Mr. Nice Guy (1998)

Purely Joyful Movie!

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

In Melbourne, the Chinese Chef Jackie (Jackie Chan) has a successful show on television. The drug lord Giancarlo (Richard Norton) and his gang are dealing cocaine with The Demons gang, but they fight against each other. During the shooting, the snoopy reporter Diana (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and her partner are accidentally exposed and they flee with a VHS tape with the footage of the negotiation. On the street, she stumbles with Jackie and he helps her fighting against the gangsters. When they are escaping in his car, her tape accidentally mixes with other videotapes that Jackie has in a box on the backseat of his car. Jackie goes to his apartment and meets his girlfriend Miki (Miki Lee) while his nephews "borrow" the tape to watch. Meanwhile Giancarlo's gangsters are looking for the tape and abduct Miki. Jackie's friend Romeo (Vince Poletto), who is a police detective, chases the gangsters with other policemen while Jackie teams up with Diana and his friend Lakisha (Karen McLymont) to release Miki from Giancarlo. "Yat goh ho yan", a.k.a. "Mr. Nice Guy", is a highly entertaining film with Jackie Chan in the lead role. The screenplay is the perfect combination of action and humor, with magnificent choreography. The final sequence with the huge mining vehicle is hilarious. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mr. Nice Guy - Bom de Briga" ("Mr. Nice Guy – Good in Fight")

This is a chain of highly dangerous action sequences, done excellently without wires, CGI, or stuntmen. The thing is there is nothing else it ! The plot has been done for at least million times; they watched the bad guy while doing bad thing, then "catch them BADLY !!" which always and forever means : a long chase of a movie, with all the hot action and the attempts to killing. There is no comedy, unless we're talking about slight nanoseconds during the fights, mostly with Jackie's reactions. There is no developing romance. There is no drama. And there is no good line either. So it's only "Jackie Chan's Circus Presents", a dry circus for that matter !As you see, even a real, creative, sometimes too dazzling action can't make a perfect movie. So, for a Jackie fan; this could be satisfying, however for the American viewer, who this movie was aimed at, it's not the same at all. It couldn't score big in the American box office. Hence it quickly joined the list of the English-talking movies that Jackie used to do for about 15 years to get into America, with constantly no great success. Actually Jackie, at that phase, was still searching for the code-breaker of the American viewer. He would find it one year ahead with (Rush Hour), namely the buddy action comedy formula, where he hits and Chris Tucker talks !So this is the best of Jackie Chan a la Honk Kong, not Hollywood. That's why the movie couldn't be a hit in America, despite the woman with the black bikini, the other with the white underwear, and that fabulous climactic scene ! Seriously, the sex tone, for a Jackie movie, is a bit loud this time. Enough to remember the sequence of the redheaded woman where she was running in the streets wearing only her undies, which was obviously forced and went for too long (usually Jackie doesn't need "stunts" of that sort !) But nothing was louder than the climax. When Jackie rides that monster of an earthmover (a 120-ton mining truck), and wipes the villa off the ground, it's unforgettable piece of cinema, being a fit grand finale for his circus's show; entitled "Bringing Down The House" !Nevertheless, in that show some points bugged me. There are too many fighting women, all fight as hot as Jackie himself !! Let alone that he, as a fighting machine, is presented as just a cook ?!! The videotape that the reporter taped for the gang looks shot with many cameras, in different angles, with sharp cutting as well (Do I hear LAAAAAAAAME ?!). And most of all that bizarre visual effect which was overused in every action scene ???? I couldn't understand was that for slowing the image or quickening it ? Did they want a silent movie's flavor ?! Whatever the answer might be, I HATED IT SO MUCH, IT'S TOTALLY ANNOYING !It didn't prove itself as a hit in America. However it's genuine Jackie Chan fun. Though, when the 2 married : the American hit & Jackie fun, we – as the fans of the old and magical Jackie – lost many special merits, with for instance abundance of wires, CGI, and stuntmen. Hmmm, it might sound tacky and timeworn, but it is its right place to be said : Nothing is perfect !

Jackie Chan is the best actor in "Mr. Nice Guy", which should give you an idea of how shoddy the acting is here. Worse, Jackie Chan is far and away the best actor here by a wide margin, and Jackie never really "acts", he just is affable and charming on camera. Everyone else here is community theater level or worse, which has to be at least partly the fault of director Sammo Hung. Chan films tend to need a lot of highly skilled stunt-men, and the two skill sets (double back flips through a pane glass window vs believable readings of a prosaic line of dialog) are not often found in one actor. But the non-action oriented supporting cast is just as bad. So either Hung didn't know how to get better takes from his actors and stunt-men, or he didn't realize (looking at the rushes) that what he had was bad (at least for Occidental expectations), or he just wasn't interested in the dialog and character interaction, except as an excuse to get to the next action sequence. (I'm inclined to believe it's a combination of the 2nd and 3rd explanations). However, the action sequences are, as usual extremely impressive and engaging, and well worth your time and money to see. What can you say, it's Jackie Chan with a real budget and room to play. However, even here "Mr. Nice Guy" isn't quite up to the level of pieces like "Super Cop", "First Strike" or "Who Am I?" because the action falters a bit at the end. Instead of taking down the chief bad guy and his henchmen in a flurry of furious martial arts action, ***plot spoiler follows*** Chan's character commandeers an earth mover and drives it through the head villain's house. It's quite an amusing spectacle, I'll admit, and I give the movie credit for trying something different. But it just seems like an easy out, and not in the same league as the climaxes to films like "Drunken Master II" or "Project A" or "Armor Of God".***Plot spoiler ends*****Obviously, I am a fan of the man, going back to his "Protector" and "Police Force" days before "The Big Brawl" was first released in the West. So I would say that if you are a fan like me, you'll want to see "Mr. Nice Guy" on general principle, and you'll find lots to enjoy about it. But I think most Chan enthusiasts won't have it in their "Top 5" list of favorite Jackie Chan movies, or even the "Top 10".

Big disappointment from the Chan man. Although the real fault here lies with director Sammo Hung. This film brought Hung and Chan back together after years of a rumored quarrel between them; they collaborated again on the much superior "Medallion".A couple reviewers here remarked that there was too much plot in the movie, which weakened the pace. I suggest they re-watch the film, just for clarification - the reason why there seems to be too much plot is because a very simple plot has been needlessly obscured and muddled - if the film were properly paced, we would have time for a much stronger - and accessible - plot than we find here, which would make the better surviving chases - since some chases would need to go - more realistic and hence more meaningful.In fact the film is really only one chase scene after another - on feet, in cars, across rooftops, etc., etc. There's never any time spent developing these characters enough to make us interested in them. And chase scenes are not fight scenes: true, they do offer plenty of raw material for some undeniably exciting stunts; but the sense of conflict that should be providing the suspense for the film is almost wholly lacking, since the protagonist - Chan - never resolves to confront the gangsters before they find him first.Hard to understand how Chan (at the peak of his popularity) and Hung (about to go to America for the "Martial Law" TV show) could generate such a mess as this. It seems they both became so obsessed with stunt-chasing, they forgot what it was the characters need to chase about - the story.