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THE
MEDALLION
AKA:
The Highbinders
Year:
2003 Reviewer: Pat
King
Jackie
Chan fans had to wait a long time for 'Highbinders' to see the
light of day. After filming had wrapped, Jackie had made and
released two Hollywood efforts - 'The
Tuxedo' and 'Shanghai
Knights' - before 'Highbinders' finally got it's release.
A few things had changed however. As Sony were calling all the
shots, they decided to change the title to the more Hollywood
sounding and less original 'The Medallion'. In their infinite
wisdom they also decided to cut 27 minutes from the final cut
making it just 89 minutes long and announced that every
version released in around the globe would be identical, with
those 27 minutes remaining on the cutting room floor.
Hong
Kong Cop Eddie Yang (Jackie Chan) teams up with Interpol to
track down international crime lord Snakehead (Julian Sands).
Snakehead is at this time after the chosen child Jai
(Alexander Bao) who with the power of a medallion can give him
supernatural powers and immortality. After Eddie and Interpol
fail to detain him, Snakeheads assistant Lester Wong (Anthony
Wong) succeeds in abducting Jai. Eddie then follows him to
Dublin where he again teams up with Interpol agent Arthur
Watson (Lee Evans) and old flame Nicole James (Claire Forlani).
In an attempt to rescue Jai, Eddie finds himself trapped in a
shipping container with Jai underwater. As the container fills
with water Yang uses the merchandise contained within to save
Jai at the expense of his own life. With this Jai takes it
upon himself to use the medallion to bring Eddie back to life.
He soon discovers that not only has he been resurrected but
has also acquired supernatural powers and immortality.
Snakehead finally succeeds in kidnapping Jai and forces him to
use the medallion. However because Eddie has possession of one
half, Snakehead only acquires supernatural powers but not
immortality. On learning this Snakehead then proceeds to seize
the other half from Eddie and after his success Eddie, Nicole
and Arthur have to launch a final assault to stop Snakehead.
The
big question with 'The Medallion' is does it mark a return to
form after the lacklustre 'Accidental
Spy'? Well, no it doesn't. It does seem to suffer from the
27 minutes hacked prior to release as it seems somewhat
choppy, characters aren't fleshed out sufficiently and there
are times where events just seem to occur too quickly. However
I don't think that re-instating the deleted footage would
improve it that drastically. The main problem with 'The
Medallion' is it looks just like a Hollywood film with a
modest budget. In fact it's not even as good as his Hollywood
films, including 'The Tuxedo'.
The
next question would be surely the action is better than his
Hollywood films? Well, yes and no. In the first half of the
film there is some improvement, however after the resurrection
of Chan's character the action turns fantasy based and wire
aided. While Sammo Hung is one the all time great
choreographers he has never really made a name for himself
when it comes to fantasy style action. In 'Encounters
of the Spooky Kind' he used traditional Kung Fu, and in
'Blade of Fury' the wirework was comparatively restrained to
other films made at the same time. So maybe it was a mistake
to have Sammo as choreographer for these sequences as they are
uninspiring and dare I say tedious or even boring. Maybe they
should have enlisted Ching Siu Tung to choreograph the second
half of the film.
At
this point 'The Medallion' probably sounds like a very bad
film. It's not a very bad film, just not a very good one. In
one word, mediocre. The story isn't exactly original as
comparisons to 'The Golden Child' are many and justified.
Though the Dublin locations do make a refreshing change.
Jackie Chan still remains as watchable as ever, Lee Evans is
often annoying but occasionally amusing, Claire Forlani is
charming as is Christy Chung (as ever) in her special
appearance. There are also cameos from Nicholas Tse and Edison
Chen as waiters. Anthony Wong however is completely wasted in
a role that is clearly beneath his talents. To top that his
voice has been dubbed making it even worse. In fact most of
the Hong Kong section of the film appears to have been shot in
Chinese so it would seem that Sony have chosen to dub almost
every non English word in the film.
In
conclusion, 'The Medallion' was never going to be a classic
even if it was seen as it was originally intended. However, it
is evident that the film has further suffered from it's
mistreatment by Hollywood executives. But if Jackie intends on
making Hong Kong films like this I would have to ask why, as
this might as well be a Hollywood film. I know he likes to
have an international feel to his films but surely the whole
point of going back to Hong Kong to shoot a film is to make a
Hong Kong style film not a Hollywood style film. If I was to
use one word to sum the film up it would be
"disappointing".
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