Who Am I? (1998)
Reviewed by: Mark on 1999-12-30
Summary: Who is Jackie?
Jackie Chan plays a mercenary who is airdropped into South Africa as part of a raid on a secret weapon-testing lab. However, after the operation he suddenly wakes up in a tribal village, with no idea how he got there or what his name is. His repeated requests of "Who am I?" prompt the villagers to name him that. In no time flat WhoamI is decked out in the latest feather'n'leather tribal gear and notching arrows and talking dialect with the best of 'em. The appearance of some Westerners sets him in search of his roots. His first contact is with Yuki - she's a rally driver from Japan with an injured navigator. WhoamI saves the day, hitches a lift, and starts to piece together his past.

For the first half of the film, this works really well. There are dramatic flashbacks to the missing events, and a sense of tension. The African scenes are beautiful, the mercenary scenes are exciting, and there are some wonderfully crazy driving scenes - Mitsubishi put big money into this film, so Jackie takes that as a license to thrash the hell out of their merchandise. It's terrific. Don't try this on Punt Road, people. However, his journey eventually takes him to Amsterdam, and apart from an amusing clog fight, the plot just wanders away. Chan hunts the widget and gets the widget and then defends the widget from all the bad guys who want the widget. In this case the widget is the sole floppy disk in existence of the most powerful bomb formula that the world has ever seen - never has such a sophisticated set-up devolved into such a naive pay-off. Oh well. It's fun to watch him run down the side of the building, which is ultimately what Jackie Chan films are about.

The weakness of the plot is certainly not helped by the acting. Jackie ditches his familiar amiable Jackie persona in favour of an angry Jackie, tormented by the loss of his past. It's not a very consistent loss, as he's still able to pontificate on things that his father told him. As for the torment, the scene where he winds up and yells "Whooo... ammm... I?" while the helicopter camera whirls around him is just plain cringeworthy. A more interesting take on this loss-of-self is to consider that it is the real Jackie Chan who is wondering who he is - is his future in Hollywood, or in Hong Kong?

In summary, then: if you like Jackie, you know you want to see this, and you will enjoy it - the Jackie fans among my circle all called it his best in years. If you're new to him, there are about 20 films from his earlier career that are better than this one. He gets full marks for trying to inject a little more plot than usual, but loses them all when the plot's ticker gives out at the halfway mark. But it's still worth 10 bucks to see him run down the side of that building.