Chuan Shuo (2024)

Half History channel -half comdey/action

Where to begin? Watching this movie feels like watching two one-hour movies smushed together to create this two and half hours “movie.”

In the first half, it feels like Jack’s modern group is just wandering around, lecturing the viewer about Chinese history, while the scenes set in ancient times are just reenactments you’d see in a history documentary. Then, in the second half of the movie, it shifts into a comedic action film with a hint of nationalism.

Sometimes, it feels like a vanity project for Jackie Chan, yet at the same time, he’s hardly in the movie and often feels like a background character in his own story. It was supposed to be a great love story between Jackie’s Zhao Zhan and Meng Yun, but they don’t share enough screen time to make their relationship engaging. It ends up feeling more like a one-sided love story between Meng Yun and Hua Jun. I suspect the limited screen time is partly because they spent a lot of money de-aging Jackie, which adds to the “vanity project” vibe. Meng Yun’s love for Zhao doesn’t feel essential to the plot but seems forced because it’s a Jackie Chan movie. The ancient storyline could easily be about war and revenge, and it wouldn’t change much of the overall plot.

The one bright spot is Peng Xiao Ran’s Xin Ran and her romantic pursuit of Lay Zhang’s Wang Jung. This subplot kept me entertained throughout. Her character is genuinely funny and engaging. Honestly, they should have made her the reincarnated horse, Lei Zhen, instead of giving that role to the gamer, since the horse Lei Zhen has a more substantial character arc than Zhao Zhan. “It sacrificed its life in the past for its master and returned in modern times as a woman to pursue its man again.”

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