Shanghai Noon

Plot:

The Wild West meets the Far East in a battle for honor, royalty, and a trunk full of gold when acrobatic Imperial Guard Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) comes to America to rescue a beautiful kidnapped Chinese princess (Lucy Liu). With the help of a partner he doesn't trust (Owen Wilson), a wife he doesn't want, a horse he cannot ride, and martial arts moves no one can believe, Chon finds himself facing the meanest gunslingers in the West.

News:

26 May, 2000

The movie is finally released today but Disney and director Tom Dey have already been talking about a sequel. After seeing the early footage, Disney executives were so excited they commissioned a sequel.

Dey talked about what has been discussed so far. "Everyone had ideas for a title, from Shanghai After Noon and Shanghai Midnight to Shanghai Plains Drifter," recalls Dey. "The sequel doesn't have a title yet, but the concept is to turn it into more of an action adventure comedy than a western. It's going to have more of a feel of an Indiana Jones movie."

The official website has updated again. It now includes four behind the scenes videos you can watch. They can be found on this page.

23 May, 2000

I thought I was done reporting on this movie now that I've actually seen it but I've got one more thing for you before I start looking to Jackie Chan's next movie. If you want to see the premiere of Shanghai Noon at Mann's Chinese Theater tommorrow, just follow this link to TokyoPop.

22 May, 2000

My review of the movie

19 May, 2000

No news today but an anonymous source sent me a big batch of pictures this morning so I'm going to share them with you.

16 May, 2000

The movie is getting screened a lot lately. That's good for us because we get early reviews. Check out a couple we just received here.

12 May, 2000

The official website has updated again. Most notably it has added a ton of video clips. There are five clips from the movie plus another four clips of an interview with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. They talk about having to go through training for the movie. Wilson says, "Before we started this movie we were taking horseback riding lessons and fast draw lessons and, you know, what person wouldn't want to do that." You can see all the clips here.

Also of interest is a notice that the site will be broadcasting the premiere on May 23 at approximately 6:30 PM PT/ 9:30 PM ET.

9 May, 2000

Here's another take on Shanghai Noon this time from someone who liked it quite a bit. Be warned though, this review contains Major Spoilers so don't read it if you don't want to know too much.

Jackie Chan plays a Forbidden City guard named Jiang Wen, who is crazy about Princess Pei Pei, played by Lucy Liu. Even he is never allowed to take a look at her. Princess Pei Pei doesn't want to marry a man whom she doesn't like and must escape the Palace - and to American with her English teacher's help. It turn out that the English teacher is a villain after all, all he tells her were nothing but lies. It's a trap, and soon a black mail note is sent to the Emperor - if they don't send ten thousand dollars worth of gold to Carson City, Nevada, in four weeks, Princess Pei Pei will die.

So, Jiang Wen volunteer to rescue her, he joins the rescue team. Once again, his uncle can talk English, that's why he's chosen to execute the mission. Yes, it's a Mission:Impossible which happens in the Ching Dynasty.

As soon as the rescue team take a train to Carson City, the train is robbed by Owen Wilson's character and his gangsters. (Sorry I didn't remember his name anyway ) Jiang Wen's uncle is killed by one of the gangsters, and he is seperated with other fellows. So is Owen Wilson. Jiang Wen buries him alive to make him show the direction to Carson City. Of course, Owen gives him a worng direction. Jiang Wen goes to Indian camp and rescues a little boy. This cheers up the chief. Afer a long night party, Jiang Wen is druken and married to the chief's daughter.

Then Jiang Wen meets Owen Wilson again in a small town's bar. He can't believe what he sees, Owen escapes! Afer a big fight in the bar which always happens in a west film, they are locked up in a jail. As soon as Owen knew Jiang carries lots of gold for a rescue mission, he decides to join the mission, too. Of course, he's a not so good robber, gold is all he needs.

The film starts to become funny whenever Owen reads the name of Jackie Chan's character, Jiang Wen sounds like John Wayne. They also chased by the local evil force. In the final battle, they fight each own contender in their own way. Jiang fights with his martial arts, Owen shoots. The outcome - well, I won't spoil it.

But there's something not so reasonable in the film. Such as, Lucy Liu speaks English so frequently, even she talks to a old Chinese woman, Jackie Chan, a Chinese villian who's used to be a traitor. Come on, Why Chinese speak in English to each other ? She uses English to express her emotion, anger, kindness, and love. That's weird.

And the ending scene is so cloned if you saw "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", Paul Newman and Robert Redford run out the door and lots of guns fire. Jackie and Owen do the same thing again, you can hear lots of guns fire. Do they survive? You have to see it by yourself. And one more thing, never miss the out take scenes in the ending, they are so great. - 'Cross Cultural'

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8 May, 2000

Dark Horizons managed to nab a test screening review of the movie and the word isn't as bright as hoped.

