Rating of
3/4
Great comedy
TheWolf - wrote on 08/17/07
I have no idea where the idea came about to team Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, but I'm really glad they thought of it because the Shanghi series is very funny. In "Shanghai Noon," Chan plays Chon Wang, a 19th century Chinese martial arts master who ventures out to Nevada in order to rescue the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), whose name is misused by Roy O'Bannon (Wilson) on at last one occasion.
After Chon Wang (mistakenly pronounced "John Wayne") meets up with Roy, the two decide to form an alliance and rescue the princess -- one for honor, the other for loads of money awaiting them upon her safe arrival back home in Imperial China's Forbidden City.
Roy is a lousy wannabe cowboy who used to stage clumsy train robberies along with his band of thieves, who betrayed him and left him for dead. He offers his help to Wang, and tries to play it cool, but he can't -- after all, he's not a very convincing cowboy. But, as the smarmy wisecracking sidekicks always are, O'Bannon just wants money. But as his friendship with Chan grows stronger, he realizes that money isn't everything.
