Jackie Chan pilote de l'extrême

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.

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.

I'm a die hard Jackie Chan fan, but "Thunderbolt" is, along with "Battle Creek Brawl/The Big Brawl" and "Cannonball Run" the worst of Jackie Chan's movies.

When you sit down to watch a Jackie Chan movie, what do you expect? Cunning stunts, cool fighting scenes, slapstick, silly comedy etc etc. There are two, maybe three fighting scenes in "Thunderbolt" and they're pretty good. But the stunts aren't much to cheer for, the only thing we get is crashing cars and car chases. Which I totally despise. And there aren't a lot of comedy either. The lack of comedy, that I can live with. Because after all, this is more of a serious film, which isn't a bad thing at all, since Jackie gets a chance to prove to everyone that he really can act and that he's not just a Cantonese Buster Keaton clone with a big nose.

The second thing I have a big problem with the directing and the camera work. Gordon Chan (a relative?) does a pretty bad job directing, using lots of close ups and fast cuts, which makes it hard to get a grip of what's really happening. He should take a close look at what Jackie did as a director, especially in "The Armour Of God" and "Operation Condor". Also, trying to make slow motion sequences by simply slowing down 24 frames/sec footage... Not a good idea. It'll look like crap, to be blunt. It would have looked a lot better with at least 48 frames per second.

This might seem very pedantic, but I'm afraid these little details ruined the movie for me, although the all the actors did great jobs. Sorry.

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.

As review title says, this is one of Jackie Chan's weak movies if not the weakest. Nowhere near to the legendary Police Story 1-2! The action scenes are weak, characters are not complex enough, story is poor, etc. Race scenes are very mixed. Some scenes are very good, but others are very poor. Especially those 2x-3x speed scenes make the movie not so good. And there is a fight scene with a very bad effect (some kind of slow-mo, but looks awfull). I'm sad to say this, I like a lot of Chan movies, but this one is a must-skip.