Today’s quick review: Chinese Zodiac. J.C. (Jackie Chan) leads a team of treasure hunters in search of the world’s most valuable artifacts. He and his team are hired to hunt down and steal twelve bronze Zodiac heads from their scattered locations around the world. Along the way, he recruits the help of an activist campaigning for the return of artifacts plundered from China a century ago.
Chinese Zodiac is an action adventure film from Jackie Chan. The movie follows the usual Jackie Chan formula: impressive martial arts, a couple of big stunts, and a dash of humor. Unlike most of his other films, however, Chinese Zodiac has a high-tech element to it, borrowing gadgets from the spy genre to fuel J.C.’s criminal escapades. The movie focuses more on general action than pure martial arts, but the fight scenes are as clever as ever and the extra action is quite creative.
Where Chinese Zodiac suffers is its rapid pacing. The film has almost none of the exposition it would need to make sense. The main plot barely gets explained, while several unnecessary subplots materialize out of nowhere only to vanish again. The accelerated pacing extends to individual scenes, with insufficient time spent on establishing shots, important lines of dialogues, and reactions, yielding a blitz of a story that is almost impossible to follow.
Though the poor pacing and weak writing can make Chinese Zodiac a confusing watch, neither of these aspects detract from the action as it is happening. Watch Chinese Zodiac if you are in the mood for action and are willing to ignore a film’s plot to get it. Skip Chinese Zodiac if you are looking for an action movie that handles its plot better.
6.2 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for impressive action with poor pacing and story.