A few thoughts on THE MYTH

[Brian Thibodeau]

Saw the international premiere of this at the Toronto Film Fest on Thursday night, with director Stanley Tong and stars Jackie Chan, Kim Hee-son, Mallika Sherawat and Shao Bing in attendance (and they stayed to watch the entire film).

It's a typical Jackie Mix of gag-filled fights, cornball period melodrama, hamfisted plotting to accommodate two attractive, fawning female co-stars and inconsistent pacing. Plus, the visual effects that are helping the 51-year-old Chan pull off his feats of daring are becoming increasingly obvious. This is normally not a bad thing, since everybody know's he's not crazy enough to do what he did 15 to 20 years ago, but the effects are clearly INTENDED to make us think the stunts are completely real, their visible nature only makes me wish he'd just surrender himself to the CG world once and for all like most action stars.

Thankfully, that's EXACTLY what he does during the film's stunning final 20 minutes, set inside a gorgeously rendered, ethereal gravity-defying tomb (for which those famous thousands of buried terracotta warrior statues were only a diversion, according to the film's plot), as Chan, concubine Kim Hee-sun, Big Tony Leung and an assortment of bad guys led by Shao Bing indulge in some fanciful, gravity-defying fights on and around thousands of silent, FLOATING Qin Dynasty soldiers, horses and wagons protecting an enormous staircase leading to the Emperor's burial palace. The CG work in this sequence is exceptionally well done, although Chan purists will still likely balk that they were used at all, and yet, for once, the story in a Jackie Chan film builds to a sequence that simply couldn't be done justice by on-set props and wires.

Early on in the film, there's a giddy fight pitting Chan and Number Two Babe Mallika Sherawat against the cops on a sticky conveyor belt in an Indian rat glue factory that effortlessly transports the viewer back to Chan's heydey in the mid-80's to early 90's. Indeed, barring the ending, which could leave viewers excited or indifferent depending on their overall tolerance for Hong Kong cinema and Chan in particular (personally, I loved it), THIS fight will probably be considered one of Chan's most entertaining concoctions in recent years, as the combatants lose more and more clothes to the glue beneath their feet!

There's also a decent battle early on when Chan and Leung, searching for the groundbreaking secret to levitation, disturb an ancient, floating Indian sarcophagus that sham holy men have apparently been using for decades to convince the commoners they have Divine powers, the exposure of which leads to a fun donnybrook in, on and around the fallen casket.

It's likely THE MYTH will face trims if it's to garner serious theatrical play outside of China and Hong Kong. Tighter cohesion is necessary. The presence of the girls will give it a shelf like in Korea and India, and it's certainly better, and more heartfelt, than some of Chan's recent offerings like WHO AM I? and THE ACCIDENTAL SPY (though nowhere close to NEW POLICE STORY), but it seems more likely headed to a premium DVD release on North American shores.


As an afterthought, I'll mention that I also saw SPL on Friday night at the fest - more thoughts on that later. Sammo, Jacky Wu Jing and Wilson Yip were there. Sammo got TWO standing ovations. One before the film for being Sammo, and one afterward for SPL being such a PHENOMENAL film, just amazing! Jackie Chan did not get a standing ovation, although he was loved.