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Visitors Review

Robin Clifford 2012-05-25 14:14:17

Having Jackie Chan's capable martial arts talents involved in this mix helps to keep the humor level high and the fight scenes exciting.

LetsSee 2012-05-25 01:33:45

Nothing special about this one

Well, being a big Jackie Chan fan, I would have to say that I don't see thisas a smash hit with Hollywood. He always tries to mix comedy, extremeaction (heavy stunts), and a bit of preaching in his recent movies. Andthat includes First Strike, Mr. Nice Guy. Being an action fan, I believethat it's rather difficult to pull everything together. One thing thatneeds to hold everything together is PLOT. The movies he direct usuallylacks a rich plot. I guess one could say too action oriented. If you knowwhat I am talking about here, you have about the general expectation of thismovie.Owen Wilson wasn't a surprise in this movie. I seen him in Jet Li's OnceUpon a Time in America, his unusual behavior as a cowboy can be funny, butsometimes, it's just too much.Like all his other movies, Shanghai Noon was aimed for a younger audience.This is a movie for kids and young teens, as well as elders and people whowant to relax but find some fun within. This is definitely not a movie forraging teens, angry people looking for a release, nor gfx techies.I give this movie a 7.5/10 and mostly based on the funfactor

robertguttman 2012-05-22 20:06:31

A Cross Between Enter the Dragon and Blazing Saddles

Shanghai Noon is a contemporary take on the now-old story of the orientalmartial artist transplanted into the Wild West, that has been done beforewith David Carradine and Toshiro Mifune. Unlike his predecessors, however,Jackie Chan never takes himself or his material seriously. It's all donewith tongue firmly implanted in cheek, rather like a combination of`BlazingSaddles' and `Enter the Dragon'. For example, the name of the hero is`ChonWeng' (pronounced `John Wayne'), a pun that Bruce Lee would never havestooped to.There is also a butt-kicking Chinese princess for the `Mulan' fans. She'svery entertaining and politically correct but, of course, historicallyquiteinaccurate. It never ceases to amaze me what women will do to themselvesinorder to look attractive, and the Western Nations have no monopoly on suchnonsense. In nineteenth-century China, for reasons that seem quiteinexplicable, women used to be considered attractive only if they hadreallysmall feet. Consequently, girls used to bind their feet at a very earlyage, so that they never grew. The more cultivated and aristocratic a womanwas, the smaller her feet were. A real Chinese princess of that periodwould have had feet so small that she would have had to spend her lifebeingcarried on a palanquin. She would scarcely have been able to walk, letalone do anything as athletic as perform Kung-Fu. If all that soundsbarbaric and grotesque, just compare it with the tattooing, body-piercing,plastic surgery, and silicone augmentation that American women putthemselves through today.However, it's not really fair to carp about such details in a movie like`Shanghai Noon'. After all, it's supposed to be light entertainment, not`The Last Emperor'. In that respect, the film delivers exactly what it'sproducers intended it to. The action is non-stop, the plot moves alongwithout lulls, the characters are personable, and there is nothing thatwould be considered unsuitable to be viewed by contemporary children.

2012-05-22 11:37:07

Excellent DVD of quite a good movie

I won't review the movie itself, as that angle has definitely been covered in other reviews, but I'll confine myself to discussing this DVD version of the movie.Jackie Chan's movies may not be everybody's cup of tea, but this DVD has certainly been produced by fans of the DVD format. It has extras almost coming out at the ears -- everything from an entertaining commentary track with the director and the two lead stars, Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, right down to a couple of pop-quiz like games. If you get the answers right, you get to see another few bits of exclusive video.Besides all that, there's 7 featurettes as well as 8 deleted scenes including a spectacular meeting between a locomotive and a fiery death (all deleted scenes even have their own commentary track!). It's amazing it all fits on a single DVD9.

2012-05-20 09:27:08

Movie that everyone can enjoy

This has to be one of my favorite movies of all time! Between Jackie Chan's amazing stunts and Owen's adorably funny personality, I found myself hooked. Loved the sequel even more and I can't wait to see the third installment, Shanghai Dawn. These two make the best on-screen team(plus Owen makes for some really nice eye candy, lol) I recommend this movie highly!

MovieAlien 2012-05-19 21:00:32

Once upon a time in the old west...

Imperial guardsman (Jackie Chan) in China must get to 1880s America torescue the princess from a greedy expatriate; he accidentally getsassociated with an outlaw and is soon implicated as onehimself. Predictable, but balances comfortably between Kung Fu action and comedy(The Indian marriage, the obedient horse, and the hilariously sarcasticbounty hunter played by Xander Berkeley) Anachronisms out-of-the-way (thisis only fluff) the only blemish of the movie is Owen Wilson. No comic timingor personality and too into himself.

