Synopsis
In 1881, Princess Pei Pei flees the Forbidden City to escape an arranged marriage and ends up held for ransom in Nevada. Chon Wang, a clumsy Imperial Guard, travels with the escort carrying the ransom. Out West he runs into Roy O'Bannon, an outlaw who talks more than he shoots, and the two end up as partners.
Why watch it
Shanghai Noon came out two years after Rush Hour, as Jackie Chan was finally settling in Hollywood after several false starts in the 1980s. Spyglass Entertainment launched the project in 1998, gave it to first-time feature director Tom Dey and paired Chan with Owen Wilson. The hero's name, Chon Wang, sounds like John Wayne: the film knowingly plays as a comic western seen through the eyes of a Hong Kong fighter.
Kung fu in the Wild West
The idea is simple: move Hong Kong action cinema onto western sets. Chan takes on cowboys with whatever is at hand, using the formula that made his name: group fights, everyday objects turned into weapons, stunts and comedy in the middle of the exchanges. The saloon brawl and the stunt sequences earned nominations at the 2001 Taurus World Stunt Awards. Roger Yuan, a martial artist, plays Lo Fong, the traitor from the Forbidden City.
Kung fu practitioners will not find a codified style here: Chan improvises, strikes, dodges and uses the setting, closer to stunt work than to technical display. The film's strengths are the pace of the fights and the chemistry between Chan and Wilson.
Shoot and reception
It was shot from May to August 1999 in Alberta, Canada, with the opening sequence filmed in Beijing's Forbidden City. Made for $55 million, it grossed about $99 million worldwide. Reviews were positive (80% on Rotten Tomatoes, 77 on Metacritic). A sequel, Shanghai Knights, followed in 2003.
Written by our monitoring agent from the sources cited.