Thunderbolt

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.

This moving picture deals with Chan Foh To (Jackie Chan) who runs a small garage in Hong Kong along with his father and two sisters who are abducted and the only way Foh can get his sisters back is by racing cougar in Japan. Foh is an expert mechanic an in his spare time, he also helps the police out by checking vehicles that have been illegally upgraded. One night, heinous street racing driver named Warner Krugerman or Cougar (Nickel), speeds past Foh and the patrolmen . Foh gets into a car and stops Cougar heroically but later takes place the kidnapping his sisters by the psychotic nasty. In order to release his kidnapped sisters , sports car mechanic Jackie Chan has to beat a super-criminal street racer . He now must retrain himself in race car driving so he can be at his best to race Cougar .

Exciting film plenty of thrills , over-the-top action with impressive and interminable fights including Chan dangling and downing, ingenious stunts and stirring music . This thrilling movie is packed with adventure , intrigue , unstopped action , overwhelming stunt-work and lots of fights but with humor . Jackie Chan is top notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous hoodlums and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed at the final stock-shots . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual ; the picture is well constructed as well as Chan's ulterior films . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights of the movie hold several spectacular races , Jackie jumping down and fighting ; including when the nasty Cougar lands in jail, but breaks out eventually on some breathtaking scenes . Furthermore , when Cougar gets revenge on Foh by trashing his garage , a breathtaking final race and other extraordinary action sequences in overwhelming style . This is an acceptable action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entries . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actress as Maggie Chung and Michelle Yeoh . However in this outing Jackie teams up again to Chinese actress , Anita Yeun , Miss Hong Kong 1990 . This is a passable action movie distinguished by ferocious sequences , and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's subsequent entries . The motion picture is professionally directed by Gordon Chan who filmed various Jackie Chan and Jet Li vehicles and several art-martial movies such as ¨Fist the legend¨, ¨Kung Fu master¨, ¨The king of fighters¨and ¨The medallion¨

The picture achieved success in China and around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan is a fine action star in their own right , he is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career . Chan usually pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . He went on playing ¨Cannoball¨ , ¨The protector¨ and "Rumble in the Bronx", until getting all American success with ¨Shangai Knights¨ , ¨The tuxedo¨ , ¨Around the world in 80 days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his biggest hits were ¨The Police story¨ series that won the Golden Horse Award, a Chinese version of the Oscar , the first was titled ¨Police story(1985)¨ directed by the same Chan , it was a perfect action film for enthusiastic of the genre ; the following was ¨Police story 2(1988)¨also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches. It's followed by ¨Supercop¨ or ¨Police story 3¨ and finally, ¨Police story IV : Crime story . Rating : Acceptable and passable , the picture has its sensational moments here and there , but also with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie . It's a perfect action film for enthusiast of the genre though only for Jackie fans .

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.

I read somewher that Jackie was still recovering from injuries during this film's shooting, and it's blatantly obvious he is doubled extensively in the fight scenes--the great garage fight features a closeup of this guy's face! You can tell it's not quite him in the pachinko parlor sequence, too. Also, not much chemistry in my opinion between Jackie and Anita Yuen. Fortunately this doesn't hurt too much.

Now the good: Doubled or not, the fight scenes are absolutely great! I almost prefer the earlier garage fight though. They're serious and pretty tough, with the great choreography you'd expect. The serious tone of the film is great, too, you can see Jackie act, and do something different, and I think he pulls it off very well, as usual in his less comedic films. And Michael Wong is just the coolest! I love this guy, he's suave, funny, and good with the action scenes. Always a pleasure to see him, even in trash like "Knock off." I like the villain, too though he's unintentionally funny from time to time. This one's got a darker edge, and a good pace, with the fight scenes i mentioned. One of my favorites, actually.

Jackie Loh Chan is a motor mechanic whose father helps the police identify illegally modified vehicles to confiscate them from boy racers plaguing the area. During one such confiscation Chan witnesses a car evade capture and almost kill a policeman. The police are after this car as the driver is suspected to be criminal and speed freak Cougar – wanted across the world by several different Governments. Chan gets involved in a high-speed chase that results in the capture of Cougar but when he escapes he targets Chan for a violent second race.

Jackie Chan movies are never the best place to look if you're after strong plotting and well written dialogue and this is no different. The plot itself is very basic and quite full of holes – it's even pretty thin in explaining how Chan gets mixed up in the police business originally. But like I said plotting is never his main thin and only occasionally does the weakness of the plot become annoying – mainly when the drama is played out in words exchanged.

At these points the weaknesses of the script are exposed – the dialogue is unconvincing and, sadly, totally lacking in humour, preferring a more hard edged approach. It's a shame cause Chan's better films mix his trademark humour and his amazing stunt work – this has him at his toughest and, while the stunts etc are all great, it's not a good look for him.

While the fighting and driving are all very enjoyable the director occasionally works hard to spoil them – he doesn't do a good job here. Basically all I wanted him to do was set up two cameras and point them at the action. However instead he uses far too many edits and fast cuts to make some fight scenes almost unwatchable. I think specifically to the great scene in the games place. It starts as a tough scene with great martial arts action but the director first edits too quickly and then slows it down in some weird slowmo that blurs everything badly.

The action is all good though – the main car chase on Hong Kong streets is good and most of the fight scenes show off Chan's ability and not just his willingness to put himself at risk. Chan is OK as an actor but the intense emotion required by his hard boiled character is not really him. He seems different without his usual comedy material and is at a stretch several times. Nickel is god-awful as Cougar – he looks like an 80's throwback (think Airwolf with long hair!) and delivers every line with all the character of a stapler. Yuen is better as Amy Yip and is good-looking and natural despite not having a lot in the way of lines. I was pleased to see Wong in the cast and he gets a chance to show off his John Woo credentials in a few scenes. A cheeky bit of casting has Chris Patten (not really him of course) getting blasted by Jackie's car – he was Governor of Hong Kong at the time.

Overall this has sufficient good action to justify watching. However the direction is iffy and it lacks the trademark Chan humour. Still enjoyable to watch for the action but this isn't one of Chan's better efforts.