After our weekend staycation, my wife and I decided to watch a movie which had been playing in theaters for more than a week. Since both of us are big fans of Jackie Chan, we would not want to miss the chance of seeing his latest movie. So even though we were tired from our 1.5 hour trip from the hotel we stayed the night before, we were still excited to see this film. We watched it in the nearest cinema to our home at 7.15 PM. The movie only played in 1 cinema chain in Indonesia, so the options are not too many either. To our surprise, the cinema was still quite packed for a movie that has been playing for over a week. Anyway, we shall go on to the story now.
Brief Story Line
Professor Jack (Jackie Chan whom need no introduction) was an expert in ancient history of China and also India. Jack had 2 assistants who helped him in his lectures. They were Xiao Quang (Zhang Yixing - member of EXO group band) and Nuomin (Miya Muqi - Monkey King 2). Jack also working in the Terracota museum with a sophisticated equipment to analyze ancient artifacts. This was the reason why later, a professor from India named Ashmita (Disha Patani) asked Jack's help to research on Magadha's lost treasure using an old map. They were able to identify that the most probable treasure location.
Jack later on enlisted the help from Jones (Aarif Rahman - Bruce Lee, My Brother etc) who was the son of his old friend. He immediately showed his interest after he was shown the map of this treasure, since Jones was also a treasure hunter (or robber according to Jack). Jack introduced Jones to his group who now consisted of Ashmita and her assistant Kyra (Amyra Dastur), Xiao Quang and Nuomin.
They embarked on journey to Tibet where the treasure was supposed to be located. With the help from Jack's old friend (played by Hong Kong's veteran Eric Tsang), they were able to drill the ice land and went into the icy cave. However, outside the drilling location, another interested party was waiting for the right time to rush into the cave to take out the treasure. This party was led by Randall (Sonu Sood) who believed that the treasures were rightfully his. Randall's goons were fighting with Jack's team in the cave where they were all captured and left to die in the cave, except for Jones who managed to escape with a precious diamond artifact.
2 weeks later, after Jack and team were able to get out from the cave, they found out information that the diamond was available for auction in Dubai. Ashmita requested Jack's help to acquire the diamond again which Jack obliged to. Jack, Xiao Quang and Nuomin went to Dubai and managed to enter into the auction where Randall and a mysterious lady were all bidding for the same thing.
So who would win the bidding? What was the reason for Randall's insistence on acquiring the diamond? Who was the mysterious lady and who was she working with? Would Jack and team able to find out the real treasure which would bring them back to where it all started in India? Find them all in this comedy adventure movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This was another Jackie Chan's trademark movie with some funny scenes and few acrobatic fight scenes using stuffs available at the fight location. There was also 1 cool and funny car chasing scene in Dubai's roads involving a lion in Jack's car. This was where I was truly amazed with how rich UAE is, since the police cars were mostly those very expensive sports car. I am actually quite entertained with most of the fight scenes which surprisingly were done quite expertly (considering Jackie Chan's previous movies in the past few years were not having high risk acrobatic maneuvers and not too many fight scenes). Aarif Rahman's fight scenes were also quite good.
Special effects in the movie were not spectacular but the comedic scenes made up for them. I also felt that the editing of the movie were either done poorly or they just wanted to squeeze too many scenes/stories into 1.5 hour time movie. It felt like there were few scenes that kind of jumped but funnily, some scenes seemed not important enough and could be left in editing floor (especially those scenes in Dubai involving Aarif Rahman or Miya Muqi). Those who expect a sophisticated Indiana Jones kind of movie, may not be satisfied with this film.
This movie was directed by Stanley Tong who also directed Jackie Chan in previous full action & stunts movies such as Police Story 3, First Strike and my most favorite Rumble in the Bronx. Those were the good old days where Jackie was still young and fit to do all his crazy amazing stunts by himself. In this movie though, Jackie was still able to do fighting and his final fight with Randall was still good enough, but definitely cannot be compared to those older movies.
Anyway, without considering the absurd plot or the not convincing acting of some of the actors & actresses, this movie still gave us plenty of entertainment and good laughs, such as Jack's morning exercise in his home, or his driving in Dubai. But for those who can only appreciate movie with good story, good acting etc, I do not think would enjoy this.
One thing that did make me wonder was the poster of Kim Hee-Sun's character in The Myth (also directed by Stanley Tong and starring Jackie Chan) shown in Jack's house. So does this mean Kungfu Yoga is actually a sequel to The Myth, since both characters portrayed by Jackie Chan were named Jack and both were archaeologists? I could not find any reference to it internet, so I guess maybe someone would do an analysis later (or perhaps I just did not look hard enough).
So if you are looking for some silly old fun Jackie Chan style, then you could probably enjoy this. But if you are looking for a good Jackie Chan movie, then this one definitely not falling into that category. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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