Shanghai Knights
| Shanghai Knights | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | David Dobkin |
| Written by | Alfred Gough Miles Millar |
| Produced by | Jackie Chan Gary Barber Roger Birnbaum |
| Starring | Jackie Chan Owen Wilson |
| Cinematography | Adrian Biddle |
| Edited by | Malcolm Campbell |
| Music by | Randy Edelman |
| Distributed by | Touchstone Pictures Spyglass Entertainment |
Release date | February 7, 2003 |
Running time | 114 min. |
| Country |  |
| Languages | English Mandarin |
| Budget | $50 million |
| Box office | $88,323,487 |
Shanghai Knights is a 2003 action-comedy film. It is the sequel to Shanghai Noon. It was directed by David Dobkin and written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
Plot
The film opens in the Forbidden City in 1887, where Chon Lin (Fann Wong) is drinking tea with her father, the Keeper of the Imperial Seal of China. She tells him her brother, Chon Wang (Jackie Chan), is doing well as a sheriff in Carson City, Nevada, United States, but her father replies that he no longer has a son. At that moment, Lord Nelson Rathbone (Aidan Gillen), leads a band of Boxers into the city, who attack the Keeper. Lin defends her father, but is knocked unconscious. Rathbone kills him with a snake-handled dagger, and leaves with the seal. As he lies dying, he gives Chon Lin a puzzle box and a letter to Chon.
Back in the Wild West, Chon Wang is doing well as sheriff, having captured an impressive array of fugitives. His deputy is relaxing with a book called Roy O'Bannon Vs. The Mummy, a highly fictionalized account of the events of the first film that now portrays Wang's "Shanghai Kid" as a cowardly sidekick.
Wang checks the coach from California, but his lover, Princess Pei Pei (portrayed by Lucy Liu in the first film), is, yet again, not there. She is busy, he explains to the driver, as a social activist in San Francisco on behalf of Chinese immigrants. Wang does receive a parcel, though, which contains the puzzle box and Lin's letter, telling him his father is dead and that she has tracked the murderer to London.
Chon Wang travels to New York City to find his old partner Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), needing his share of the gold left over from the first film to buy his ticket. Roy has left his brief stint in law enforcement, broken off his romance with Falling Leaves (due to the language barrier, according to a deleted scene on the DVD), spent most of the gold investing in the Zeppelin ("You're lucky I did not invest in that ridiculous automobile idea"), and is now a hotel waiter and part-time gigolo. After they attempt prostitution to pay for a trip to England, the Mayor of New York arrives in search of his daughters, Roy's latest clients. Chon Wang fights off a number of New York police officers, and he and Roy ship themselves to London in a crate. On the way, Wang tells Roy about his father, and Roy swears an oath to help reclaim the seal.
In London, Wang and O'Bannon have their duster and watch stolen, respectively, by a number of street thugs including a young boy named Charlie. After an extensive battle to reclaim these items, they are arrested by the police. In Scotland Yard, Inspector Artie Doyle (Thomas Fisher) thanks the two for defeating the street gang. He tells Wang that Lin is also in Scotland Yard, having attempted to kill Lord Rathbone and been dubbed "Looney Lin". Doyle is a reader of the Roy O'Bannon novels, and is enthralled to meet the actual Roy O'Bannon. Roy tries to use this to get Lin released, but it does not work. He and Wang wander through London, seeing Buckingham Palace and harassing one of the guards. They encounter Charlie again, who lets them into the empty house of a nobleman. Roy relaxes and draws up a childish plan to catapult themselves into Rathbone's castle. Wang throws it in the fire, and then Charlie brings it to their attention that the nobleman whose house they have commandeered has an invitation to a gala at the castle.
Roy and Wang don disguises: Roy masquerades as Major General "Sherlock Holmes" (a name he derives from the face of a clock), and Wang is the "Maharaja of Nevada". After turning down the offer to try some spotted dick, Wang and Roy follow Lord Rathbone to a private library. Once they enter, they cannot find him; he has slipped through a secret passage, which Wang discovers in a fireplace. As Roy occupies himself with a copy of the Kama Sutra, Wang enters the secret room, which contains treasures from throughout the British Empire. Rathbone's guards attack Roy, but he is rescued by Lin, who has escaped from Scotland Yard. The three see Rathbone hand the bloody dagger that killed Wang and Lin's father to Wu Chow (Donnie Yen), the bastard younger brother of the Emperor of China. Rathbone sees them and sets fire to the building, young Charlie shows up and makes off with the Seal, Lin escapes through the roof, and Wang and Roy commandeer Rathbone's primitive automobile (the very technology Roy had passed on investing in) for a wild ride, culminating in them crashing into Stonehenge.
