all good though – the main car chase on Hong Kong streets is good and most of the fight scenes show off Chan's ability and not just his willingness to put himself at risk. Chan is OK as an actor but the intense emotion required by his hard boiled character is not really him. He seems different without his usual comedy material and is at a stretch several times. Nickel is god-awful as Cougar – he looks like an 80's throwback (think Airwolf with long hair!) and delivers every line with all the character of a stapler. Yuen is better as Amy Yip and is good-looking and natural despite not having a lot in the way of lines. I was pleased to see Wong in the cast and he gets a chance to show off his John Woo credentials in a few scenes. A cheeky bit of casting has Chris Patten (not really him of course) getting blasted by Jackie's car – he was Governor of Hong Kong at the time.

Overall this has sufficient good action to justify watching. However the direction is iffy and it lacks the trademark Chan humour. Still enjoyable to watch for the action but this isn't one of Chan's better efforts.

I saw a very brief summary of this in the paper and wasn't going to watch it because I assumed it was some crummy US tv movie. When I saw it was actually a subtitled hong kong actioner I perked up no end. All kinds of bizarre visions await you in this film including a pachinko parlour fight featuring twenty semi-naked tattooed men which ends with the place filling with pachinko balls, and Jackie Chan being beaten up by his room.

This is slick, expensive-looking stuff, especially the early street-racing scenes which are much more interesting than the standard track racing that dominates the rest of the film. I don't know if it was the effect of the subtitles, but it seemed as though all the english dialogue was really really badly acted, but all the chinese (and japanese?) dialogue was convincing.

However, the main reason for seeing this film must surely be that it's the only kung fu film featuring (former UK Conservative Party Chairman) Chris Patten's haircut.