Brief Story Line
Famous archaelogist Professor Fang (Jackie Chan - Hidden Strike,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem etc) and his assistants Wang Jing (Lay Zhang - No More Bets, The Mystic Nine TV series etc) and Xin Ran (Peng Xiaoran - Romance of a Twin Flower TV series, Good Bye My Princess TV series etc) found an artifact which looked a lot like the one Fang saw in his dreams.
As they dig deeper, the lines between dreams and reality became thinner. It seemed that Fang and Wang resembled two generals of Han dynasty in the past who were fighting against the vicious Hun tribe led by their prince Xiong Nu (Aarif Rahman - The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, Princess Silver etc). The two generals also met with lady Meng Yun (Guli Nazha - Dynasty Warriors, Snow Eagle Lord TV series etc) who was being chased by the prince.
So would the professor and his team find what they were looking for? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This film was said to be sequel to the popular 2005 film The Myth and Kung Fu Yoga which was really confusing to me and my wife. Aside from the similarity of story with The Myth where it was set in two different times in the past and present and the resemblance of the professor with the General, there was nothing concrete that truly connected the films. Same goes for Kung Fu Yoga which only had the same cast of Jackie, Lay and Aarif but played different characters and the only similarity was of treasure hunt genre. Might as well not linking these films in the first place. My wife thought that if they really want to make them as sequels, it would be better to write the professor as the same person and had unique ability of connecting to the past through artifact. Yes she has strong imagination but to me it made more sense.
Anyway the story telling was definitely not the plus point here with us having a bit of hard time to understand what it was trying to tell. Worst part it was not clarified on the reasoning for the professor and his assistant to be able to see the past. At least in The Myth, it was clear that the professor was reincarnation of the General and the story was more understandable for us. The ending to that film was more conclusive and better for us compared to this. And what is with the use of AI for Jackie Chan? We agreed with most comments that it was not a wise move. My wife also said that using the AI made the film unable to capture Jackie's emotions which was one of his best traits. We believe it would be nicer to use a younger actor to play the general and it would not have ruined Jackie's legacy.
However, aside from those low points, my wife and I were really entertained by the action sequence. The great war between Han and the Huns was terrific and fantastically done. And those fight scenes involving Jackie Chan, Aarif Rahman and Lay Zhang were really awesome. Even Nazha (who is also known as Gulnezer Bextiyar) managed to show her agility in here. The comedy was also quite pleasing, especially in the present with Peng Xiaoran's character brought a bit of humor and another character of Lei Zhen (Li Chen - Judge Dee's Mystery TV series, Endless Journey etc) who made us laughed few times. In addition to those names, there was also support cast of Shawn Dou (Princess Agents TV series, Skyfire etc) as General Huo Qu Bing, the veteran Ray Lui and few others, including cameo of one famous star (also using AI?).
This movie was written and directed by Stanley Tong who had worked with Jackie Chan few times before including Vanguard, CZ12 and several others. I had no doubt of his work with regards to the action and the comedy, but not too convinced on other areas. It seemed that Jackie trusted his ability as proven by his willingness to cooperate with him. The special effects were great as well including the CGI of the horses (we admired the generals horses a lot). Although we do not really like the AI, but got to admit that it was awesome and fascinating. It just showed how advanced the technology now. Btw, it has a quite long duration of 129 minutes which did not have any mid or post end credit scenes.
Overall this was a pretty enjoyable action comedy film with some wonderful action sequence and supported by very good sound effect (those sword piercing and horses riding were just great). However, the not so good story telling and over extensive use of AI of Jackie Chan did not make this a very entertaining film. Instead it reduce the element of joy. In addition, promoting this as the sequel to The Myth and Kung Fu Yoga just made it confusing and seemed to be a blatant attempt of making use the popularity and success of both. So if you just want to see Jackie Chan showing off his cool trademark moves, this one did show them (though not too much). And if you are able to disregard all other attributes, then you might be able to enjoy it as well. For me and my wife, this is not one of Jackie Chan's best, nevertheless we still had relatively good time seeing this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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