Roy has a sexual fantasy involving Lin and the Kama Sutra, and he decides to start pursuing her, much to Wang's dismay. Lin finds them and gives them a ride to Whitechapel, where they stay in a rundown inn. Wang tells Lin about Roy's vices and problems, which Roy overhears. Lin does not flinch, but Roy is devastated at the betrayal.
Lin goes for a walk and, after a brief encounter with Jack the Ripper, she runs into Wu Chow and his Boxers. Wang and Roy catch up, and the three are captured by Wu Chow and his Boxers. Wu Chow gags Lin and ties her hands and bare feet to try to locate the Seal, but they don't know where Charlie has taken it. He tells them the grand scheme: Rathbone would kill the bearer of the Seal and return the item to Wu Chow, who would use the Seal to unite the enemies of China and claim the throne. In return, Wu Chow would use a gatling gun to dispatch the Royal Family, leaving Rathbone, who is tenth in line to the throne, King.
Chon Wang and Roy escape and track down Artie Doyle, who has developed an investigative technique called deductive reasoning, which he uses to find that Charlie has been hiding at Madame Tussauds wax museum. They reclaim the Seal, but it is taken by Boxers, and the three are arrested for trespassing. Charlie breaks them out, and they go to Queen Victoria's Jubilee Ball, where the Royal Family will be.
Sure enough, Wang finds Wu Chow and Lin as well who is gagged with her hands and feet tied up tightly with rope on the fireworks barge, he unties Lin, and dismantles Wu's plan. However, Wu proves himself to be an accomplished martial artist, but Lin arrives in time to kill him with a fireworks rocket and save Wang. Artie and Roy, who have found their way into the Houses of Parliament, confront Rathbone, who shoots Artie with a Derringer. Roy and Wang pursue Rathbone up into Big Ben, where they engage him in a sword fight. Rathbone pushes Roy out of the glass front of the clock, but Roy catches himself on one of the clock's hands. Rathbone nearly defeats Wang, but Wang's rage over his dead father and fallen comrade leads him to suicidally grapple with Rathbone, and the two go flying out the clock window, too. Luckily, Roy catches Wang, as Rathbone plummets to his death. Roy and Wang decide to jump, slowing their fall by grabbing the enormous British flag draped over Big Ben, and land in the carriage containing Queen Victoria.
Roy and Wang are knighted, as is Artie, whose full name is now Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Artie decides to become a writer, his stories revolving around his deductive reasoning technique, and asks Roy if he can use the "Sherlock Holmes" name. Roy and Lin kiss, and Roy proposes that he and Wang go to Hollywood to get in on the ground floor with motion pictures. They roll off in a buggy, with Charlie stowed away. Wang also manages to open the box his father sent him, finding a message inside reminding him of the importance of family. Charlie wipes some soot on his face, creating the look that would later become world famous as that of Charlie Chaplin. The last shot of the film is looking up at a mechanic fixing the glass in the tower and yelling "bloody tourists!"
Cast
- Chon Wang
Jackie Chan - Roy O'Bannon
Owen Wilson - Chon Lin
Fann Wong - Lord Nelson Rathbone
Aidan Gillen - Wu Chow
Donnie Yen - Charlie Chaplin
Aaron Johnson - Inspector Artie Doyle / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Thomas Fisher - Jack the Ripper
Seth H - Chon Wang's Father
Kim Chan - Queen Victoria
Gemma Jones - Prostitute
Alison King
Sequel Rumors
In February 2003, not long after the film's release, a third film, rumored to be titled Shanghai Dawn, was reported to be in consideration. However, in August 2005, Owen Wilson said of Dawn and of a potential sequel to his Starsky & Hutch, "Doesn't look like they're happening, but you never know."[1]
Box office
According to Box Office Mojo, Shanghai Knights, although not as big of a success as Shanghai Noon, managed to gross $88,323,487.