Jackie Chan has often played a fish out of water, but he's rarely found himself so far upstream as in this comic adventure, in which he puts his fighting skills to the test in the Old West of the 1850s. Lo Fong (Roger Yuan), a one-time captain of the Chinese Imperial Guard, has given up upholding the law for smuggling opium. Needing some operating capital, Lo Fong kidnaps the Emperor's daughter, Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), and takes her to America. When the Emperor sends his best men to find her, Chon Wang (Chan), one of the Emperor's less distinguished guards, insists on joining them; he feels at fault for Lo Fong's capturing the Princess, and he wants to make amends. However, while the rescue party scours the West, Chon Wang gets separated from the group and soon becomes lost. When he crosses paths with Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), a bright but arrogant train robber, the two become unlikely allies.

Fans of Jackie Chan may bemoan his newfound Hollywood career. Long gone are the hard-edged action films that made Chan into a cult hero worldwide. These days, Chan thrives on playing the fish-out-of-water in America, which he did effortlessly in Rush Hour. Shanghai Noon is in an inoffensive enough piece of entertainment, a sometimes deft satire on the old West, but yet it seems we've seen all this before. The film is competently directed by Tom Dey, though these movies have a habit of pretty much directing themselves. This is no exception, with a minimalist script and eye-catching locales. Like Rush Hour, Chan's newest Hollywood flick is a mismatched buddy story, one of improbable characters who unite. Why the films works a tad better than the material, is not so much the acrobatic Chan, but sidekick Owen Wilson, who plays a spiritual outlaw. Wilson's laid back approach is in stark contrast to Chan's over-exuberance, so the match works rather nicely, and the comedy is derived from these characters' over differences. Wilson is delightfully fun to watch, while Chan is, well, Chan.

Lucy Liu appears as the Chinese princess whose kidnapping gets things going, and she's fine but for the most part, underwhelming. The music is the film's major flaw, with contrasting styles jarring and inconsistent with the overall tone of the piece. There are some fun moments to be had, and Shanghai Noon is not exactly dull, but it's prefabricated escapism for the right market and rarely does anything new. - 'Paul Fischer'

2 May, 2000

The official website has finally opened. It provides a pretty detailed plot outline, the trailer and preview, and a bunch of pictures from the movie. You can see a few of them here.

1 May, 2000

The trailer is finally here! Sure it's been in theaters for weeks now but this is the first time it was available online. The fine folks at Coming Soon! managed to dig it up somewhere. You probably shouldn't ask where.

Long time readers will recognize the scene where bandits rob a train. We managed to get some set reports from the filming of that scene way back in August of last year.

• Lo-Res 8.5MB MOV
• Hi-Res 15.0MB

28 April, 2000

No real news today but I was sent this picture from the set by an anonymous source. In the picture you'll see Lucy Liu wearing an enormous winter coat and Roger Yuan, who plays the villain, in some spiffy western duds. Or at least that's what it looks like to me anyway. I didn't really get details.

24 April, 2000
The internet preview can now be downloaded from the official site.

• 1.5 MB MOV (240x180)

20 April, 2000
I've got a little tidbit of information relating to the movie to share with you today. An anonymous tipster wrote in to say this:

"They're currently editing a t.v. commercial and director Tom Dey is at the helm for a music video for UNCLE CRACKER'S 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!' Uncle Cracker is KID ROCK'S sidekick. Kid Rock, Jackie, and Lucy are set to be featured in the video.

"Shanghai Noon will premiere May 23rd at Mann's Chinese Theatre."

17 April, 2000
We're still waiting for the trailer to hit the internet but in the meantime there is a quick preview available. This isn't the trailer but a one minute preview showing Jackie Chan in action and talking about the movie. The actual trailer has been in theaters for at least a couple weeks now so hopefully there will be downloadable version soon. In the meantime follow this link to see the preview.

One minute internet preview, various formats

4 April, 2000
Would you believe that a sequel is already being planned? The movie hasn't even opened yet. Writers Miles Millar and Al Gough have been hired to pen the sequel.

“The Shanghai sequel will be more of a standard period actioner, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, now that the first film establishes Jackie and Owen, and how they mesh together so well," says Millar. "It’ll be more action adventure, and The Mummy showed there is a terrific appetite for period action film." said Gough.

Chan himself came up with the original idea. The two writers worked closely with him to develop the first script and will do the same for the second.

3 April, 2000

The poster for the movie has been released and its pretty cool. Click on the picture to enlarge to full size.

10 March, 2000

I've got some information to share with you on the movie's villain. The character's name is Lo Fong and he is played by Roger Yuan (Lethal Weapon 4, Red Corner). An anonymous tipster wrote into tell us a bit about the character and the story. You can see Roger with Jackie in the picture to the left.

