Jackie Chan, Please Grow Up,Bleeding Steel : Movie Review

Starring: Jackie Chan, Ouyang Nana, Show Lo

Directed by: Leo Shang

Rating: **(2 stars)

 Nothing infuriates more than an aging star refusing to play  his age. Jackie Chan is no longer agile nor funny.  Goofy,  yes. And  as he does  the protective  father’s act once again in this film—we saw him do the same in his previous release , the far superior Foreigner—we see him sneak up behind the unsuspecting girl who doesn’t know it’s Papa Chan wielding the  gun and knives  to protect his daughter  from  furious robots.

Robots, who  act better than the human actors, I may add.

This  is an annoyingly formulaic  farce filled with slippery chases down smooth crowded highways  and  sneaked furtive moments  of Papa’s anguish where Jackie Chan tries to look all teary-eyed and  paternal. But honestly watching Mr Chan trying to emote is as funny as seeing Siddharth Malhotra speak in Bhojpuri.There are some things some actors should never attempt. Jackie Chan going beyond action is one of  them.

 This  is  the  second release this week where a burnt-out actor fobs off the fast-fade phase in  his career  by kicking some serious ass. Alas,  both Gerard Butler in Den Of Thieves and  Jackie Chan in this film are hopelessly misguided in their athletic zeal. Chan looks wheezy and  out of breath even in  the  big stunt at Sydney’s famed Opera  House where  he is clearly  fudging the high-jumps.They have seen better days. The Opera House and the Chinese superstar.

 Funnier and more agile is the young actor Show Lo who gets into the drag mode with disturbingly credible breasts,  to beat the hell out of  a writer.

No , not the one who wrote this tome  of  a  travesty. Like much of Chan’s works Bleeding Steel relies  on  set-pieces  of action designed as individual self-contained thrill  episodes rather than  part  of  a larger picture. Jackie  Chan tries hard to move us with his fatherly affections for young actress Ouyang Nana.

I almost expected the father and daughter to burst into a Bollywood song.Even that bit of cultural relief  is denied in this perversely pompous paean  to  Jackie Chan’s swift skills of skulduggery designed to defeat comicbooks demons.Sadly the adversary here, a robotic meanie who throws around his weight  like  a classroom bully, hardly scares.

 The robotic bully simply bores. Like everything else in this  overblown over-ripe overeager-to-please tale of a daughter implanted with robotic wisdom and  a father who refuses to  grow up.
What  a pair!