Shanghai Noon
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Shanghai Noon is a 2000 movie starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, and directed by Tom Dey. The movie, set in Nevada and other parts of the west in the 19th century, is a western with a twist, as it contains scenes in China as well as extended martial arts sequences. It also has elements of comedy and the "Buddy Cop film genre", as it involves two men of different personalities and ethnicities (a Chinese imperial guard and a Western outlaw) who team up to stop a crime.
The title (a pun on the Gary Cooper classic High Noon) and several names used in the film pay homage to earlier westerns. Chan's character, "Chon Wang", is meant to sound like John Wayne, and the antagonist, Nathan Van Cleef, is an homage to Lee Van Cleef, who played "the Bad" in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, among other roles in major westerns.
A sequel, Shanghai Knights, was released in 2003.
Taglines:
- The Classic Western Gets A Kick In The Pants.
- The old west meets the far east.
- The first kung-fu western ever.
Plot summary
This movie is about Chon Wang, who is an imperial guard of China. After the princess Pei-Pei is abducted and taken to America, Wang is sent with others to find her and bring her back. Roy O'Bannon is an outlaw who ends up hijacking the train Wang is on with his gang. When Wallace, a member of Roy's gang, kills Wang's uncle, Chon decides to try chasing them down. However, the gang is well-armed and Chon's only choice is to unhinge the cars and get away with the engine. In the process, Wallace takes over the gang from O'Bannon, and they leave him buried up to his chin in the desert sand.
Meanwhile, Pei-Pei finds out that the man who abducted her, Lo Fong, is running a Chinese slavery camp. Fong himself left the Forbidden City and was viewed as a traitor by the Chinese.
When Wang finds Roy buried in the sand, he demands to know the direction to Carson City. He puts two chop sticks in Roy's mouth and tells him to dig, and Roy gave him "bad directions" and sent him over the mountain. When Wang comes out the other side of the mountain, he gets involved with a Native tribe by saving a girl chased by the Crow tribe and ends up getting married to a Native girl, Falling Leaves (Brandon Merrill). When he and his new wife get to the next town, she promises him that she will look out for him. Inside a tavern in the town, Wang finds Roy and, in anger, starts a fight with him that turns into a barroom brawl. The two of them get sent to prison, and after they escape (thanks to Chon's wife), they decide that they will become friends. O'Bannon himself was a little motivated by hearing that there was plenty of the Chinese Emperor's gold being exchanged as a ransom for the princess.
Wang and Roy in a bar brawl
When they get to Carson City, they find themselves in a showdown with Marshall Van Cleef, and the two of them narrowly escape. They go to a hideout, which is more of a burlesque house, but they get found out by Van Cleef, and are arrested. They find out that Lo Fong is behind the kidnapping, and he cuts off Wang's hair (known as a queue or bianzi) so that he loses his honour and can never go back to China. However as they are about to be hanged, they once again escape, in part thanks again to Chon Wang's Native wife.
The next day, the two partners go to the ransom point, a church in the middle of nowhere. The three imperial guards come with the gold (Wang had become separated from them during the train robbery), and Lo Fong has the princess in hand. However matters get complicated when O'Bannon springs a gun on Lo Fong, and Wang confronts his fellow guards regarding his imperial duty (as the princess does not wish to go back to China, but the guards have their orders to bring her back). As well, Van Cleef comes out with two guns and remarks that they had themselves "a Mexican standoff, but I don't see any Mexicans." As the Chinese fight amongst themselves (Lo Fong included), Van Cleef and O'Bannon wage in a gunfight. O'Bannon miraculously pierces Van Cleef with a bullet, and Lo Fong is killed, the method used is hanging, by a joint effort between Chon and the princess. The Imperial Guards decide that they will let the princess stay.
Wallace and his gang also come up to the church, and demand that Roy and Wang (or The Shanghai Kid as he was called) come out and fight. But when the two of them get outside the church to face Wallace, Natives from all around surround the gang and O'Bannon tells them that they are going to jail. At the end of the movie, Roy and Wang are shown as sheriffs and are waiting for the next train robbery to occur. Roy and Falling Leaves (the Native girl) also passionately kiss each other during a Chinese cultural exhibit while Pei-Pei holds Chon's hand.
Trivia
- Owen Wilson was angered when he was told that Wallace (the traitor in Roy's gang) is from Texas. Wilson, who plays Roy, is a Texan.
- The hangman's statement, "Nothing personal, boys," was an ad-lib.
- The Chinese characters shown in the background during the opening credits are excerpts from a translation of "The Frog Prince."
- Chon Wang's actual Chinese name appears in the Chinese subtitle of the movie as 江文 (or in pinyin: "jīang wěn" as pronunced by the character). However, the actual name is revealed in Shanghai Knights to be 姜文, which is a homonym in Mandarin and a different surname from 江文. When Roy addresses Chon Wang, the Chinese translation of "John Wayne" or "John" is 小江 or "Little Jiang".
- The catchy quote "I don't know karate, but I know crazy" is actually a line from James Brown's song, "The Payback".
- The song playing during the first bar-fight sequence is the same song that plays during the 'dirty dozen' style intro of the characters in Armageddon, an earlier Owen Wilson feature.
- Actress Brandon Merrill, who plays Falling Leaves, is a real-life rodeo champion.
- During the scene where Roy and Chon are drunk in the hotel, director Tom Dey hoped to include a drunken kung fu scene as an homage to The Legend of Drunken Master. There was no time to choreograph such a scene, so Dey showed Chon blowing bubbles from his mouth, as Wong Fei-hung does in the Drunken Master movie.
- Yuen Biao who was a fight choreographer and stunt double in this film appears briefly as a fighter in the saloon fight scene.
- The Mexican standoff was an homage to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Sheriff Van Cleef is obviously an homage to Lee Van Cleef, who played the villain Sentenza in that film and was involved in its Mexican standoff climax.
Cast
- Jackie Chan .... Chon Wang
- Owen Wilson .... Roy O'Bannon
- Lucy Liu .... Princess Pei Pei
- Brandon Merrill .... Falling Leaves
- Roger Yuan .... Lo Fong
- Xander Berkeley .... Nathan Van Cleef
- Jason Connery .... Andrews
- Walton Goggins .... Wallace
- P. Adrien Dorval .... Blue
- Rafael Baez .... Vasquez
Writers
See also
Shanghai KnightsExternal links
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