Dak miu mai shing (2001)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Teddy Chan

Writers:

Rod Dean (English adaptation)
Ivy Ho (writer)

Release Date:

18 January 2001 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Thriller

Tagline:

Ordinary guy. Extraordinary spy

Plot:

This action movie unfolds with the story of Bei, a salesman at a workout equipment store, who harbors dreams of adventures...

Plot Keywords:

Turkey | Spy | Elevator | Safe Deposit | Nudity

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Jackie Chan	...	Buck Yuen / Jackie Chan
Eric Tsang	...	Many Liu
Vivian Hsu	...	Yong
Min Kim	...	Carmen Wong (as Kim Min Jeong)
Hsing-kuo Wu	...	Lee Sang-Zen (as Wu Hsing Kuo)
Alfred Cheung	...	Cheung the Lawyer
Anthony Rene Jones	...	Philip Ashley (as Tony Jones)
Glory Simon	...	TCN Field Reporter
Bradley James Allan	...	Lee's Bodyguard
Tat-Ming Cheung	...	Tsui
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Scott Adkins
Gordon Alexander	...	Hitman
Didem Erol	...	Girlfriend of Mafia Boss
Lillian Ho	...	Candice
Paulyn Sun	...	Looking at Gym Instruments

Also Known As:

Te wu mi cheng (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
The Accidental Spy (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for strong action violence, some drug content and nudity.

Runtime:

108 min | Argentina:92 min | USA:87 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese | Mandarin | English | Korean | French | Turkish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS (English version) | SDDS (English version) | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-15 | Brazil:14 | Malaysia:U | South Korea:12 | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:14A | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Iceland:12

Filming Locations:

Hong Kong, China

Company:

Golden Harvest Company

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Jackie is attacked in the Turkish bath house and he runs up to the roof and around the domes, the shadow of the camera is visible in the lower right corner of the picture.

Movie Connections:

References Sink the Bismarck! (1960)

Chan is missing, unfortunately

Jackie Chan's greatest weakness in his movies is predictability: you know the good triumphs over evil, the good guys are easy to identify, Jackie drop-kicks some butt, and he takes time to save kids and babies (not to mention babes, who sometimes save him). You know that if he gets the girl, he doesn't get very far (PG all the way).

In his best movies, this is his greatest strength, too: against the repeated backdrop of white and black hats, you're never quite sure how he's going to manage to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. You know he's going to get cornered by 6 black hats with 18 weapons in some storage room...and somehow use whatever's stored there to do away with the evil-doers.

Unfortunately, in the Accidental Spy, we're not kept guessing very long. The fight scenes are overly predictable (and, too often, the victim of a punch will start rolling their head back before they're punched). The plot is as unimportant to the Jackie Chan machine as usual, but, unlike other movies of his, the characters aren't memorable. The love-interest is lovely, but not interesting. The spy-who-coulda-have-loved-Jackie is relegated to making plot-digressing phone calls ("did you order a helicopter?").

And it's too bad, because there's otherwise some good material here: drug kingpins and orphans, lost parents, competing spy agencies, and beautiful locations (especially those Istanbul and other parts of Turkey). It's too bad that his escape from a Turkish bathhouse is wasted in this movie (you try to confront a half-dozen apes with only your bath towel to save you...and then not even the towel).

The dubbing doesn't help. Instead of offering the film in its original Chinese with subtitles (easily possible in this digital age), we're stuck with dubbing that sucks away what little life remains in these two-dimensional characters.

I really like Chan's movies, but he could have phoned his performance in for this one. Chan, unfortunately, is missing from his own movie.