DVD Movie Rating for: Shanghai Knights

Rating 3 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: Shanghai Knights

Chon (Chan) and Roy (Wilson) head to London to find the rebel who murdered Chon's father and shake up Victorian Britain in the process. Chon's sister, Lin (Wong), also thirsty for vengeance, stumbles into what appears to be a conspiracy to off the royal family.

DVD Production Details of: Shanghai Knights

Starring: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson

Director: David Dobkin
Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby
Studio: Buena Vista Home Vid

DVD Release Date: July 15, 2003
DVD Features:
Commentary by director David Dobkin

Commentary by writers Alfred Gough & Miles Millar

Deleted scenes

"Fight Manual" with Jackie Chan and director David Dobkin

Action Overload feature; all the action, music video style

Widescreen anamorphic format

DVD Easter Eggs

None

Cast of the movie: Shanghai Knights

• Jackie Chan .... Chon Wang
• Owen Wilson .... Roy O'Bannon
• Donnie Yen .... Wu Chow
• Aidan Gillen .... Lord Nelson Rathbone
• Fann Wong .... Chon Lin
• Tom Fisher .... Artie Doyle
• Gemma Jones .... Queen Victoria
• Aaron Johnson .... Charlie Chaplin
• Kim Chan .... Chon Wang's Father
• Constantine Gregory .... The Mayor
• Oliver Cotton .... Jack the Ripper
• Jonathan Harvey .... Fagin #1
• Richard Haas .... Street Preacher
• John Owens .... Server
• Anna-Louise Plowman .... Debutante #1
• Richard Bremmer .... Master at Arms
• Georgina Chapman .... Debutante #2
• Eric Meyers .... Front Desk Clerk
• Daisy Beaumont .... Cigarette Girl
• Stephen Fisher .... Head Waiter
• Matt Hill .... Deputy
• Terry Howson .... Shotgun
• Ryan James .... Waiter
• Barry Stanton .... Lord Chancellor
• Tom Wu .... Lead Boxer Liu
• Vincent Wang .... Imperial Guard
• Charlie Hawkins .... Newspaper Boy
• Matthew Storey .... Fagin #2
• Gerard Whelan .... Rathbone Guard
• Alison King .... Prostitute
• Rene Hajek .... Rathbone Guard #2
• Le Ho Ban .... Palace Guard #1
• Ho Ban Le .... Palace Guard
• Van Hai Bui .... Palace Guard
• Vladimír Hrbek .... Old Man with Cane
• Jirí Mojzís .... Old Couple, Man
• Marta Andresová .... Old Couple, Woman
• David Listvan .... Palace Guard with Rifle
• Petra Jezková .... Toothless Flower Girl
• Barbora Nedeljaková .... Debutante #3
• Eva Ruzicka .... Debutante #4
• Hanka Scudlová .... Cleopatra Model
• Hana Jouzová .... Harpist
• Tom Klar .... Quartet
• Jan Petrik .... Quartet
• Milolas Cech .... Quartet
• Karel Urban .... Quartet
• James Embree .... Street Thug

Photo Gallery of the movie: Shanghai Knights

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size high quality photos, posters and wallpapers of Movie_Name

Shanghai Knights, Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson (2003)

Shanghai Knights Wallpapers

Reviews of the movie: Shanghai Knights

Better than your average sequel, Shanghai Knights almost defies the law of diminishing returns. Lacking the freshness of Shanghai Noon, it compensates with a looser, disposable plot that plays to the strengths of co-stars Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. It's 1887, and odd-couple heroes Chon Wang (Chan) and Roy O'Bannon (Wilson) are in London to retrieve the Imperial Seal of China, stolen by an English lord (Aidan Gillen) who killed Wang's father in his quest for the British throne. Wang's lithe and lovely sister (Fann Wong) joins the battle with high-kicking force, appealing to Roy's roguish charm and surfer-dude anachronisms. While Chan continues his transition to safer stunts and good-natured homage to Buster Keaton, Gene Kelly, and other Hollywood legends, Wilson indulges the party vibe to good effect, maintaining the anything-goes approach that allows silly encounters with Jack the Ripper, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a Dickensian urchin named Charlie Chaplin. (Chaplin wasn't born until 1889, but if the filmmakers didn't care, why should you?)

