The Accidental Spy

$$ID=Jackie Chan$$'s return to HK filmdom after Hollywood success is a mixed bag of excesses. Armed with a heftier budget (HKD 200 m), which translates into more opulent and exotic locales, this film seems bereft of the usual Jackie soul, namely the death defying stunts and one on one fist fights that are his forte (his ageing perhaps the reason). The closest scene of this ilk comes as a gripping "Speed", "True Lies" rip off with Jackie rescuing innocent children from a bomb-inflicted speeding truck in the nick of time.

Designed as the first in a possible franchise, Jackie plays Buck, in one of his typical everyman portrayals - albeit one with kickass kung fu skills - who becomes unwittingly caught in a web of intrigue and international espionage. Identified as the long lost son of a wealthy Korean former double agent, Buck goes to Korea to ascertain his true identity and claim his inheritance only to find a secret code and key to a safety deposit box in Istanbul, containing a lethal cancer virus, equally sought after by a expatriate Chinese power broker and kingpin, Mr. Zen (a slick $$ID=Wu Hsing Kuo$$) and the CIA in the form of a lithe Korean agent, Carmen ($$ID=Kim Min Jeong$$). Sweet looking erstwhile softporn star and current pop songstress $$ID=Vivian Hsu$$ plays a kept lady offered to tempt Buck, with melancholic fragility.

The action is typically Jackie sans over the edge stunts, but Jackie around props and apparatus is still a wonder to behold. A simple demonstration of gym equipment is amplified with much agility and glee especially the exercise ball. A shootout and chase scene in a mall following a bank robbery with cross escalator acrobatics harkens back to "&&ID=V1326||Name=Police Story&&". The Turkish locale adds a touch of exoticism - a bath house brawl and slide around is fun in a Buster Keatonish way, with a buck naked Jackie running outdoors, leapin', lopin' and swathing himself in hanging laundry with the grace of a mannequin in a Madeleine Vionnet bias cut robe.

$$ID=Eric Tsang$$ plays a freelance spy responsible for roping Buck into the whole scheme of things in which Tiger Beer and Nokia feature prominently as product placements, the former worked into the plot (heck that probably cut down some of the costs). Overall, a traditional Jackie Chan Chinese New Year romp that is more refreshing than his Hollywood efforts - qualms being we wish the old stunts were back in full force.