Cinema: At Home on the Range

Jackie Chan kicks up a rousing good time in the multicultural east meets western Shanghai Noon

They probably sold the idea with the pitch meeting's first phrase: "Jackie Chan in the Old West." Surely the deal was sealed when they mentioned his character's name: Chon Wang. It may be, as someone in the film says, a terrible name for a cowboy, but soften that g, and it sounds a lot like that of a certain massive movie star who won immortality playing Western heroes.

Chan, of course, is a smallish, sweet-smiling man whose sense of humor irresistibly enlightens his martial artistry. In Shanghai Noon he's a guard in China's Forbidden City who intrudes himself on a mission...

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