Brief Story Line
Jackie (Jackie Chan - The Knights of Shadow: Between Yin and Yang, The Lego Ninjago Movie etc) was a famous Kungfu movie star who was given the opportunity to adopt a newly born baby Panda. Together with his agent David (Wei Xiang - Too Cool to Kill, Champion etc), they both went to Noah Zoo located in a small island where the Panda would be given to Jackie by its Director (Andy Friend - The Wandering Earth II etc). Jackie would later meet with the Panda's nanny Xiao Chu (Shi Ce - Look At Me, A Soldier's Story TV series etc) who had been taking care of the baby for a while.
Unfortunately for them, a group of hired mercenaries under their boss (Han YanBo - Monster etc) was hired to kidnap the Panda. His right hand man James (Temur Mamisashvii) was assigned with his underlings to the zoo and would not stop until they got the Panda.
So what would happen to Jackie and the baby Panda? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
After feeling a bit unhappy but at least still entertained by the last Jackie Chan's movie A Legend, I was kind of looking forward to this one cause it sounded light enough and seemed to promise lots of laughter from its simple premise. It felt that Jackie returned to his roots of playing in action comedy movie, especially with the existence of baby Panda who obviously would give a nice impression. Unfortunately it was way below our expectations.
From the early part, we were already not convinced with the appearance of some people who looked like they required a bit more on acting lessons. But it became worse when the bad guys starting to invade the zoo. It's ok to show some comedy during the action but the behavior of the villains were ridiculous up to the point of no longer making sense. The fight between James and Jackie was OK at first, however it lost its charm when they made it never ending and overly long. Although to be frank, Jackie still managed to show his agility despite his age and few times we could still chuckled, but not up to the point of laughing out loud.
The story itself was actually fine and still acceptable. Making Jackie Chan playing his fictionalized version of himself was a nice touch, and it also provided the chance for him to talk a little bit about his work. Sadly though, the ending was poorly written for me. I think the writers wanted to make it a touching moment but I thought it did not deliver a proper message, plus it did not seem to fully resolve the whole matter. I think the director Luan Zhang (also credited as co-writer) whose prior experience was directing the highly regarded Song of Youth did not manage to provide full closure of the crime.
The movie itself had a duration of 99 minutes which was probably too long for such story. During the closing credits, there were scenes showing Shi Ce together with Song Muzi & Luo Shengdian singing the theme song and glimpses of behind the scene, but there were no gag reels or mistakes during the take like in a lot of Jackie Chan's movies. Now I am not saying that it's all bad as there were few times the action was still OK and the Panda looked cute (even if the CGI was a little bit obvious). And Wei Xiang also provided a bit of comedic moments, but the two bad guys were sorry to say rather terrible.
Overall this was a rather disappointing movie starring Jackie Chan. The action was so so (not that I was expecting spectacular but they were not memorable either), the performance of some of the actors were poor and the story did not have a proper ending. Even my wife and I who are usually quite subjective with Jackie Chan could not avoid labeling this one as not a good and entertaining movie. So if you are planning to see this hoping to see Jackie doing his usual stunts or plenty of action combined with comedy, this would definitely not satisfy you. However you are welcome to give it a try if you still want to see him in a brand new movie that just had its wide release in China few days ago.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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