“Who Am I?”, the movie title definitely sets the scene – Jackie Chan plays a character named ‘Jackie Chan’ in ‘Who Am I?’ who has lost his memory!
An elite soldier, his Unit was betrayed in order to get their hands on a secret but powerful formula that would supercharge hand held weaponry. The betrayal is shown when they’re in South Africa, Jackie suffers a tremendous fall from a helicopter and wakes up with no memory of who he is or what happened.
From there he is taken in by a small tribe and recovers there for some time. Once recovered he returns to civilisation to try and discover who he is. But when he is chased and constantly on the run from different groups of people, Jackie must fight them off, figure out who he can and can’t trust all while trying to piece together the mystery of who he really is.
Top Shelf Jackie
This movie has everything Jackie Chan fans could want, and it’s high quality!
Right from the beginning we see Jackie Chan’s comedic talents as he tries to help out an injured Rally Car Driver. Dressed and made up just like the tribe that rescued him, the woman driving looks over and from her angle, it looks like Jackie is killing her friend, when he is trying to heal him.
Once past that, she is obviously under the impression Jackie is a native and talks to him like he knows no English, naturally his mouth is numb from the herb he has chewing to place on the snake bite of the woman’s injured colleague. The whole scenario was pretty smart and I had a small chuckle.
What I really liked was that a lot of the more ridiculous elements which creep into Jackie’s movies seem to be pretty much absent. The movie was a bit more serious in nature and didn’t really heavily on comedy, so what laughs you did get weren’t over milked.
Instead we’re given a pretty standard action plot – bad guys go after good guy, good guy tries to save himself before destroying a powerful weapon in the hands of the good guy. There’s nothing new there, it was the perfect vehicle for Jackie unique brand of action, once again performed very well.
The Action & Martial Arts
Jackie’s precisely timed stunt work is back making every fight scene a perfectly executed performance that reminds you why Jackie Chan is so popular.
Jackie’s fights are inventive as always, using chairs and anything in the room as a weapon to trip or prevent an attacker from getting close to him while he still offers up some solid fundamental punches and kicks blended ever so well.
What I really liked in this movie is that there seemed to be more hand to hand fights of a serious nature as opposed to the more stunt oriented action work he throws into a lot of his movies, although there was plenty of fantastic stunt work too.
The final fight scene between the two henchmen is one of my favorite Jackie Chan movie fights and he tops it off afterwards by sliding down the diagonal glass roof of the tower, showing that he really has some of the most dangerous stunts int he industry.
Overall?
A classic that is, as I mentioned earlier, top shelf. One of Jackie’s stronger movies with some excellent comedy and physical action. If you haven’t seen it, check it out!
