A
teenage boy (Zhang Yishan) who idolizes Jackie Chan runs away from home to meet
him and become his disciple. Somewhere
along the way, he gets kidnapped by a gang of pickpockets who hold him for
ransom. Eventually, the kid escapes thanks to a helpful policewoman
(Jiang Hongbo) who takes him in. When he
learns Chan is filming a movie nearby, he runs off yet again and sneaks onto
the set hoping to meet his idol.
Jackie
Chan: Kung Fu Master is a well-meaning
and heartfelt drama masquerading as a Jackie Chan movie. Jackie appears only in the lame fight scene in
the beginning that turns out to be a film within a film inside a dream sequence
and once again in the finale. (He also
turns up in an airport safety video.)
Since nearly all the focus is on the annoying kid, much of the film is a
bit of a chore to get through. At first,
I thought it was going to be kind of like a variation on the Chuck Norris flick,
Sidekicks, but unfortunately, Chan is given even less to do here than Chuck.
It
also hurts that the fight scenes are subpar, and the comedy stuff is unfunny. (The fast motion running gag is particularly
weak.) The humor is especially ill-fitting
once the kidnapping subplot rolls around. In fact, the whole thing has an uneven,
episodic feel to it and very few sequences flow organically into the next. (Most are just strung together by the kid’s
half-assed narration.)
If
you’re okay with watching a movie with the words “Jackie Chan” in the title
that features very little Jackie Chan in it, then you may like Jackie
Chan: Kung Fu Master. The rest of us will no doubt be
disappointed. I will say in its favor that the eventual meeting between
Jackie and his starstruck fan hits all the right notes, but it’s ultimately too
little, too late.
AKA: Looking for Jackie. AKA:
Looking for Jackie Chan.
AKA: Jackie Chan and the Kung Fu
Kid.
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