Shanghai Noon
Shanghai Noon
PG-13 | 26 May 2000 (USA)
Shanghai Noon Trailers

Chon Wang, a clumsy imperial guard trails Princess Pei Pei when she is kidnapped from the Forbidden City and transported to America. Wang follows her captors to Nevada, where he teams up with an unlikely partner, outcast outlaw Roy O'Bannon, and tries to spring the princess from her imprisonment.

Reviews
Palaest recommended
TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Osmosis Iron A sort of "buddy cop" pairing of Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, that makes fun of most of the western stereotypes and is a rollercoaster of adventures and laughs! Some great stunt work from Jackie as usual and the whole movie is pretty action packed as well so there's hardly a dull moment. Very very funny!
NateWatchesCoolMovies I forgot how much goddamn fun Shanghai Noon is. It's pretty much the quintessential east meets west buddy flick (sorry Rush Hour, love you too bbz), and upon rewatching it I realized that it's every bit as awesome, and more so, than I remember as a kid. You take Jackie Chan, a stoic, robotic Chinese fighting machine with the sense of humour god gave a sock, and pair him with Owen Wilson, a wishy washy surfer dude of a cowboy who can't take one second out of the day to stop talking or cracking jokes, and you've got gold. Of course, they need a film to run about in that's just as solid as they're team up, and that's just what we get. This is a bawdy, unapologetic roll in the hay, a genre bender that tosses the American western, the buddy cop flick and the Kung Fu picture into a big cauldron, fires a few bullets in and gives it a big old stir. It's ridiculously fun for its entire duration, an achievement which the sequel just couldn't keep up with. Chan is Chon Wang (say it fast), a Chinese imperial guard on the trail of runaway Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), who has runoff to America. No sooner does he set foot on Yankee soil, he's bumped into peace pipe smoking Natives, and clashed with a band of train robbers led by Roy O Bannon (Owen Wilson), a fast talking soldier of fortune who doesn't seem to have much skill besides yapping his way out of a situation. The two are thrown into a mad dash across then west, Chon looking for the princess, and Roy after the missing gold from the train. It's what movies were made to be, a pure rush of gunfighting and chop socky, kick ass action sequences, all given the boost of Chan's insane talents. He's like a rabid squirrel monkey, and Wilson a drunk sloth, constantly mismatched yet always coming out on top, like the best comic duos always do. They're faced with taking dpwn a few baddies, including Walton Goggins as the dumbest outlaw this side of the Rockies, and a terrifying Xander Berkeley as a corrupt, homicidal marshal. The core of it rests on Chan and Wilson to entertain us though, and even in the down time between action, their energy is infectious, especially in a manic drinking game that just can't be described in writing. Like I said, the sequel, Shanghai Knights, just doesn't capture he magic quite like this one does, and seems to fall flat. You can't go wrong with this original outing though, and it just gets better with age.
slightlymad22 Jackie Chan's new action comedy, Westerns, martial arts and buddy movie is stolen by an excellent performance by Owen Wilson.China, the Forbidden City, 1881. The princess (A wasted Lucy Liu) who hates her life is kidnapped and held for ransom in Nevada. The three best imperial guards are selected to rescue her. Chan goes along as a he feels responsible (as he failed stop top her)In Nevada, Chan teams up with a train robber named Roy O'Bannon (Wilson), and they rescue the princess with much help from a hot Indian maiden (The actress is called Brandon Merrill and she is hot).The plot, of course, is only used to get us from one of Chan's Chaplin-esque martial arts sequences to the next, with Wilson's very funny verbal quips. Material like this can be very very bad. Here it is sort of wonderful, mainly helped by Chan's likability and effortless charm and the performance by Wilson. His comic timing is precise, and his character is very hard to dislike.Chan's character is (As in every American movie he has made to date since the Burt Reynolds led Cannonball Run in 1980) a man of limited vocabulary and much action. Most moviegoers didn't know who Owen Wilson was when this was released. Most people only remembered him from 'Armageddon' after racking their brains, This movie should have made him an A list star. He is too smart and versatile to be packaged within a narrow range tho and he followed this up with Meet The Parents, Zoolander, Royal Tenebaums, Behind Enemy Lines and I Spy before 2003's sequel to this movie. Liu, as the princess, is completely under used, until the final act where she becomes a damsel in distress, a brave and plucky one, but a damsel in distress non the less. Not so boldly portrayed is Merrill's Indian woman,(My God is she hot. It's a shame she has not had an acting role prior or since this movie) who is married to Chans character in a ceremony that nobody seems to take seriously and that the movie itself has clearly forgotten all about by the time the last shot comes around.
Alexander_Thomas_Wilson Princess is being shipped out of China to U.S.A so when they find out that she's been kidnapped 5 Men the Uncle and the Soldiers one of them Jackie Chan going after to rescue her with the gold .Meanwhile Owen Wilson with this cowboy thief look he and his crew get on the train to rob everybody with everything and the new guy on the group from Texas kills Jackie's Uncle which he gets after them for revenge while fighting with each other Owen And Jackie find themselves partnering of course Owen trying in the beginning he's in for the gold and Jackie to rescue the Princess Pei-Pei.In other side Jackie is lost headed in the wrong direction by Owen which he fights this people who are trying to pick on this little girl which he saves her and then he is taken to the Indian's where he gains a wife and new experiences .And in the end Owen and Jackie reunites after a conflict about Owen saying he's not friend with Jackie he doesn't ride with me . Jackie goes to rescue the princess and Owen is headed after him which he saves him and all ends up in the church when they get the gold back keep the princess Owen falls in love with the Indian girl , Jackie with the princess and it's a happy ending .From all of this this is a classy cowboy story . I grew up watching this . Another Classy Jackie :)