The Medallion

At first I was in jaw-dropping amazement that a film could use such cruddy slapstick to attempt to wring a dry (heave) laugh from its audience. Then I realised that this film must have been made with kids as the target and my tense body relaxed and I enjoyed things a bit more.

This isn't to say that adults can’t enjoy it, for I did once I got past the hurdle of thinking this was a regular Jackie Chan movie. It seems the kids around the world can’t get enough of the Jackie Chan stuff. He’s fun, he kicks serious arse every time he fights anyone and he’s always good for a laugh. Big kids like him too and why not?

Our film story is a bit simple, but that’s okay. We follow the exploits of Eddie Yung (Chan) working out of Hong Kong with Interpol to try and catch Snakehead (Julian Sands). This dude wants a medallion that, when used with the power of a chosen child, can grant eternal life. Between Eddie and bumbling secret agent Watson (Lee Evans), and Nicole (Claire Forlani) a dead sexy other secret agent who had a thing on with Eddie a few years back, they gotta catch Snakehead before he lives forever and makes it really hard to catch him.

"Welcome, Chosen One!"

Unfortunately, Eddie gets wasted soon into the piece and gets brought back to life with the kid’s help and the power of the medallion. Now Eddie is supercharged and suddenly has the power of ten Hong Kong law enforcers. Snakehead is gonna pay – but not before a classic series of over-the-top stunts and fight scenes, of course.

On that note, the fight scenes are absolutely riddled with wire-fu. This isn’t always so bad and sometimes works very well, but here it is clunky and more than obvious to even the most inexperienced of viewers. I wish they’d realise down Hollywood way that the wires aid a character in defying gravity. Gravity is most definitely a constant and to remove it for even a millisecond is to appear obvious. When you remove it for seconds on end, it’s more than just obvious, it’s stupid. And we can all tell, because we have learned within us from an early age at what speed things react to gravity and it’s always apparent when it is messed with.

Oh well. As far as kid’s entertainment goes this is good solid fun and stuff they’ll obviously enjoy. The plot seems to be very similar to the one that drives the Jackie Chan Adventures animated series, which again leads me to believe they are related in being aimed at the kids (plus they both have the same release date of March 16). Still, it’s good clean fun with Jackie getting to make out with Claire Forlani, and what guy could begrudge a fella that? Not me, anyway.

Made last year and delivered here in 2.40:1 with anamorphic enhancement, the film looks fairly good overall. There are some minor instances of film artefacts popping up here and there, but nothing extreme with colours even and blacks true. In fact, the colours are sometimes deliberately overly dynamic lending the film a cartoon quality at times. This is particularly handy when Evans is doing his most slapstickhead performances. Flesh tones are fine, including the post-death Jackie (and others) with their whiter shade of pale makeup on.

The layer change comes across relatively smoothly at 57:56 between scenes with no interruption to audio, but a mild pause on the last frame. Shadow detail is good and the computer effects and animation are also quite nice. At least they're way better than the wire-work. Otherwise a decent transfer that looks as good as a recent film should.

While granted us in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, the surround workout isn’t the most exciting I’ve ever heard. The music gets around there a lot, but as to the action scenes, well, not always great. Still, the sound is well delivered and devoid of any hissing or garbage like that. The subwoofer gives some serious resonance to the music anyway, particularly the drums in the action scenes. Of note, the Adrian Lee score here seems largely inspired by that of the Indiana Jones films and that’s okay; the lone hero pursuing an ancient artefact theme runs throughout anyway.

Dialogue is all fine, including Jackie’s halting grasp of English, although there have been some characters dubbed into English, it is assumed from their native Chinese. These moments are harder to spot, but in the Asian gent in the bowler hat and glasses, harder to miss. Sound effects are comic for the most part, or dramatic or whatever depending on the impact of the scene's intent.

Not a great deal, with a rather excitable pair lending their vox to the audio commentary for the film. We have co-producer Bill Borden and editor Don Brochu speaking their minds here and they do have some insight and a certain presence to the commentary. However, they are a little disappointing when we consider how good it would be to have a Jackie Chan commentary or even have Ms. Forlani contribute.

14 deleted scenes follow and these are in various stages of treatment with poor rendering and timecodes about. Interestingly, the film was called Highbinders before being changed to The Medallion and this is apparent on the clapperboard for each scene. They are also un-enhanced but play in 2.35:1. The final scene is an alternate ending which is devoid of the CG effects it so desperately needs to make it work right and is a crappier ending than the already sorta crappy ending in the film.

It’s a Jackie Chan film, so we shouldn’t expect rocket science and thankfully we don’t get it. There are plenty of Jackie’s trademarks lingering throughout, although the film also seems devoid of them at times too. Possibly this is due to the fairly large assembly of name-brand supporting cast who demand screen-time, I dunno.

At any rate, the film is fun while being aimed squarely at the kids but has enough style in it to keep any grown-ups watching amused for 85 minutes. Oh, and Jackie’s usual outtakes litter the credits and are good for a laugh, as always.