Thunderbolt (1995)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good movie but grossly overrated

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Review: Is there anything that Jackie Chan can't do? Maybe a decent comedy! Anyway, he now turns his death-defying abilities to drag racing were he plays a former racing car champion, fighting to put a stop to an illegal drag racing driver, Cougar (Thorsten Nickel) who has the cops in his pocket and a group of killers behind him. Jackie Chans life becomes in danger when he goes to the police to tell them about Cougars illegal racing and when Cougar is freed from jail, he targets Chan and his family for putting him in jail. He kidnaps 2 of Chans sisters because he wants to challenge Chan to a race, so with the help of a journalist and a wealthy sponsor, Chan puts together a team to build a perfect car for the race. With freeing his sisters in his mind, Chan prepares for the race which will prove whose the best, even with Cougars life threatening tactics and they hit the track for the final showdown. It's not the greatest of story lines but there are some decent action scenes. I'm not one for watching drag racing because I find it quite boring, so the showdown at the end wasn't that amazing either. The mixture of subtitles and English language, also made it a bit hard to concentrate on the plot but it's not over complicated like a lot of Jackie Chans movies that were made for a Western audience. The epic scenes with the containers were impressive, along with the stunts in the cars but from an entertainment point of view, I have seen much better movies from Jackie Chan. Average!Round-Up: This big budget movie from Gordon Chan, who brought you the Medallion, which also starred Chan and Fist of Legend which starred Jet Li, wasn't bad for an unknown movie from Chan but the guy who played the villain, Thorsten Nickel, was terrible. Chans acting wasn't bad, especially in that dramatic scene when he was in hospital but the whole drag racing concept became uninteresting after a while. On the whole, it's a watchable movie which hasn't got the unfunny comedy scenes which I have grown to dislike from Chan in the latter part of his career but he won't be remembered for it.Budget: $30million Worldwide Gross: N/AI recommend this movie to people who are into their action/comedy/drama/martial arts movies starring Jackie Chan, Anita Yuen and Michael Wong. 3/10

First off, I found the plot a bit problematic at times. Not atypical for a Chinese movie, no offense to the Chinese movie makers intended.As a race fan, the auto racing scene did not look realistic to me much of the time. I read that they drove at slower speeds and sped up the film, which is exactly what it looks like. They are going way too fast for sports cars in some scenes.Besides the excess speed, the cars are not smooth. Skilled race drivers are not driving all over the track - that would obviously cause you to lose time, and probably control :) Not a big deal maybe to a general audience, but people familiar with racing will notice it.Some of the fighting scenes were pretty good, as expected. I did not feel my time was wasted. I just wish they had done the racing in a more realistic way.

This movie has it's strong points and weak points. The strong points is the high speed car chase scenes and the martial art fighting scenes. The car chase scenes are very fast paced, especially the first one, but i think it could have been better if the dialogue between Jackie Chan and Anita Yuen weren't in it. Though the car chases are filmed that it looks like remote controlled toy-cars, it still looks very good and i like them. Then there is the fight scenes. These are also very fast paced, with Jackie taking on several enemies at once. I especially like the fight in the japanese pachinko-parlor with the Yakuza, in my opinion it's the best fight i have ever seen (I even compare it to "The Matrix" kung-fu fights (!)). It is very very long and is extremely fast, with good choreography, and with heavy cutting though complained about in my opinion very Hong Kong-ish. The blurry slow-motion is forgivable. Dramatic movie, though it is not genial, it is touching and gives Jackie Chan a big chance to act, it is not much comedy in it.

Jackie Loh Chan is a motor mechanic whose father helps the police identify illegally modified vehicles to confiscate them from boy racers plaguing the area. During one such confiscation Chan witnesses a car evade capture and almost kill a policeman. The police are after this car as the driver is suspected to be criminal and speed freak Cougar – wanted across the world by several different Governments. Chan gets involved in a high-speed chase that results in the capture of Cougar but when he escapes he targets Chan for a violent second race.Jackie Chan movies are never the best place to look if you're after strong plotting and well written dialogue and this is no different. The plot itself is very basic and quite full of holes – it's even pretty thin in explaining how Chan gets mixed up in the police business originally. But like I said plotting is never his main thin and only occasionally does the weakness of the plot become annoying – mainly when the drama is played out in words exchanged.At these points the weaknesses of the script are exposed – the dialogue is unconvincing and, sadly, totally lacking in humour, preferring a more hard edged approach. It's a shame cause Chan's better films mix his trademark humour and his amazing stunt work – this has him at his toughest and, while the stunts etc are all great, it's not a good look for him.While the fighting and driving are all very enjoyable the director occasionally works hard to spoil them – he doesn't do a good job here. Basically all I wanted him to do was set up two cameras and point them at the action. However instead he uses far too many edits and fast cuts to make some fight scenes almost unwatchable. I think specifically to the great scene in the games place. It starts as a tough scene with great martial arts action but the director first edits too quickly and then slows it down in some weird slowmo that blurs everything badly.The action is all good though – the main car chase on Hong Kong streets is good and most of the fight scenes show off Chan's ability and not just his willingness to put himself at risk. Chan is OK as an actor but the intense emotion required by his hard boiled character is not really him. He seems different without his usual comedy material and is at a stretch several times. Nickel is god-awful as Cougar – he looks like an 80's throwback (think Airwolf with long hair!) and delivers every line with all the character of a stapler. Yuen is better as Amy Yip and is good-looking and natural despite not having a lot in the way of lines. I was pleased to see Wong in the cast and he gets a chance to show off his John Woo credentials in a few scenes. A cheeky bit of casting has Chris Patten (not really him of course) getting blasted by Jackie's car – he was Governor of Hong Kong at the time.Overall this has sufficient good action to justify watching. However the direction is iffy and it lacks the trademark Chan humour. Still enjoyable to watch for the action but this isn't one of Chan's better efforts.