Cultural References
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (August 2008) |
- When Chon Wang is fighting the police in New York City, it is a blatant reference to the Keystone Cops of early silent film
- The story takes place during the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's reign in 1887.
- Chon Wang's actual Chinese name appears for the first time as 姜文 (pinyin: jīang wěn) in a parcel sent from Wang's sister. This rendering is different from what appeared in the Chinese subtitles of Shanghai Noon (江文), though the two names are homonyms in Mandarin. When Roy addresses Chon Wang, the Chinese translation of "John Wayne" or "John" is 陳, or "Chen," which is also a different translation from the original movie.
- When Chon Wang meets Roy at the Ritz, the music playing in the background is the music used as background music in The Little Rascals and other Hal Roach talkies; it is called "In My Canoe".
- When Chon Wang and Roy are crossing the street in London, Chon Wang pulls Roy back before he is hit by horses pulling a carriage. Roy says "Hey, I'm walking here!" - a reference to Midnight Cowboy (1969).
- In the scene where the thief takes the watch, in the scenery is a building that says "R. Sowerberry, Undertaker." (and Chon Wang is thrown into a coffin next to the building at this point) This is a reference to the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, where the workhouse's undertaker is Mr. Sowerberry. During this scene the first four notes of the theme to "The Addams Family" (1964) are heard.
- The stunt sequence where Wang fought the foes while holding an open umbrella pays tribute to the well-known Singin' in the Rain scene with Gene Kelly. In the scene, the song "Singin' in the Rain" is heard also.
- The method Chon Lin escapes from Scotland Yard, as Doyle explains, is very similar to the way Wang escapes from the small jailhouse in Shanghai Noon.
- The name of the villain, "the finest swordsman in England," seems to be a tribute to Basil Rathbone, who in villain roles often looked to be the better swordsman, holding back artificially to let the hero win as per the script. Also, Basil Rathbone starred as Sherlock Holmes in a series of movies throughout the late 1930s and 1940's.
- When Chon Wang and Roy are entering the Jubilee party, the string quartet plays a uncredited baroque version of the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" (just before the piece by Boccherini).
- The fight scene with the guards in Rathbone's library and treasure room, where Chon Wang used ancient Chinese vases to distract the guards, pays homage to Chan's previous film, Rush Hour. The same scene also recalls Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; both feature a fight sequence involving a rotating fireplace leading to a secret chamber.
- In the scene where Chon Wang fights Rathbone's guards, they are constantly making sure that no priceless antique urns are broken. This is the same exact action by Jackie Chan's character in the climax of Rush Hour.
- The film features a cameo role from Alison King who plays Carla Connor in the British soap Coronation Street. She plays a small role of a prostitute in the movie.
- While Roy searches frantically for Charlie at the wax museum, and finds him in a room dedicated to the Royal family, there is a wax figure of Rathbone, right next to the figure of Queen Victoria.
- In the clock tower fight scene, Roy shouts out to Lord Rathbone that he will title his next novel "Roy O'Bannon versus the Man Who Would be Queen," a possible reference to Rudyard Kipling story, The Man Who Would Be King.
- The climatic scene on in the Big Ben clock tower, pays homage to the 1978 film of the The Thirty Nine Steps (1978 film), which was itself inspired by a scene in the 1943 Will Hay comedy My Learned Friend.
Trivia about the Cast
- Director David Dobkin was personally chosen by Jackie Chan.
- Director David Dobkin had a difficult time choosing a suitable Asian actress who could do movement work, emote well and speak decent English. He then saw clips of Fann Wong's videos "Wo lai ye" (2001) and "Qing she yu bai she" (2001) and requested to audition her in London, which she did attend. She subsequently got the role and her number of scenes were increased by thirty percent.
- Shanghai Knights is the first Hollywood and English-language film of Singaporean actress Fann Wong.
- Fann Wong trained for her stunts despite not having a martial arts background. She has a background in ballet, which helped to a certain extent.
- The role of Wu Chow was originally offered to Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation star Robin Shou, but he had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts, and it eventually went to Donnie Yen.
- This film marks the first on-screen battle between Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen, who both have had success in Hong Kong but never fought each other on screen.
- The old guy bouncing in the pillow fight scene is actually first assistant director Mirek Lux.
- When Jackie Chan is fighting the police in New York City, it is a blatant reference to the old Keystone Cops films