Sean Means 2012-05-10 15:06:11

For Jackie Chan to succeed in Hollywood, Hollywood must let Jackie be Jackie -- something the jokey Western Shanghai Noon does only sporadically.

dobbin-4 2012-05-09 23:45:11

Chan and Wilson make an awesome team

This movie was an awesome one it is probably one of my favourite JackieChan Action/Comedy that he ever made along with Rush Hour and all thatand Owen Wilson here is at his best here and it's probably my favouriteOwen Wilson movie too but this movie is just too good to be true I musthave laughed 25 times in an Action Comedy which you pretty much neverlaugh that much during a normal Comedy let alone an action comedy andthe movie just keeps getting as it goes along like Owen Wilsons line of" you have nearly killed me 22 times today" they guy fires 3 shots andthen Wilson like" 23, 24,25" it's an awesome movie and I do not knowanybody that does not like the movie. I rate this movie 96%.

yadaks 2012-05-07 13:32:22

Non stop entertainment

If you like Rush Hour, then you got to watch this !It is packed with laugh and action, nonstop for 120 minutes!Don't watch this if you are looking for hardcore fightingmovie.This will definitely lighten your day.

2012-05-07 00:52:05

Immensely enjoyable, delightfully off the wall

I was prepared to dislike Shanghai Noon. One genre I don't like because I don't get it is martial arts. Like professional wrestling, these movies always seem so fake to me, even when they do star Jackie Chan, who admittedly is a good actor. Another type of film I am not often keen on is the western. Shanghai Noon takes place in the wild West of the late 19th Century and contains a lot of kung fu madness. Unexpectedly, I thoroughly enjoyed the picture, for it is, first and foremost, a comedy on the order of Blazing Saddles and Cat Ballou.The story opens in China's forbidden city, where Chon Wang [Jackie Chan] is one of the palace guards. He knows Princes Pei Pei is unhappy because she is being forced to marry a most unpleasant nobleman. He overhears her talking to a visiting American, who says he can smuggle her to freedom in America. Chon tries to stop this plan, but the princess is determined and soon leaves. It turns out that the American is working with a former imperial guard. A ransom letter appears. If 100,000 pieces of gold isn't delivered to Carson City, Nevada in two months, it says, the princess is history. Chon talks the emperor into letting him go with the guards delivering the gold. This group is in for some major culture shock and has a hard time even finding Nevada. Along the way, the train they are on is robbed by a gang lead by a hilariously inept cowboy named Roy O'Bannon [Owen Wilson]. At this point Chon is separated from the other Chinese. Chon and Roy's paths keep intersecting, and a grudging alliance develops. Roy is more than willing to help find a beautiful princess and a chest full of gold. Somewhere in all this, Chon manages to get captured by Indians, who marry him off to one of their own princesses. The plot is silly, but that is often an element of comedy. When the absurdity of it all works, as it does in Shanghai Noon, the results are funny. The trick is to play it with a wink and a nod, letting the audience know that nothing is to be taken seriously. Chan and Wilson pull this off masterfully. Chan gleefully makes fun of himself, parodying all the kung fu roles which made him famous. Wilson has brilliant comic timing.This is a surprisingly adult comedy, one that is more rowdy than risque. One of the funniest scenes involves the pair having a drinking contest while sitting in metal bathtubs in a house of ill repute. Another segment has Chon smoking a peace pipe with the Indians. What they are smoking is definitely not tobacco. I suppose some of Chan's fans were disappointed because the level of violence is so low. There are several big fights that show off his skills, but these are presented in a way more akin to the westerns of old than to the modern gore fest. I think the choice to do this made Shanghai Noon much more enjoyable because it keeps reality from ever rearing its ugly head.

2012-05-01 16:10:01

Fluff, but world-class fluff it is.

It would be easy to write this off as "Rush Hour Goes West," except that in every way, "Shanghai Noon" is the superior film: Jackie Chan's fish out of water character is more unique and further out of water, the action sequences are more spectacular, the premise (such as it is) is fairly unique and Owen Wilson is a better actor and comedian than Chris Tucker on his best day.The premise -- Imperial Guard Jackie Chan goes from the Forbidden City to wild west Nevada to team up with easy going train robber Owen Wilson to rescue Western-minded Chinese princess Lucy Liu (who, for once, doesn't have any dominatrix parts to play in this movie) from eeeeeeeeeeeevil Chinese "traitor" and villainous marshal -- is basically just a frame to hook on pretty girls, some rather anachronistic seemingly ad-libbed dialogue by Wilson and, of course, one spectacular fight sequence after another.The fights, alas, are fewer than in Chan's earlier films -- age and injury are catching up to him -- but they're still wildly inventive, with the best being a sequence in which he uses nearby saplings to fight off a horde of angry Crow.Plot points are picked up and cast off as needed -- for instance, why the shotgun wedding bride switches her romantic allegience at the end isn't really explained (although the deleted scenes on the DVD fill in some of the gaps -- but "Shanghai Noon" isn't trying to be "Lonesome Dove" or even "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." It's fluff of the "Young Guns" tier, but it rises to the top of that subgenre, and is an immensely enjoyable and pleasant film, suitable for swashbuckling cowboys and not-too-bad desperadoes.

