The Medallion

Amazon.com

The inspired pairing of Jackie Chan and British comedian Lee Evans (Funny Bones) gives The Medallion some extra oomph. Hong Kong agent Eddie Yang (Chan) flies to Ireland to track down a very bad guy named Snakehead (Julian Sands, Warlock, exuding his dependable oily menace) who has kidnapped a young boy with the power of life and death. When Eddie dies protecting the boy, the boy resurrects him with a magical medallion--and when Eddie comes back, he's got supernatural powers, much to the befuddlement of his former partner, Arthur (Evans). Along for the ride is Eddie's old flame, Nicole (Claire Forlani, Mystery Men), wearing tight outfits and delivering high kicks. Chan has lost the astonishing elasticity of his youth, but he's still spry enough pull some dazzling moves, and Evans is just amazingly funny. Between the two, The Medallion is far more entertaining than you might expect. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

possibly the worst jackie chan film ever.......2007-08-20

Before I began to bash this film, its not because it is just a gosh awful film, but in comparison to most Chan films this is possibly his weakest entry. Sure, he is getting a little older these days, but he can still put out films like New Police Story, I just don't understand. If he was aiming for a kids movie with Medallion, then he has succeeded. And if there was anything I did enjoy most from this film, it didn't necassarily come from Chan himself.

Bascially, this really did seem like something made for kids. The idea of The Medallion did not appeal to me at all, and seemed rather corny and cheesy. It is about a young boy who holds the power of life and death in a medallion, which he is the chosen protector of. There wasn't much exploration throughout the film about the medallion. We get to see it used twice, bringing the Chan character back to life early on and again briefly for the villain. Other than that, this is basically a back and forth chase movie, as bad guys and good guys try to claim the boy and medallion.

Most Chan movies have lots of chases - by foot, bicycle, car and who knows what. In Medallion, the action sequences and chases are kind of boring for a Chan film. Lots of wirework and digital graphics are used, which means hardly any real stunts from Jackie. There is a foot chase early on that lasts for several minutes where Chan walks across a row of bicycles and does some other nice things, but thats about it. As far as fights go, I was also dissapointed. Chan fights the bad guy (Jullian Sands) twice, but both scenes are laughably bad. There was no skill involved, as everyhting was digital and bad camera work.

In addition to a weak story, the characters were quite uninteresting and there was little development between them. The humor you expect from Chan films is a different kind of humor, provided mostly by the Lee Evans character, who is Chan's partner. For awhile I thought his humor was kind of stupid, but eventually it should give some laughs, and ends up being about the only enjoybale thing out of this film.

Don't expect anything serious, anything great, or any teriffic action. This is a lousy film that is worth watching once and probably it. I definetly see this designed more for kids. It was just too cheesy and poor for my taste. Jackie Chan fans will most likely be dissapointed.

Ridiculously bad.......2007-08-15

I really like most Jackie Chan movies, but nothing could redeem this stinker. The less said about the plot, the better. The dialogue was awful. And the action scenes aren't even very good. The most enjoyment I got out of this movie was sitting around afterwards drinking to forget and hoping that in our drunken stupors, the movie would magically make sense and be entertaining.

One of the worst movies ever.......2007-03-22

this movie was horrible I just watched it and it felt like forever. the comedy in the movie sucked there were ONLY 3 scenes that were actually funny and they were with Lee Evans, Jackie was just not his old self in this movie he is either getting old or not in shape, and Claire forlani's acting was horrible big time the movie could have been way better with out her.

I also did not like that most of jackie's stunts were done with wires. the story line was ok but it needed some real comedy, i was bored through most of the movie and I hope jackie's talent doesn't go to waste and he starts acting in better movies.

Jackie Chan and Gordon Chan just didn't mix well.......2007-01-15

While Gordon Chan is not one of the elite directors in Hong Kong, he has big ideas that work sometimes but others just fail miserably. It is too bad that Jackie had to be part of this movie. The story is about Jackie trying to save some kid. It felt a lot like Eddie Murphy's 'Golden Child' and I think they actually call the kid the golden child in this movie. So basically they didn't seem to have a story for this and wrote it as they went along like most Hong Kong movies. Except this is an American movie, or I guess I will say that it is an English speaking movie. Jackie saves the kid and dies. Don't worry, he comes back to life by the golden child and because of this medallion. Now while the action wasn't great it wasn't too bad. There were a couple of brief fights that were good but once Jackie is brought back to life he is superhuman and the action just looks ridiculous form there on. Before he dies and has normal fights the action is the best but the wirework still bugs the crap out of me. When somebody gets hit with an uppercut, do they really need to be lifted off of their feet? The wirework makes people look like Spiderman most of the time. It just doesn't work.

I wish I could say the action was the only thing I had a little bit of a problem with. The acting is very bad and the comedy only works a few times. The movie is nice to look at but it is very doubtful you will ever watch this again. I would be going on for many pages if I named all that is wrong with this movie. Then again, it could have just been the outtakes Jackie does at the end of every movie that made me think that I actually enjoyed this somewhat.

Now you are probably saying-Morgoth, you just gave a review for a 1 star movie! Why did you rate it a 3?!?!?!? Well, I will tell you. Like I said, Jackie looks great. The action is done by his big brother Sammo Hung. While the movie around Jackie is amazingly bad, he is still very good in it. Now that only explains why I would give it a 2. The 3rd star goes to Christy Chung. While her part in the movie was WAAAYYYYY too brief, she is the most amazing woman I have ever set my eyes on and she kick some serious butt! So she slightly pushes this to a 3. Any movie with Lily-Li, Brigitte Lin, or Christy Chung makes it a must have for me.

The DVD is nicely presented. Executive producer and editor commentary. They mainly just talk about how great the movie is and they are glad it turned out so well. I guess I just didn't see that. There are also many deleted scenes that are just as good as he actual movie from what I can tell. Always nice to see the action scenes they threw out.

Not very memorable.......2006-12-22

I love Jackie Chan and all of his movies, buy I will admit this is not one of his best. It's quite bad actually, I bought it cos it was cheap and I like to own all of Jackie's movies in my collection. Not even Claire Forlani could really save this one, she looks totally out of place in this movie. I only recommend it to serious Jackie fans, I couldn't imagine anyone else getting through the whole 85 minutes.

Average customer rating:

The Medallion / The Art of Action
Starring: Jackie Chan , Lee Evans , Claire Forlani , Julian Sands , and John Rhys-Davies
Director: Gordon Chan , and Keith R. Clarke
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

Comic Action | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( M ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B0000SXJZK
Release Date: 2003-12-23

DVD:

DVD

DVD