A couple months ago, a friend loaned me a badly-dubbed copy of a Jackie Chan movie called Who Am I? Its plot was classic Jackie Chan - a guy loses his memory and, because he was a top government operative, faces innumerable battles and fights as well as humorous situations. In my discussion with my friend after I'd seen it, we talked about how Jackie Chan movies were all about the fighting, all about sitting through the plot to get to the part where he uses a ladder and a refrigerator to beat up some guys.
Recently, however, Chan has found the way to blend his frenetic martial arts with buddy comedy to provide an interesting plot AND the backdrop for his special brand of physical fighting. The most recent incarnation of this new formula is Shanghai Noon.
Chan's 'pardner' in this film is Owen Wilson, a regular Hollywood renaissance man who acts and writes (he co-wrote Wes Anderson's Bottlerocket and Rushmore). Wilson plays Roy O'Bannon, a good-hearted train robber who, of course, reluctantly teams up with Jackie Chan's Chon Wain (pronounced "John Wayne," a terrible cowboy name). Wilson does splendidly as Chan's sidekick, providing many of his own hilarious 90's-cowboy lines. Who says anachronism isn't funny?
For me, of course, the highlight is Jackie Chan's action sequences. The first major sequence (echoing strongly of Rumble in the Bronx) is a rumble with some Native Americans. Later in the film is perhaps the most impressive sequence: Chan fights with an improvised horseshoe weapon - awesome!
While this film works better than Rush Hour did, it still isn't quite as fluid as it could be. The fight scenes seem very much like they're in the film to be fight scenes, rather than as if they were an actual part of the narrative. I'm not sure why they seem that way. Perhaps it is because of the look and feel of Chan's fighting style. Having seen perhaps 6 of his films, I've come to recognize his signature choreography, which shines through the glitz of the city, as in Rush Hour, or the dust of the Old West. It's almost as if the story was written to get from fight scene to fight scene.
At the same time, the story is much better than most of the accompanying stories for Chan's films. The bottom line, I think, is that Chan is getting better at working with writers (or writers are getting better at working with Chan) to combine the two styles of film. While Shanghai Noon isn't as smooth as it could be, it's better than most.