Shanghai Noon

Tom Dey runs two separate comic engines side by side. Jackie Chan, as the imperial guard Chon Wang, builds his jokes out of movement, while Owen Wilson, as Roy O’Bannon, builds his almost entirely out of talk. The film never fuses them, it alternates, shifting gear between a fight passage and a talking passage. Chan did not design the fights himself. The action choreography went to Yuen Biao, who trained alongside him at the Peking Opera school, and Brad Allan from Chan’s own team worked as a stunt performer and assistant fight choreographer. The brawls lean on whatever object is within reach, a horseshoe on a rope, tree branches, bells, rather than pure martial arts exchanges. The opening was shot inside the real Forbidden City in Beijing. The Nevada of the film is Canada: the Drumheller badlands near Calgary stood in for the desert. Even the hero’s name is a gag, since Chon Wang is John Wayne mangled. Chan and Wilson came back three years later for Shanghai Knights. A good fit if you want fights solved with whatever prop is lying around and do not mind the two leads telling completely different kinds of joke. Not for anyone chasing the risk level of Chan’s Hong Kong work, because the action here is visibly softer and better protected.