Classic Chan: Gorgeous (1999)

Welcome back Chanphiles for another installment of Classic Chan. This time we have Thrasher's review of the supremely weird Gorgeous, an often baffling film, but not one without some show-stealing numbers that make it worthwhile. Better get ready for next time, as Chicken Man will take you all back to the year 2000 with a review of the always enjoyable Shanghai Noon.

Gorgeous is a silly film, and one that's all over the map; it moves from sappy sub-Disney Channel romance to mature martial arts exhibition like that. It's like zapping through your cable channels only to find Jackie Chan featured on every network, even the weird ones you never watch. Consequently, of all the films we've covered thus far in the Classic Chan series, this one is the hardest to pin down, to fit within the general trajectory of his career. Part of that stems from the odd premise: Jackie Chan is C. N. Chan, a billionaire trash tycoon and indolent playboy content to own expensive things and be cool. It's only when Chan's business rival hires a professional martial artist to humiliate him that things get interesting. The rest of the film follows the childish infatuations of Bu, a little Lolita played by Shu Qi, who heads to Hong Kong to find the author of a weepy love letter, and from there she becomes entangled in Chan's love life. Sad to say, but the scenes not involving Chan (and there are a good many of them) can be quite boring for all their saccharine flavor. At times it can be difficult to make sense of the extraordinarily cheesy music as well as the odd dubbing, but there are times when Gorgeous can be genuinely charming (I particularly like the banter between the anonymous thugs Chan dispatches, characters we do not typically think of as having other lives, let alone hot dates to pick up). Like most Chan outings, however, any deficiency in plotting is more than made up for with a few fights. Gorgeous is a bit different in this regard, as Chan's character has no urgent need that makes him fight. He's not an ordinary guy made to do extraordinary things here, he's not a cop out to clear his name or a chef seeking to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. Instead, he's a rich Wall Street trader who fights because he wants to, not because he has to, and that subtle difference gives the fights of Gorgeous a unique register. As such, the contests between Chan and the professional fighter have an official quality to them at odds with the usually desperate situations Chan accidentally walks into. It's a subtle move that lends a high degree of novelty to the brawls, which are right up there with his best choreography. Unfortunately, there's too few of them to make Gorgeous a truly noteworthy Chan film. As it stands, Gorgeous is an strange entry that our fellow Chanphiles will undoubtedly appreciate, but it's one that ultimately lacks enough of the good stuff.