Another classic Hong Kong film that brings the trio of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung together.
Funnily enough the film’s title should have been be Meals on Wheels, but due to superstition of movies starting with the letter ‘M’ flopping in the Hong Kong movie industry, the words were rearranged to ‘Wheels on Meals’ to avoid failure. Luckily the movie was a great success!
Much like Dragons Forever there’s also a pretty cool fight between Jackie Chan and Kickboxing legend Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez.
How does it start?
The movie starts with Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Yuen Biao) running a mobile fast food business in a highly over-decorated Mitsubishi Van. Their friend Moby (Sammo Hung) has been put in charge of a detective’s business and is looking for a woman as his first job. The men without a doubt run into this woman Sylvia, and find out she is a highly skilled thief.
After she steals from them and many other friends, she eventually comes to realise that all three of these guys have good intentions and she becomes friends with them. She even starts working for them in their fast food business!
When she is attacked by some thugs the 3 highly trained martial artists fight them off. She is then kidnapped and the 3 men go after them to rescue her.
3 Ordinary Guys with Superior Fighting Skills!
Much like Dragons Forever (which was made after this movie), you’ve got 3 ordinary guys who eventually end up being almost unstoppable martial arts heroes. It is revealed at the beginning of the movie that both Thomas and David keep fit by training in martial arts, but it pretty much serves only as a way to make their skills fit into the storyline.
The trio of Jackie, Sammo and Yuen seems to be successful, their on screen chemistry seems so natural. Interestingly enough all 3 appeared in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon!
Jackie and Benny Urquidez however were apparently very competitive on set and Benny was almost fired for hitting Jackie too hard. Although they apparently sorted out their differences and kept Benny in the film.
Through the film these guys all get into small fights with people who aren’t really related to the main direction of the film, but serve as a good way to keep the movie entertaining.
The Stunts & Martial Arts
Like a lot of Jackie, Sammo and Yuen’s films the action is fast and furious, but also light hearted at times. While the fight scenes at the end of the movie are more serious, the fights and stunts before then are generally pretty light hearted with only a small amount of danger to the main characters.
This movie really is mainly a housing for good martial arts action. As with Dragons Forever, Jackie Vs Benny the Jet was the fight I really wanted to see and it didn’t disappoint. Some of the stunt work was done quite well but was also funny, such as jumping out the window of their apartment and bounding off the shade sail onto the street – Yuen first jumps and misses as it is retracted while Sammo just falls through it – quite funny.
The action in this movie is very typical of these 3 performers – performed to perfection.
Would I recommend it?
It’s a nice easy movie to watch for a bit of action, not much depth but a good laugh or two throughout. All three men work together hilariously and Sammo Hung’s directing seems to mix with their onscreen chemistry pretty well. Expect to see good action performed to the highest level, but not exactly groundbreaking.
Find it on Blu-Ray
There is a Region A (US & Canada) Blu-ray here
, but I wouldn’t recommend it!
On DVD –
Region 1 (US & Canada)
Wheels on Meals on DVD
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
Wheels On Meals on DVD
Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, etc)
Wheels on Meals on DVD
Jackie Chan – The Dynamic Collection
