Mr. Canton and Lady Rose
AKA Miracles
1/18/2001
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Jackie Chan, Kenneth Lo Wai Kwong, Billy Chow Bei Li

Just in case you haven't seen this, Jackie plays a gang boss (made so accidentally by a dying man, quite funny) and tries to set things straight for his cronies, basically.

Mr. Canton and Lady Rose isn't filled with action by any means. There's some good material, but mostly it's a plot movie, not a martial arts one. In fact, there's one sub-plot that irritated me so much I started falling asleep. Something about impersonating a family member. It took forever. Anyways, I must say that, production wise, this is one of Jackie's most professional of his early films. It's smart, expensive, and things are less hoaky than his other films (though I tend to like those more due to greater action content).

It starts off with Jackie getting caught in the action between two gangs, and he does a tiny bit of kickboxing, nothing spectacular. Maybe 10 seconds long or so. But when Jackie has to show what he's made of, he makes quite a scene. Two guys go against him and there's some standard Jackie style kickboxing with fast hands and high blocks, and he does a few little tricks and does a nice Biao kick (like from Righting Wrongs) followed by another high kick and then a sweep. It looked like Jackie was doubled at one point though, and another guy obviously was.



Jackie starts trouble at another gang's place, and the other gang leader tells everybody to put their weapons away, which calls for a hand to hand fight. Lots of Jacky-isms like him kicking chairs at people, going through doors over and over, and some great stunt- and propwork. One guy takes a HUGE spill from a balcony down onto a table. Amazing. So, not a whole lot of kickboxing choreography, but instead some really good stuntwork by everybody else, who do tons of falls, and Jackie, who does falls and throws props in the air and bats them the other way, hitting a guy. Just the kind of stuff Jackie fans love so much. At other times he does some cool things like throwing his hat from across the room, without looking, and landing it on the coathanger. You can spot a few familiar faces like Fong Hak On and other guys from the JC stunt crew.



Next comes the extremely long story part where Jackie tries to get Anita Mui and all that. Should have been edited out, or at least shortened. It just made the movie way too long.

About an HOUR later, maybe 45 minutes, there's a great fight outside in the marketplace with Jackie going against Ken Lo and some other goons. Again, lots of props and stunts, with sparse kickboxing action. But it's still great and highly enjoyable. Kenneth Lo seems to be the serious one of course (you'd probably guess that) and tries to throw in some real moves, but it's a big piece of fun. Moments like when Jackie picks up two clay pots on the top of a staircase to threaten the gang below, and they all pick up two also, so he runs up the stairs with clay pots breaking at his heels, and when he is going to throw boiling hot water on everyone but drops the pot because he can't carry it, and when one guy picks up a piece of bamboo and Jackie tries to do the same but his is too long and stops at a canopy, are totally hilarious. Of course Jackie does it with grace and makes us think that this stuff is actually possbile during a real fight. The man is a prop-fight genius. He takes a BIG spill down a hill at the end which is very impressive. Good stuff, really. Over 2 minutes long too. Too bad Kenneth Lo doesn't do anything interesting, Jackie should have had a faceoff with him.



The last fight follows immediately, and is more stunt filled mayhem, though he's against Billy Chow and his 9 goons so there's some worthwhile hand to hand choreography as well. Chow is faster than normal with his kickboxing, which he shows off in the beginning for a bit. Since the scene takes place in a rope factory, there's lots of stuff for Jackie to do, like jumprope on a plank at the top (really high up), standing on a falling ladder, and jumping out to a rope to find that it's not connected to anything, so he just keeps pulling at it until he regains his balance. It's great entertainment. His fight with Chow is well choreographed at the end.



Sadly that's all there is though. The last fight is great, the one before that is great too, and the one before THAT is great, but other than those, there isn't anything to satisfy an action hunger. Don't get me wrong, the content is all awesome, but there isn't enough of it. And I would have liked to see more fighting. Stunts are good, but more hand to hand work is good too. So, maybe if there had been one more of these scenes, or perhaps if these 3 had had more fighting, I'd give it a 5/5. However, Jackie's use of short bursts of kickboxing left me wanting a bit more. Sure, he's great with the environment that he fights in, but it seemed a bit incomplete. Top that with a VERY boring middle that takes too long and it's good but not great.

4/5

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