Shanghai Knight (2003)

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Shanghai Knight (2003)

6/10

Starring

Jackie Chan

Owen Wilson

Donnie Yen

Fann Wong

Directed by David Dobkin

Shanghai Noon (2000) gradually becomes Shanghai Knight, with both actors from the previous movie reprising their role as Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) and Roy (Owen Wilson). The movie is not as good as the first, but it is surprisingly interesting funny and captivating.

This time the makers also went as far as bringing into the plot this time much more familiar themes that we are more used too, we have in the plot this time a boy who winds up being Charlie Chaplin, the detective in the film ended up being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who goes on to write the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and according to the movie the name Sherlock Holmes is a made up name by Roy.

The movie plot is about our dynamic duo from the first movie, only this time their adventure takes them to England. The movie starts with the death of Wang’s (Jackie) father who was a guard of the royal diamond seal which was stolen. Wang’s father while dying told his daughter Chon Lin (Fann Wong) to retrieve the stolen seal and also deliver a puzzle box to her brother.

Now Wang her brother had become a Sherriff in Nevada, and when he got the message about his father’s death and the seal stolen away to England, he searched for Roy to get some money to travel to England. Roy on the other hand had lost all their gold that they got in the first film to gambling and daft investments. So now together with Wang’s sister Lin, they have to retrieve the diamond and have it return back to china.

Many more homages were made in this film that I will like to mention:

1.     The name of the villain also was tagged "the finest swordsman in England," which is a tribute to Basil Rathbone, who is known for his swordsmanship and always seem to be better than his counterparts in his movies but always holds back because the hero has to win. Also Rathbone played Sherlock Holmes in the 1930s to the 1940s series.

2.    Also in the movie we get to see Jackie Chan pay homage to the Rush Hour moviewhere Jackie distracts the guards by using Chinese vases.

3.      When knocking on Conan Doyle's door, the clothes that Roy and Wang are wearing are exactly the same dress that Holmes and Watson wore in Conan Doyle's stories.

The movie did fairly in the box office but it was a massive hit in Pakistan, where the movie was dubbed in Punjabi and several millions copies of the movie’s DVD and VCD sales were great, and so making the producers to also make Shanghai Noonalso in Punjabi.

This movie is a nice watch one that you will like seeing, and I enjoin you that you do.