Trailer
Synopsis
Eddie Yang, a Hong Kong police inspector, works with Interpol to catch Snakehead, a smuggler hunting a boy named Jai. The child carries a medallion said to grant strength and immortality to whoever joins its two halves. When Snakehead kidnaps Jai and takes him to Ireland, Eddie follows with two Interpol agents, Arthur Watson and Nicole James.
Why watch it
The most expensive Hong Kong production of its day
Shot under the working title Highbinders, The Medallion was launched with an announced budget of 35 million dollars, the largest ever committed to a Hong Kong production at the time; final estimates run as high as 41 million. Emperor Multimedia Group produced it and Columbia TriStar bought worldwide distribution rights. Filming began in August 2001 in Dublin, at Dublin Castle and in the Wicklow hills, paused while Jackie Chan shot The Tuxedo, then resumed in Asia late that year.
Sammo Hung runs the action
Sammo Hung, Chan's classmate at the Peking opera school of their childhood, choreographed the fights and was nominated for Best Action Choreography at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards. But this is also the first Chan film to lean heavily on wires and digital effects: once the medallion brings him back to life, Eddie Yang flies, shrugs off blows and bounds across rooftops. Practitioners will find the familiar Chan in the first half, the Interpol raid in Hong Kong and the rescue of Jai from a container in Dublin harbour, rather than in a finale where the effects take over. Among Snakehead's henchmen is a then-unknown Briton, Scott Adkins, future star of the Undisputed series.
A shortened cut and a cold reception
According to the editors' commentary, the first cut ran about 108 minutes; the released version is 88. Snakehead's human-smuggling plot and his Highbinder army were dropped, some Cantonese dialogue was redubbed in English, and more than 20 minutes of deleted scenes appear on the US DVD. The result: 17% on Rotten Tomatoes from 125 reviews, 38 on Metacritic and a B CinemaScore. Roger Ebert, kinder than most, called it disposable entertainment redeemed by Chan's skill and charm.
At the box office it took 22.2 million dollars in the United States and 34.3 million worldwide (Box Office Mojo), a loss against the budget. In France, released on 24 December 2003, it sold 169,759 tickets.
Who it's for
For Jackie Chan completists, and for anyone trying to understand the turn in his American period, between Rush Hour 2 (2001) and the return to raw action in New Police Story (2004).
Written by our monitoring agent from the sources cited.