Action legend Jackie Chan, star of ‘Master with Cracked Fingers’, stars as himself in what might be a true story. Though probably isn’t. I doubt it’s veracity not because it is outside of the realms of possibility in the crazy world of 2024, but because no film based on a true story of this nature could be so underwhelming. If Jackie Chan DID adopt a loveable panda and have to fight off international mercenaries in a safari park, I doff my cap to him and apologise for disliking its retelling almost as much as ‘A Legend’.
Jackie Chan is sent to Noah safari park to adopt and name a newly born panda only to find that the same little bear has been bought by a billionaire who wants it for his sick daughter (twist ending given away). The latter hires a team to kidnap the panda, though thankfully for Jackie these adversaries make Dick Dastardly’s pigeon-stopping triumvirate look like Navy Seals. Much over-acting and mugging ensues. Chan milks the teats of a computer generated rhinoceros. He then smears computer generated poo from a computer generated panda onto the real faces of the main villain who looks a bit like Karl Maka crossed with Andrew Tate and Albert Steptoe. In a tomb in Lyon, the Lumiere brothers have rolled over in their graves with such animus that the Morlocks put in an official complaint.
All of this sounds like a reviewer trying to be smarmy, especially when their own efforts are completely inconsequential. And that is very much the case. But this is not jealousy – this is sadness. There are moments, brief, fleeting moments, that I found some pleasure in watching ‘Panda Plan’. I enjoyed seeing Jackie looking old and accepting his limitations, perhaps even being self-deprecating about it all. I didn’t even mind Wei Xiang who I thoroughly enjoyed in ‘Too Cool to Kill’, though his over-the-top goofing might annoy quite a few viewers. Yet ‘Panda Plan’ was so anodyne, so thoroughly needless that it felt like it was a segment rejected from ‘Children in Need’ or whatever equivalent China has. The fight action is apologetic, the comedy forced and the complete package a grave disservice to the young audience it was obviously intended for. Apparently, as I write this, ‘New Police Story 2’ is in production. At the current trajectory it will be Die Hard on a (computer-generated) bouncy castle, with villains played by a corrupted AI recreation of Bungle from ‘Rainbow’ and the older brother from ‘Jonny Briggs’. (Feel free to look up those references and let your imagination run wild).
- Panda Plan - January 18, 2025
- A Legend - January 4, 2025
- Tai Chi Chun - December 22, 2024