2012-05-01 15:06:31

It's a Western! No! It's an Eastern!!

It's both. It's also loads of fun!Western fans, comedy fans and martial arts fans alike will unite in high praise for this wacky, feel good romp set in the old west. Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson display a playful chemistry between them that's perfect for the zany plot and action packed pratfalls the two wind up in. The thin story has Chan playing a woefully incompetent and disobediant Chinese Imperial Palace Guard demanding he help bring back the Emperor's daughter, Princess Pei-Pei (Lucy Liu) whose run off to America. In short course, Chan meets a bumbling gang of bandits led by the always hyper relaxed Owen Wilson. Before long, the two are engaging in bar brawls and visting the ladies of the evening at the local cathouse. Meanwhile, Princess Pei-Pei has ended up in human bondage - enslaved to a former Imperial Palace Guard who has big, diabolical plans for her.Don't expect anything more than fun, fantastic action sequences and slick comedic set-ups and this movie will grow on you. It's not the typical western, nor is it the typical martial arts eastern. It's a great hybrid of both and I can definitely see why a sequel followed.

jhclues 2012-05-01 00:40:38

Chan And Wilson Take The West By Storm

(**contains possible spoilers**)East meets West for laughs and plenty ofaction in director Tom Dey's `Shanghai Noon,' starring Jackie Chan and OwenWilson. In 1881 China, Royal Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu) is smuggled out ofthe Forbidden City and taken to Carson City, Nevada, where she is held for aone hundred thousand dollar ransom in gold. The Emperor promptly dispatcheshis top three Imperial Guards, an interpreter (Henry O), and theinterpreter's nephew, Chon Wang (Chan), to deliver the gold and bring thePrincess safely back to China. During a botched train robbery in Nevada,the interpreter is killed, and Chon Wang sets out to find the manresponsible; but first he must discharge his duty to the Emperor, by findingCarson City and the Princess. Along the way he meets up with a left-handedgunslinger named Roy O'Bannon (Wilson), who was the leader of the gang thattried to rob the train. The cowboy who killed his uncle, a man namedWallace (Walt Goggins), Wang learns, was a new guy to the gang; Roy didn'tknow him, and nobody, of course, was to supposed to get hurt. Once thatissue is resolved, it's shades of Butch and Sundance as Wang and Roy team upto rescue the Princess (and the gold). Dey alternates the action and laughs, often combining the two, and keeps itall moving along at a good, even pace. The likable Chan puts plenty ofspirit into Wang, and the fight scenes are spectacular; well choreographedand orchestrated. He also proves himself adept on the comedy front, attimes infusing a bit of Stan Laurel in his expression. The charismaticWilson also shines as Roy, with a subtle, straight-forward delivery that isright on the mark. There's a chemistry between the two that workssplendidly, and their timing is perfect. And they play it with acontemporary attitude that fuels the off-beat ambience; at times, it's likea Newman and Redford in the Twilight Zone. Liu, as well, gives a notableperformance, lending a Royal mien to her Princess Pei Pei. There's a numberof memorable scenes here, including one in which Wang encounters the Sioux(and we can only guess what's really in that peace-pipe); and another, earlyin the film, that finds Roy buried up to his neck and left to die in thedesert, only to be found by Wang, who puts two chopsticks in Roy's mouth andtells him to start digging. The comedy plays well throughout the film,managing real laughs without resorting to slapstick or sight gags. Alsoworthy of mention is that the opening scene was filmed in China, in theForbidden City.The excellent supporting cast includes Jason Connery (Andrews), BrandonMerrill (Indian wife), Roger Yuan (Lo Fong), Xander Berkeley (Van Cleef) andRussell Badger (Sioux Chief). `Shanghai Noon' is, above all, a fun movie; alight-hearted and often hilarious spin on the old west, forever changed(historically and cinematically), now that Wang and O'Bannon have happenedonto the scene. This is one pair of cowboys you're going to remember, andthis is one funny movie you're going to want to see more than once. Andthat's a promise, Pardner. I rate this one 8/10.