Lo Fong is a former compatriot of Jackie's character in the Imperial Guard who rebels and arranges for the Princess (Lucy Liu) to be kidnapped and brought to the U.S. in the Old West. Lo Fong dresses impeccably and holds the Princess hostage in his lair.

Jackie of course comes to the rescue with the help of an outlaw named Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) and together they save the Princess.

He also mentions that Jackie Chan is now in Hong Kong to film Spy City for Golden Harvest.

6 March, 2000
Disney is apparently very confident in their movie. The release date has been bumped up to May 26. That puts it into head to head competition with Mission Impossible 2.

1 March, 2000
It appears that the movie has had a test screening and the early word is very promising. Below is part of a review from a test screening.

The tone is irreverent, but not annoyingly so, managing at its core to stay true to all that's great about the Western genre. The movie looks great, like old Technicolor, but could stand to use more inventive Jackie action. Maybe this can be fixed in editing. Jackie gives a funnier performance than he did in RUSH HOUR and seems more relaxed and comfortable here. He even gets to bed down with a babe-a-licious Indian woman in in one of the movie's funnier sequences. However, the real centerpiece of the movie is the chemistry between Jackie and Owen Wilson, which (in my opinion at least) is even stronger than the chemistry Jackie had with Chris Tucker in RUSH HOUR.

To read the rest, head over to AICN.

1 February, 2000
For many months we didn't get a single image from the movie. Now they're starting to pour out. To the left is another shot from the movie. Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan appear to be panicking about something. From the shots we've seen it is pretty obvious that this is going to be a buddy film.

28 January, 2000
Here is the first actual photo from the movie. That's Owen Wilson on the left and Jackie Chan on the right sporting the long hair.

20 January, 2000
This is the first picture I've seen from the set. There was at one point a special on The Learning Channel about special effects that showed shooting of the movie though. It showed Chan with very long hair performing a fight scene. The shot you see here is an obviously exhausted Chan napping on one of the trains used in filming. Mostly it gives us an idea of what his costume will look like. That's assuming that he's in costume of course.

10 December, 1999
It looks like some of the earlier casting imformation we received might be innaccurate. We had earlier reports that Sammo Hung wasn't involved with this picture but they were never confirmed. Our earlier report mentioning Vaughan and Buscemi merely said they were working on Chan's next picture. Apparently that didn't mean Shanghai Noon.

The cast you have listed for SHANGHAI NOON (Spyglass Entertainment) is inaccurate. Vince Vaughan, Steve Buscemi and Sammo Hung are not in the film. However you have omitted the main villain in the film LO FONG portrayed by Roger Yuan (Lethal Weapon 4, Red Corner). The buzz I'm hearing is that SHANGHAI is expected to be one of the most highly anticipated films of Summer 1800 and that Disney and Spyglass execs are extremely happy with the film directed by Tom Dey and starring Jackie Chan.

5 October, 1999
Okay this really doesn't say much that we didn't already know about Jackie Chan's next movie but here is the synopsis from Buena Vista: The wild west meets the far east in a battle for honour, royalty, and a trunk full of gold when Imperial Guard Chon Wong (Jackie Chan) travels to Nevada to rescue a beautiful Chinese princess (Lucy Lui). Chan finds himself facing the meanest gunslingers in the desert with the help of a partner he doesn't trust (Owen Wilson), a wife he doesn't want, a horse he can't ride and moves no one can believe. The trunk full of gold is the only part of it I hadn't seen mentioned before. I assume that is the ransom for the kidnapped princess.

12 August, 1999
I've got another set report today. This one is from David who gives a great description of the scene and how it looks.

Well the set is the same set used for the show Lonesome Dove. We went to that set for our costume fitting. I was only in one scene and that was a scene where 4 Bandits rob a passenger train after the bandits (Owen, Walton, Adrian and another actor who I dont remember) in the process of robbing the passenger car an Old Chinese man who happens to be Jackie Chans' characters uncle gets shot and killed. Jackie Chans' character bursts through the back door of the passenger car right after his uncle has been shot, but by this time the robbers have fled out the front door of the train car. Jackie asks "who did this" and one passenger points towards the front of the train car Jackie runs out the front door, only to see that the outlaws have seperated the passenger car from the baggage car. At that point I am not sure what else happens. This scene took us 3 days to shoot August 5-7. The area for this scene took place close to Drumheller Alberta at a railroad junction called Taylor Siding. I also know that at the other site the second crew filmed a fight scene which took place on top of a moving train.

9 August, 1999
Today we've actually got a report from the set of the movie. This person was on the set and kind enough to correct some earlier information. Check out what they have to say.

I don't know where you get your information from for movies, but Peace River is not one of the places that they are filming Jackie Chan's new movie "Shanghai-Noon". I was an extra on the set that took place here in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.

