Shanghai Noon

 

Release Date: May 26, 2000

Watch Date: April 24 - April 25, 2023

"Two cultures collide when East meets West in Shanghai Noon, a wildly hilarious, stunt-filled action-adventure comedy starring death-defying action hero Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson and Lucy Liu. Chan plays Chinese Imperial Guard Chon Wang (say it out loud) who hightails it to the wild and woolly West to rescue the kidnapped beautiful Princess Pei Pei (Liu). When he meets up with a laid-back outlaw cowboy dude Roy O'Bannon (Wilson) - the best mismatch ever made in the rough and tumble Old West - the two face jail, brawls, bordellos and the vilest villains this side of the Great Wall."

    "Let's watch a movie we don't have to think about too much." This was Bob's request Monday night, after an exhausting return to the work week. I don't blame him, we'd both had long days, and we do tend to gravitate towards movies where there's quite a lot to talk about, and process after. We don't always pick the movies that are just entertainment purely for the sake of it.

    This movie is entertainment purely for the sake of it.

    Chan and Wilson are a hilarious duo, with tons of chemistry that play well off of each other. The East meets West concept is done very well, though it is a little bit more "East adapts to West" you can't really blame them for that, because it's not like a cowboy in this time period was going to find a lot of the cultural traditions of an Imperial Guard from China very helpful to him in his daily life.

    They actually do a pretty okay job of acknowledging the racism that someone from China would have experienced during this point in history, without just handwaving it away because it's all for comedy. Roy gets asked if he's friends with a "Chinaman" and clams up, reassuring the prostitute that he's not, because to be considered friends with Wang would affect his reputation. The only time we see anyone else from China is the trio of Imperial Guards Wang was meant to be traveling with, or they are sequestered away, working on the rail road, separate from the rest of the society, beasts of burden, living in appalling working conditions. Now, this awfulness is meant to be eased slightly because it's happening to them at the behest of someone from their own country, but Chinese people really lived and worked in those sorts of conditions, and it's appalling. The basis of the early economy of North America rests firmly on the backs of these immigrants, working tirelessly, in poor conditions, and for poor pay, risking their lives for the possibility, however faint, of a better life for their family.

    There I go thinking again too much.

    It's a Jackie Chan movie, so you can rest pretty assured that the action sequences will be well planned, fluid, easy to follow, and highly entertaining. No one mugs for the camera like Jackie Chan. The contrast between Chang's nearly effortless style of fighting and Roy's simply standing there and shooting, often terribly, only heightens their differences, but it does so in a way that makes the west seem impotent, which in a movie mostly about the East preferring the West, it's kind of nice to see the East excel at something.

    For a night of easy laughs, which is what we wanted and needed, this was the perfect movie, and I'm glad we chose to start winding down my birthday month, and all the chaos that's ensued during it, with something lighthearted, easy, and funny. Treat yourself to some junk food sometimes, you deserve it.