I listed 2000's `Shanghai Noon' as the 10th worst film of that year. Now, three years later, a sequel has arrived. It has a new director, and the ballsy intention to follow up a picture that wasn't really a huge financial success (domestically speaking) in the first place. Can time, effort, and some fresh eyes redeem this obnoxious, unwanted installment in a franchise nobody is asking for?

When his father is killed by an evil English politician looking for a priceless family seal, Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) is forced to leave his comfy job as sheriff of Carson City, Nevada, to go to London in pursuit of the killers. On his way, Wang decides to pay his old buddy, perpetual liar and schemer Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), a visit to request help, and the two are soon off to merry old England to investigate. When they arrive, the two cowboys learn that the ways of the English are quite different than they'd anticipated, and that Wang's sister, Lin (Fann Wong), has also arrived from China to help with the fight.

As with `Shanghai Noon, `Knights' is a film that one must be specifically in the mood to watch. It's a shameful, particularly unfunny film that is determined to wring every last drop of forced whimsy and cartoonish violence it can out of the thin premise. Thankfully, `Knights' doesn't have the singular punishing vision of director Tom Dey (`Showtime') to guide the proceedings. His replacement is David Dobkin, the filmmaker behind the sly and often gut-busting Vince Vaughn starrer `Clay Pigeons.' Dobkin isn't the first director that comes to mind to helm a Jackie Chan slap-fest like this film, but he does what he can within the strict comedy and action rules set up in `Shanghai Noon.' If this lackluster film can claim anything as a positive, it is that, at the very least, it looks better. Courtesy of cinematographer Adrian Biddle (`The World Is Not Enough'), who knows a thing or two about slick widescreen photography, `Knights' has a lush feel about it, almost as if each frame was ripped out of a graphic novel. The golds, reds, and blacks are delicious, and provide nice eye candy when the rest of the film just isn't all the interesting.

All the colors in the world couldn't help this script, though, which allows the silly ironic plotting and punishing Owen Wilson (who is so good with Wes Anderson and Ben Stiller, yet so atrocious without them) improvs to return without mercy. The `Shanghai' just aren't funny, as much as the production seems to think they are. `Knights' provides the same historical wackiness as `Noon' so smugly did, this time having Roy and Wang meet a young Charlie Chaplin, accidentally slam into Stonehenge, complain that there is no future in automobiles, and helping Sir Arthur Conan Doyle come up with the Sherlock Holmes character. This type of humor is just too wacky for my tastes, and it's made even worse by the film's insistence on nudging you vigorously to laugh when the characters come into contact with something historical. Another frustrating element is the film's constant deployment of modern touches for a film set in 1887. While this type of comedy is essentially the point of the two `Shanghai' films, I can only stomach so much before The Who's `Magic Bus' begins playing on the soundtrack, and Roy and Wang start making `Midnight Cowboy' and `Singing In The Rain' references. That I draw the line on.

Of course, all this is just a pie crust to the real reason we are here: to see Jackie Chan fight. The action sequences of `Knights' are a little fiercer in nature and more fanciful in design than they were in `Noon.' The carefree and slapsticky Chan choreography is still something of questionable merit, but is presented here with more imagination and running time. As tiring as it is watching Chan, Dobkin does deliver a nifty climax, which has Chan fighting another Chinese assassin (the legendary Donnie Yen, `Iron Monkey') aboard a boat, and Roy fighting for his life on the hands of Big Ben during a celebratory fireworks display for the Queen of England. The picture really comes alive at this late juncture, and it infuriated me that so many earlier sections of the film were wasted on flatlining comedy and fights that veered too far into silliness.

It is an improvement, no matter how slight. I just hope this upward trajectory can continue if they decide to make a `Shanghai Mourning,' or something ridiculous like tha