Shanghai Knights (2003)

There's a moment in Shanghai Knights where you can almost feel the script shrugging its shoulders. Jackie Chan is doing something extraordinary with his body, turning a corridor or a staircase or a coat rack into a playground, and you think: yes, this is why I'm here. And then Owen Wilson opens his mouth, delivers a line that lands like a wet sock on a kitchen floor, and the spell breaks. That, in a nutshell, is the whole film.

The setup is daft enough to work. Chon Wang and Roy O'Bannon rock up in Victorian London to untangle a royal assassination conspiracy, and on paper that's a perfectly fine premise for a breezy action comedy. Silly, loose, a bit anachronistic, fine. The first film, Shanghai Noon, had a genuine scrappiness to it, a warmth between its two leads that made the jokes land even when they shouldn't have. This one arrives two years later and immediately feels like it's coasting on whatever goodwill was left over from the first night's fun.

The fights are still brilliant, full stop. Chan at this point in his career could make a fight scene out of a broom closet and a bad attitude, and there are moments here where he's doing exactly that, choreographing chaos with a grin on his face. His physical comedy is genuinely funny in a way that the script simply isn't. When the film gets out of his way and just lets him move, it earns its keep. I've been a Chan fan since Rumble in the Bronx, and even in lesser films, watching him work is never less than remarkable. That doesn't change here.

But Wilson. Look, I don't want to make this a pile-on, but he really is doing the bare minimum. Roy O'Bannon was charming in the first film precisely because there was some give and take, some actual chemistry between him and Chan. Here he's just sort of... present. The same lazy drawl, the same smug half-smile, the same laid-back nonsense dressed up as wit. He's not bouncing off Chan so much as orbiting him, waiting for the action scenes to finish so he can wander back in and not quite deliver another joke. It's the same trick he pulls in everything, and by this point it's worn thin.

The script doesn't do either of them any favours. The historical cameos and period-setting gags are the kind of thing that sounds fun in a pitch meeting and falls flat on screen. Anachronism can work brilliantly, but you've got to commit to the joke, build it properly, give it room to breathe. Here they just drop a reference in, wait for a laugh that doesn't come, and move on. The villain is entirely forgettable, which is a real problem for a film that needs its antagonist to give the whole thing some shape and momentum. Without a proper threat, the stakes evaporate, and you're left watching a collection of set pieces loosely held together by a plot that doesn't seem particularly interested in itself.

What's most frustrating is that it's not a disaster. It's too watchable for that. Chan alone makes it worth putting on if you've got nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon, and a handful of gags genuinely land. But compared to Shanghai Noon, which had actual heart underneath the silliness, this feels like a photocopy of a photocopy. If you want to see Chan doing something similar but with more spark, I'd honestly point you toward Gorgeous before this. And if you want to see what happens when a film like this completely loses the plot, I reviewed Skiptrace, which manages to make this look tightly written by comparison.

Two stars. The fights are worth something, and Chan's charm is genuine. But a good sequel builds on what came before. This one just borrows the costumes and hopes nobody notices.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2003  | Watched: 2025-10-03

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Jackie Chan: Hand of Death (1976) · Rumble in the Bronx (1995) · Skiptrace (2016) · Gorgeous (1999)
More from Hong Kong: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Hand of Death (1976) · Come Drink with Me (1966) · Street Fighter (1994)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)