Technical assessment: 2
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA Rating: V14
MTRCB Rating: PG 13
A century ago, during the 2nd Opium
War, the Brits invaded Summer Palace in China and stole most of their precious
artefacts and national treasure; included were the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals
bronze heads. In the present times, MP Corporation sells replicas of these
precious collections to the highest bidder and commissions JC (Chan) to recover
the remaining bronze heads. JC and his team travel to France where two of the
bronze heads are said to have been found. He meets and eventually teams up with
Coco (Tong), an idealistic Chinese woman working to return lost antiquities to
her native land and Katherine (Weissbecker), the naïve French great great
granddaughter of the invaders of the Summer Palace. In the beginning JC sees
his mission as another job that will earn him a lot of money. But eventually,
he realizes the importance of respecting his nation’s treasures and risks his
life to save both the artefacts and the people he cares about.
Chinese
Zodiac is nothing more than a vanity project
for Jackie Chan. He simply cannot handle all the creative and technical demands
of a decent movie and should have been advised to just simply be the lead cast.
(The Guinness Book of Records named Chan MOST CREDITS IN ONE MOVIE) In fact for
his stature, Chan should be more selective of the roles he accepts. Definitely
not one that showcases his limited thespian skill and his aging agility. Between
the exhausted and prolonged chase sequences that viewers have seen in older
Chan films and the dull pontifications about the industrialized nations
pillaging the weaker ones, the movie falls shamelessly on its face with
confusing language switches from Chinese to English to French, a miscued
framing, artistically challenged camera works, so-so scoring and a really
dreadful storytelling. The gadgets are impressive but are obviously imitations
of those in James Bond or Mission Impossible films. Save for the
opening rollerblade chase and the ending skydiving sequences, there isn’t
really much signature Chan moves the viewers can expect. Ultimately, the movie
is irredeemably boring and badly made.
Respect for culture and history are romanticized
yet consistently overlooked in modern times. More often, culture and history
are remembered for the media opportunity and their profitability as tourist
attractions. The real deep-rooted
love for heritage is lost—Chinese Zodiac
had the intention of getting this message across until it was eaten in the
confused creative and technical work of Chan.