Tom is still the director of the movie, and he is a pretty cool guy to work with.

Some of the movie was filmed up by Canmore, Alberta, Canada. They did some shots outside of Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. They used the Lonesome Dove set for the hanging of Owen and Jackie.

They are still filming down in Drumheller at two sites until the 19th of August. Wayne which is about 12km outside of Drumheller and Taylor Siding which is about 18km ouside also. They are also using a place in Horseshoe Canyon about 17km outside of Drumheller.

I worked main crew at the Basecamp which was at Taylor siding. There they filmed Owen and his three friends robbing the train. Jackie's uncle is killed in the same passenger car that I am in, and after the robbers leave, Jackie finds him lieing dead on the ground.

The movie is a Western-Comedy, and we previewed parts of the movie already and it looks to be a good movie, and very funny.

It is a movie being paid for by Disney and it has about a $75M budget.

Thanks to 'pepsi cola' for the information.

17 June, 1999
Xander Berkeley (Air Force One, Gattaca), Jason Connery (Sean Connery's son), and Curtis Armstrong (Better Off Dead, Revenge of the Nerds) have joined the cast. It also appears that Sammo Hung will not be joining the cast as previously reported. He will be working on a Martial Law movie based on his TV show, making him unavailable. Yuen Biao will likely serve as the the action coordinator. A third of the movie willl be shot in Hong Kong and Beijing and the rest will be shot in Calgary as expected. One small detail is that Owen Wilson's character is named Roy O'Bannon.

10 June, 1999
Peace River may not actually be a location for shooting Jackie Chan's new movie. The desire for a location with more mountains has cancelled plans to shoot there. Instead it appears they will be using an area near Drumheller, which is closer to Calgary. They need an area with train tracks that is still wild, allowing it to pass for 1800s scenery. A manager for the railway mentioned that a new director with the picture wanted an area with more mountains. Does this mean that Tom Dey is off the project or were they referring to a director of photography?

8 June, 1999
Jackie Chan's sidekick is called Fido. And he's not a dog, he's a horse. The horse follows him around in the movie acting more like a dog than a horse, thus the name. The crew and extras say it is one of the funniest things they've ever seen. The movie reportedly has a $50M budget and is the first American film where Chan has had real control. He is one of the movies producers and the script is based on his own concept.

4/28/99
I can't stop writing about this project. Peace River in Alberta, Canada has been chosen as a location for filming Jackie Chan's next movie. A crew of about 180 will descend on the town this summer. They should be there from two to four weeks. Approximately 16km of train track will be used for filming scenes involving a train robber, played by Owen Wilson. Thanks to the Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune.

4/27/99
Lucy Liu, best known for her role on Fox's Ally McBeal, will play the part of the kidnapped princess in Jackie Chan's next movie. Her character is kidnapped and taken to the Old West. Chan plays a member of the imperial guard sent to rescue her. Along the way he is helped by a train robber played by Owen Wilson. Thanks to Variety.

4/26/99
Jackie Chan has added long time friend Sammo Hung, star of CBS's Martial Law, to the cast of Shanghai Noon. The two have worked together on numerous movies, but this will be the first time on an American project. Chan and Hung have known each other since they were kids apprenticed at the Yu Jim-Yuen Drama Academy in Hong Kong. Thanks to the Calgary Sun.

4/22/99
Coming Attractions has confirmed that Vince Vaughn and Steve Buscemi have joined the cast of Jackie Chan's next movie.

4/7/99
Variety is reporting that Sammo Hung is in discussions to join Jackie Chan's next movie, Shanghai Noon. Hung directed Chan in Mr. Nice Guy and coordinated stunts for him on Thunderbolt.

2/24/99
Owen Wilson has agreed to co-star opposite Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon. Filming will get under way in late spring. Locations will include Calgary in Canada and possibly China as well. Wilson will play the part of a leader of a group of outlaws in the Old West. He and Chan team up to save a kidnapped princess. Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter.

1/27/99
Jackie Chan has stated that his next movie will be shot in Canberra, Australia. It isn't confirmed that this will be Shanghai Noon but Steve Buscemi (Armageddon, The Big Lebowski) has said that it will be the next movie he works on. That would be an interesting bit of casting.

1/13/99
Variety provided a little more information on Jackie Chan's next movie. "Based on an idea by Chan and written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, pic is a Western about a Chinese man (Chan) who travels to the Wild West to rescue a kidnapped princess. After teaming up with a train robber, the unlikely duo takes on a Chinese traitor and his corrupt boss." It essentially sounds like Rush Hour set in the old west.

1/8/99
Ain't It Cool News reports that this will be Jackie Chan's next Hollywood movie. Chan plays a Ching Dynasty bodyguard who travels to the US to save a princess. The $35 million dollar project will be directed by Tom Dey.