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My splendid review of China
There is a very ancient Chinese saying, "If the weight of the
outside world is pressing in, solstice can always be found in happy
golden morsels of light entertainment." No. Just kidding. I made
that up. But wait, this is real: Jackie Chan's film FIRST STRIKE
(Bad Jin Long) is whooping (and I do mean whoop-whooping) good fun.
This film's got high speed snowboard chases, chases on stilts, and
synchronized swimming with man eating sharks. What more could you
ask for?
Actually I could ask for subtitles. It would be very convenient, but
on second thought, they'd probably be in Chinese. My limited mental
capacity (something about bungee jumping from my uncle's shoulders
at an impressionable age, back in the old days before they added the
cord) prevents me from comprehending Chinese characters flashing on
a 10 foot screen at lightning speeds. This happens regardless of
whether the characters on the screen are debating philosophical
theory or making tea, so it would probably be useless to have
subtitles anyway. But if you can't figure out that, in a Jackie Chan
movie, the guys with the dark glasses and mongo guns under their
coats are the Baddies, maybe you should sit this one out.
Chan plays a Bond-esque Hong Kong police agent who is sent on a
mission for the CIA and then gets recruited to work for the KGB.
Hey, nobody said it had to be BELIEVABLE. Somehow a routine mission
to the snowy slopes of the Ukraine ends up as underwater tricks for
sharks in Australia. There is in fact something resembling a
storyline in the hour or so in between these two points, but somehow
between skiing and shark tank, I got a little muddled. To the best
of my knowledge it was at that point that the KGB recruit him to
work undercover and track a plutonium smuggler... or maybe he just
felt like doing a jig on the beach. Who knows?
As is the tradition in these action films, there's a hell of a lot
of beating going on. There is one awe inspiring scene where Chan
fends off a massive gang of 20 or more staff brandishing kung-fu
fighting masters by whacking them with an aluminum ladder. It all
happens within, without, on top of, beneath, behind and in between
the ladder. Chan does it all with his signature "nice guy" manner,
effortlessly winning his audience over in no time. In fact, he is so
charming that even notoriously loud audiences here in China are
extremely attentive throughout the whole of the film. That, I think,
is a feat in itself.
Despite my better judgment, I will mention the walrus-kangasaur
suit. I can't really explain the joke. It's a visual thing. Anyway,
Chan appears at one point sporting an oversized neoprene walrus-kangasaur
suit. Actually, among my group of friends there was no consensus on
the exact breed of animal that the suit represented. Flippers of a
walrus, pouch of a kangaroo, tail of a dinosaur; whatever it was, it
was highly amusing. And gosh darn it, you too will be amused. I'm
considering having one made for me by the tailor down the road.
Where's the closest neoprene outlet?
For our lovely readers with a surplus of testosterone, this movie
has a little bonus for you too. A Swedish friend of mine has a habit
of acknowledging a healthy physique by shouting at the top of his
lungs, "Hard Bodies, Hard Bodies!" Perhaps this is an act of great
respect and honor in Sweden, for he seemed to be shouting it quite a
bit during the latter half of the film where glistening,
half-dressed beach bodies abounded.
Regardless, if you've got that silly-Hong Kong-action film feeling
coming on, run straight to your local theater. If you've never had
that silly-Hong Kong-action film feeling, go to the theaters now to
get some. You can see Jackie Chan wear a silly seal hat. See him
kick-box on stilts. See funny sea urchins passively attack. She
sells sea shells at the sea shore.
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