TheLittleSongbird 2012-04-30 10:38:17

Silly and routine but fun

I saw Shanghai Noon because I do like Jackie Chan, and the premiseseemed like the film would be a winner. Although I didn't find ShanghaiNoon particularly special, it was a fun movie and I would recommend it.The plot is routine, with some of the ideas a tad forced. The film alsofeels 5 or so minutes too long, one or two scenes in the middle feltlike they could have been shortened. Lucy Liu isn't given much to doeither.However, the film is beautifully shot and the scenery and sets areequally ravishing. There is also a rousing score from Randy Eldemann, asmart script with some amusing if not hilarious jokes and sharplychoreographed fight scenes. Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are both verygood, and are a well matched double act.Overall, not perfect, but fun and enjoyable. 7/10 Bethany Cox

2012-04-30 03:59:32

Eastern, I mean Western Comedy

Here, Lucy Liu (Chinese Princess) is kidnapped by a Chinese traitor and a marshal who belongs in jail. Jackie Chan plays an Imperial Guard who travels from the Forbidden City to the wild west and ends up joining up with a very enjoyable and easy going train robber Owen Wilson in order to rescue her. Even though a western, there are many martial arts opportunity for Jackie. My favorite fight is when Jackie uses saplings to fight a group of Crow Indians. The interaction of the two main characters is very enjoyable and fun. To be added to every martial arts/western/comedy library.

Kristine 2012-04-29 21:25:45

Despite your typical buddy/cop film, this has a few good twists and turns

I've seen "Rush Hour" and I'm a big fan. I'm aware of how soon ShanghaiNoon came out after Rush Hour. So, I didn't want to give it much of achance. I mean, come on. Typical Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson? But overall, Shanghai Noon, despite it's typical clicee's of a buddy/cop movieor even cowboy/samuri if you will, you get into it. I think I was justin a good mood today. You get your Jackie Chan moves with your funhumor and inaccurate history. But just have fun I would say. I'm sorry,I really can't come up with anything else because this is a typicalfilm. Just like a dictionary; look up Rush Hour. Same plot, differenttime, different actors. I would recommend Rush Hour, Lethal Weapon, orany other buddy/cop movies. You'll get the same thing pretty much. LikeI said though, if you get a kick out of those flicks, you'll probablylike this one too! 7/10

Curtis Morgan 2012-04-28 21:03:27

Far too much time passes between good punches and punch lines.

2012-04-28 11:40:41

Western ripoff of Rush Hour

This movie is basically a western setting of Jackie Chans last comedy Rush Hour, and it isn't nearly as funny. The jokes are lame, and Owen Wilson's constant whining voice gets extremely annoying. Sure, it has a couple moment in the film in which I laughed out loud, but as a whole I really didn't like this movie. I don't recommend buying this dvd, even with some of the nice extras included. I would suggest to rent this first, because its usually a hit or a total miss with most of the people who I have talked to.

el_nickster 2012-04-25 01:11:32

A great light comedy with cool kung fu.

Plot: Jackie Chan is the biggest screw-up in the Emporer's guard.However, when his honorable uncle is sent by the Emporer on animportant mission to America, Jackie is allowed to come as his personalservant. However, Jackie's uncle is killed in a train robbery, and soonit is up to Jackie to fight his way across the wild West and save theEmporer's daughter from evil kidnappers.I love Jackie Chan, and this is possibly the most enjoyable Chan filmfor a non-Chinese speaker to watch (well, maybe Rush Hour 2 is better,but Shanghai Noon is second best then). Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan area really good comedy team, with Chan playing the "straight man" most ofthe time. This film has one of the greatest drinking scenes incinematic history, in which Chan gets to clown around and play his morefamiliar role.Wilson plays a hilarious "sensitive new-aged cowboy," with a lot ofgreat lines.The jokes are well-written and well-played. The plot is not compelling,original, or realistic... but who cares?On top of the fun comedy, Chan does some good fighting and good stunts.The scene fighting with horse-shoes and rope is some of his betterwork. There is also a memorable scene, in which Chan is involved in aclassic Western bar-room brawl.Overall, this film is not great art, but I can remember very few filmsI enjoyed more.

Draupnir 2012-04-24 21:22:49

Better than your average Chan movie

Well, this is, in the end, the type of movie that you might expect to seeJackie Chan make. That said, it's more in the vein of Rush Hour than Legendof the Drunken Master, Supercop, or Rumble in the Bronx.The movie is not brilliant or award material. However, it's engaging andfunto watch. Just don't expect too much. Chan does his usual array offantasticmartial arts and acrobatics, and the real surprise, for me at least, wasOwen Wilson. This is the first movie that I remember his name from, and Ihave to say, he's funny, which is a big surprise.Appreciate it on its merits as an action-comedy buddy film and don't expecttoo much. You will be rewarded.