Rarely has mumbo-jumbo been given such short-shrift as in The Medallion. They fail to catch Snakehead - for which Watson blames Yang - but inadvertently foil his attempt to kidnap Jai, a child monk who is the keeper of the titular medallion, a totem which can impart immortality and supernatural powers to the recently dead. Leading the Interpol charge is Agent Arthur Watson (Evans), an autocratic old-school bumbler who couldn't catch a cold. Then he springs into action, as back-up to an Interpol stake-out of a criminal named Snakehead (Sands) whose face no one but the audience and Snakehead's fifty henchmen has ever seen. The film begins promisingly, on a funky neon-saturated Hong Kong night, as local detective Eddie Yang (Chan) shows what a nice guy he is by feeding his take-away to a puppy. There are no visible signs of direction, suggesting that HK veteran martial arts filmmaker Gordon Chan concentrated solely on blocking the fight sequences. Apparently the entire above-the-line crew has taken a kick at the can, and soundly missed. Ancillary prospects should mirror theatrical - a must-have DVD for Chan completists.Ī glance at the screenwriting credits is the first indication of serious trouble.
An unhappy blend of screwball antics mixed with the standard flying fists and a romantic angle without romance, let alone chemistry, the film grabbed some business in the US when it opened at the weekend, taking $8.2m from 2,648 sites for a n unimpressive $3,096 average, but is then likely to fizzle from a paucity of word-of-mouth. But prospects are bleak for even a modest North American break-out on the order of Shanghai Knights, a product which is Shakespeare by comparison.
Thankfully, for Columbia TriStar, they number in the millions so this scatter-brained action comedy, known as The Highbinders in earlier incarnations, should do respectable international trade. The Medallion is for die-hard Jackie Chan fans only.