JACKIE CHAN: EMERGENCE OF A SUPERSTAR Review: Communist in Training

The colors are breathtaking.

Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar
The four-disc set is now available from The Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and DVD.

"Back in the day, which is to say the dawn of the 21st century, or, A.D. After Rush Hour, some fervent film fans would gaze longingly at nifty new Criterion Collection DVDs, which were much cheaper than new Criterion Collection laserdiscs, and wonder, 'Why can't Criterion release Jackie Chan movies instead of forcing us to import DVDs from Hong Kong so as to enjoy the original, uncut versions of his movies, instead of the stupid Weinstein Co. and their cut, English-dubbed monstrosities?'"

That's what I joyfully wrote in June 2020, on the occasion of the Criterion Channel debut of a new series, Starring Jackie Chan, featuring Police Story and Police Story 2, which were released together in a Criterion Blu-ray in 2019 -- I wrote joyfully about the significance of that event -- as well as the six films gathered together in a four-disc box set, Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar.

After I wrote each of those articles, a friend kindly pointed me to news reports on Jackie Chan's negative comments on the 2019 protests in Hong Kong and his 2021 comments expressing his desire to join the Chinese Communist Party, which I minimized in my mind each time. When the box set arrived, I was jam-packed with other viewing responsibilities as a festival screener, so I put it aside reluctantly. As I stared at that box, though, I thought increasingly about Chan's comments, so I read about it again.

How could the bringer of so much joy to my movie life express such anti-democratic words? And then double-down on them? To discourage people from expressing their strongly-held views?

My recent experience as a festival screener, watching hundreds of movies in just a few months, has reinforced my own cinematic opinions on what makes a movie good, bad, or indifferent. (Put another way: for me, not for me, meh.) In watching movies, though, I cannot entirely ignore my knowledge of the filmmaker and the cast. If I know or strongly suspect that a creative talent is racist or sexist, or holds viewpoints that I find objectionable, it will affect what I choose to see and write about.

I watched Jackie Chan's films obsessively when I was first learning about Hong Kong cinema in the late 1990s and early 2000s, renting DVDs from Netflix and scouring online retailers for newly-available titles, and then watched his Hollywood films to get further glimpses of his action genius. As his career began to wane, my affections for him were overtaken by other cinematic artists.

His more recent expressions of support for China have made me question why I liked him in the first place. Much of that had to do with his humor and grace, those great action sequences, and -- wow! -- did he just do that?

So that sent me back to his early, funny films. In the case of the box set at hand, I watched all six films and all the extras included. All are 2K digital restorations, save for Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, which is a high-definition digital restoration.

The Fearless Hyena and Young Master look astoundingly good, with natural skin tones and accurate colors. My 4K player upscales the Blu-ray image, which to my eyes looks even better. Audio commentaries by Frank Djeng on these two titles sound like the Hong Kong Movie Database come to life, as Mr. Djeng breathlessly rattles off names and credits in a rush, but they are also incredibly informative, as he points out locations, body doubles, explains undercranking, credits the dubbing artists, points out hair styles, and analyzes how and why Chan endeavored to do things differently in his first two efforts as a director.

The commentaries are amazingly good and worth the price of admission on their own.

The color truly pop in My Lucky Stars, especially the different-painted vehicles in the automotive pursuits. Coming after five martial arts period pieces, the modern setting and Sammo Hung's superb direction come as a great relief. Chan is the headliner here, but in the film itself, he's a member of the ensemble, which allows space for Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Sibelle Hu, and Michiko Nishiwaki to step forward.

The huge stinking problem for My Lucky Stars is its offensive middle section, which finds Sammo Hung and his old buddies from the orphanage traveling to Japan in the company with Sibelle Hu. I've seen the film years ago on DVD and forgotten about that section entirely, but watching it on the Criterion Channel reawakened concerns I tried to ignore. Seeing 'the boys' -- all men in the 30s or 40s -- pretend to be silly adolescent schoolboys who'd never seen a girl before but now want to "bang" her quick or maybe "just" cop a feel made me nauseous. It's not commented upon at all or explained or justified, so perhaps all involved now realize how offensive it is, especially when trying to play it off as 'boys will be boys.'

As to the other films: Half a Loaf of Kung Fun shows promise, but is otherwise dreadful. The high-definition digital restoration does what it can with what were probably poorly-maintained original materials; it looks much the worse for wear. The disc includes Grady Hendrix's 10-minute video on Chan, which I first saw on the Criterion Channel. Two trailers are included.

Spiritual Kung Fu is better-looking on the Blu-ray with a higher, shaper visual quality. It's a better film too, with greater variety in framing and staging. Among the extras is a good, archival video in Cantonese by Paul Fonoroff, longtime Hong Kong film critic.

Fearless Hyena 2 assembles footage from Chan's scenes before he left the production over a contract dispute with Lo Wei and went to Golden Harvest, together with outtakes and new footage that doesn't make a lick of sense. Good quality transfer, though, if you care to watch it.

The package also includes a lovely essay by critic Alex Pappademas, included on the printed booklet.

Summary: I'm glad it's out. The packaging is good. At least three of the transfers kinda blew my mind on disc.

I'm still working out my feelings on Jackie Chan, but there will be more time for that as more of his films roll out in the approach to his turning 70 (?!) in 2024.