The glory days of Hong Kong cinema are long gone. Some of the great directors from better times, such as Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, are now shockingly willing to film heroic epics in the service of the mainland Chinese industry. John Woo, down on his luck, has been commuting between Hollywood and his homeland for several years. Ringo Lam is dead, Johnnie To hasn’t made a film in seven years.
And even the star of Hong Kong’s long-time most popular actor, Jackie Chan, has long been on the decline despite fully adapting to the Communist Party’s ideology. The desired change from slapstick and martial arts hero to more serious roles didn’t really work out. What is not surprising: As incredibly virtuously mobile as his body was, an art of expression in itself, his representational skills were and remained limited.
Luckily for him, Larry Yang came along, born in China in 1981, with degrees in Edinburgh and Beijing. A talented screenwriter and director, although not a great master. But a huge Jackie Chan fan. Yan has written two films and roles for the revered hero. First, in 2023, “Ride On”, the somewhat sentimental story of an indebted stuntman and his faithful horse, which the debt collectors are trying to take away from him.
“Shadow Chase” (China 2025, directed by Larry Yang). The DVD is available in stores from around 13 euros.
And now “Shadow Chase”, an action thriller that explicitly addresses the age of the now over seventy-year-old hero. At its core, the film is a remake of a Hong Kong film, namely the thriller “Eye in the Sky” from 2007. Large parts of the bank robber plot, which was already quite complicated at the time, are taken directly from the original, albeit made even more complicated in the update to the cryptocurrency present.
Even Tony Leung Ka-Fai, clearly aged, plays the gangster figure again, who is now called “Shadow”. (This Tony Leung is “Big Tony”, not to be confused with the namesake from “In the Mood For Love”, “Little Tony” – he’s in right now Ildikó Enyedis schönem Baumfilm “Silent Friend” can be seen in German cinemas.)
Haven’t forgotten martial arts hand-to-hand combat yet
The setting is new, namely no longer Hong Kong, but the other, Portuguese-influenced ex-colony of Macao, whose charms between spectacular new buildings, huge high-rise blocks and old alleys the film knows how to exploit in every way. Above all, the role played by Jackie Chan has been added. The gangster, and even more so his band of hacker and high-tech kids he once adopted, have duped the police’s latest surveillance software and AI techniques in a theft.
That’s why we need someone who still knows how to act in the old school way: Enter Jackie Chan, as an ex-policeman brought out of retirement who is now training young people in analogue technology. On the one hand, these are coordinated tracking and observation arts. On the other hand, despite all his bowleggedness, he has not yet forgotten martial arts hand-to-hand combat. And, greatly supported by the graciously fast editing, he gets plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his skills once again.
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The story of a young police officer (Zhang Zifeng) who is just overcoming herself is also told for the younger generations „Gaslighting“ complains and then gets ample opportunity for probation. The opening sequence is breathtaking, absolute state of the art action on the wire. Afterwards you can feel the extra forty minutes added to the original every now and then, but it’s consistently a joy to see Jackie Chan and Tony Leung triumphing over youth as freshly oiled septuagenarian flashes.