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 tanley
Tong's big-budget epic "The Myth" is an
conflicted attempt to further the persona of
Jackie the Actor, while at the same time remaining
familiar enough to those that demands the Jackie
of old. The serious side is represented by
Jackie's role as a Qin-era General named Meng-Yi
who is seen in flashbacks, while the present has
Jackie playing tomb raiding archaeologist Jack.
While Jack gets into the usual Jackie mischief --
prop combat and Buster Keaton comedy fights --
Meng-Yi is all business as a somber warrior torn
between his loyalty to the Qin Emperor and his
growing emotions for Ok-soo (Hee-seon Kim), a
Korean concubine he's charged with protecting.
"The Myth" opens in
Qin-era
China
, where Meng-Yi's mission to escort Ok-soo into
the Emperor's arms is complicated when rogue
Koreans attack the convoy. In the melee, Meng-Yi
and Ok-soo are tossed into a river, where they
drift far from home. As the two make their way
back to safety, all the while accompanied by an
obnoxious orchestral score that swells (and swells
and swells some more), the two fall madly in love,
which sort of puts a crimp in their duty-bound
life. Meanwhile, Jack agrees to tag along with
best bud Tony Leung Ka Fai (aka the other
Tony Leung) as they rob some Indian tombs in
search of an object that can defy gravity. (No,
really.)
It's in this Indian tomb that
Jack runs across an old portrait of Ok-soo,
convincing him that the dreams he's been having of
Meng-Yi are in fact flashbacks to a previous
incarnation. As Jack gets involved in various
hijinks with flexible Indian babe Mallika
Sherawat, Meng-Yi is having a devil of a time
reconciling his feelings for Ok-soo and his duty
to the Emperor, a duty he takes very, very
seriously. Plus, the Emperor is dying, his
Ministers are plotting a coup, and hundreds of
extras with no discernible acting ability play
dress up as Meng-Yi earns his keep by taking on
all of
China
. (No, really.)
"The Myth's"
biggest problem is that it wants to be ambitious
and yet stay true to the formula. Past and present
converges in the Third Act, and all is explained,
although in a curiously silly way that involves
floating Imperial courts, statues, carriages, and
people flying. Lots and lots of flying. There's
romance, immortality, space meteorites, kung fu,
an obnoxious musical score that makes Steven
Spielberg look like a master of subtlety by
comparison, and yes, the oh-so-lovely Hee-seon
Kim, who in a bit of trivia played almost the
exact same character in the Korean martial arts
epic "Bichunmoo".
For fans of Jackie's old
stunt work days, there are some inspired gags in
"The Myth" to chew on, in particular an
all-too brief fight on a conveyer belt covered in
glue. For everyone else, "The Myth"
marks the first time Jackie allows himself to be
in a movie that features a battle scene that is
surprisingly very bloody, with Meng-Yi literally
standing on a mountain of dead bodies, having
racked up an impressive bodycount in the hundreds,
perhaps thousands, all by his little lonesome. You
won't see that in any Jackie Chan movie before
2005!
Not surprisingly, audience
members who are less than diehard fans of Jackie's
pratfall days will find the flashbacks to the Qin
era to be more interesting than the present
timeline. After all, you have Royal intrigue,
romance (as unconvincing it is), and battle scenes
with hundreds of extras. While yes, that final
battle sequence when Meng-Yi takes on all of China
does seem to start rather abruptly and keep going
and going, it's still more fun than watching Tony
Leung pretend to play a goofball who is being used
by his former professor, who doesn't even show up
until the second half, and even then he's barely
(just barely) a viable plotline.
One of "The Myth's" biggest weaknesses is
Meng-Yi and Ok-sook's less than convincing
romance, something the film tries mightily to
convince us of by blasting the orchestral score to
unfathomable depths everytime the two characters
are within earshot of each other onscreen. Both
Chan and Hee-seon try their best, but there's no
chemistry, which isn't surprising since Hee-seon
has always been known more for her beauty than her
thespian abilities, and Chan for his Buster Keaton
impression than, well, you get the idea. Bogart
and Bergman these guys ain't. As a result,
Ok-sook's sudden affections for Meng-Yi seems more
like a serendipitous high school crush than the
product of, say, love.
Fortunately
the film does manage to do a few things well,
namely fashioning a believable heroic persona for
Meng-Yi, whose last stand is without a doubt the
film's highlight. Alas, the final confrontation in
the cave is a bit over-the-top, relying on muddy
special effects and layers of obvious green screen
work. Speaking of which, there are special effects
in "The Myth" where there shouldn't be
any, including Meng Yi's apparently super horse.
You have to wonder why anyone didn't point out
that giving Meng-Yi, who is already a super
General with his flying and fighting skills, an
equally super horse is a really, really moronic
idea.
Overall, your chances of
enjoying "The Myth" will depend on your
expectations of Jackie Chan. As the follow-up to
Jackie's "New
Police Story", there's enough action,
comedy, and contrived romance to keep one from
falling asleep for at least 90 minutes of
"The Myth's" 2-hour running time. The
remaining 30 minutes, like the overblown ending in
the cave, is better left on the cutting room
floor, if only because it'll remind audiences too
much of Michelle Yeoh's ill-conceived tomb raiding
film "The
Touch", which had an ending that is
eerily similar to "The Myth's",
including gobs of green screen CGI and wacky
flying.
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