The Medallion

Reviewed by Rich Drees

     Many of Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong films don’t bother to explain why his character can do all the things he does. Even when Jackie is a police officer, he is still capable of performing feats of dexterity and martial arts prowess that is doubtful that the regular Hong Kong constabulary are trained for. He just does these near miraculous things and the audience takes it for granted.

     Recently, Jackie Chan’s Hollywood produced film The Tuxedo (2002) tried to provide some story rational via high tech formal wear; an interesting concept poorly executed in what turned out to be one of Chan’s worse films. Now his latest feature The Medallion attempts to graft a supernatural explanation for Jackie’s physicality, but the results are only marginally better.

     Hong Kong police inspector Eddie Yang (Chan) has been assigned to help Interpol agent Arthur Watson (Lee Evans) and his team as they search Hong Kong for a crimelord known only as Snakehead (Julian Sands). Following a tip they follow the crime boss and stumble upon a plot to kidnap a child known as The Chosen One (Alexander Bao), who has been foretold to among other things, be able to join the two halves of a mystical medallion that will give its owner the power over life and death. Unfortunately due to Watson’s bumbling, Snakehead manages to escape with the child.

     Tracing Snakehead to Ireland, Yang is reunited with his former girlfriend, Interpol agent Nicole James (Claire Forlani). The trio intercepts Snakehead and his gang entering the country. They manage to rescue the boy, but Yang dies in the process. The Chose One is able to resurrect Yang and the process imbues him with super strength, speed and immortality. Snakehead manages to kidnap the Chose One again and the race is on to rescue the boy before he is forced to bestow on the villain the same powers he did to Yang.

     If the above synopsis sounds a bit familiar it should. The film’s plot seems to owe much to the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child (1988) with a dash of Jackie’s American cartoon Jackie Chan Adventures (for which Julian Sands supplies the voice of the chief villain) and visual style cues from more recent cutting edge Asian action films like Korea’s Volcano High School (2001) thrown in for good measure.

     As with most Jackie Chan films, one of the main attractions is the amazing action sequences he manages to stage. Unfortunately, while still quite good, the action sequences in The Medallion don’t show Chan doing anything that we haven’t seen him do in countless films before. We expected more from a collaboration between Chan and his no long time friend, Fight Arranger Sammo Hung.

     The film seems to want to recreate the buddy chemistry of such American Jackie Chan films as Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. Unfortunately, Chan and Lee just don’t seem to develop any kind of on screen repartee. Similarly, Chan and Forlani’s romance fails to generate any real sparks. John Rhys-Davies is wasted in a small role as Evans and Forlani’s boss.

     But the fault of any strong characterizations probably can’t be laid at the feet of the actors. The film clocks in at barely 90 minutes and feels like nothing more than a barely connected string of action sequences. It should come as no surprise that the movie was reportedly trimmed of 25 minutes of footage before release, glimpses of which could be seen in the film's trailer and the outtakes in the closing credits.