I feel ashamed. As the resident Jackie Chan fanboy around here (a title I have worn with pride ever since I first fell in love with his particular brand of crazy monkey kung fu comedy back in the 1980’s), I somehow forgot that it was the popular Hong Kong action hero’s 62nd birthday last month. What’s more, I only realized this when reading a very, VERY early report that Chan and fellow cinematic ass-kicker Jason Statham are teaming up for some kind of project. There’s very little details for the project other than it will be titled VIY 2 and shoot in Australia.
What is of further interest here, and which contributed the most to my ever-mounting shame, is that in that report they also included the new trailer for Chan’s latest flick, Skiptrace. Which came out last month already and I didn’t even know! The horror!
My oversights aside, this new action film sees Chan continuing his recent trend of pulling Western actors into his Hong Kong productions. In this case it’s Jackass‘ Johnny Knoxville who is along for the ride as an American gambler who witnesses a Chinese mafia hit and thus has to be protected by Chan’s police detective in a madcap cross-country chase. Also, Knoxville speaks Cantonese.
Well, not really, because is the international Chinese version of the trailer meaning that Knoxville’s voice has been dubbed over for the locals. Weirdly though, Chan still has moments in the trailer in which he speaks English. And all of this means that you proabably can’t really pick up on the film’s story or whether the verbal jokes actually work or not. Luckily, you’re more than likely just here to check out Jackie Chan kick butt and there’s plenty of that to be found.
Check it out below.
Hong Kong detective Bennie Chan (Jackie Chan) has been tracking notorious crime boss Victor Wong for over a decade. When Bennie’s young niece Samantha (Fan Bingbing) gets into trouble with Wong’s crime syndicate, Bennie must track down the only man who can help him: fast-talking American gambler Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville). Bennie races against the clock to bring Connor back to Hong Kong and the unlikely pair embark on an entertaining and perilous adventure from the snowy mountains of Mongolia to the windswept dunes of the Gobi desert.
Well that looks… decent, I guess. I hope. I mean I’m just being thrown off by the visual of Knoxville speaking a foreign language. The movie is directed by Renny Harlin who may have been a big name in the Hollywood action movie scene 20 years ago with hits like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea, but who hasn’t produced much in the way of a good film since. Jury’s still out on whether this will be his great return to form, but I’m hoping that the vintage Chan stuntwork and action beats on display here can carry this one through.
Skiptrace also stars Fan Bingbing (X-Men: Days of Future Past), WWE’s Eve Torres (The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power), Michael Wong (Zombie Fight Club) and Eric Tsang (The Last Blood). It’s already out in China, but will only hit international screens the latter part of the year.
Last Updated: May 25, 2016
