REVIEW: ‘Rob-B-Hood’ (2006)

ROB-B-HOOD, aka ROBIN-B-HOOD re-teams director Benny Chan with international action star Jackie Chan (no relation) after NEW POLICE STORY (2004), a film seen as Jackie’s Hong Kong comeback even though he had never really left. Unlike Jackie’s Hollywood features, ROB-B-HOOD is a pure mix of Hong Kong comedy, action and drama with Jackie in control. Despite this, the film shares with his past Hollywood films what many of the actor’s longtime fans would consider pitfalls, namely heavy dependence on wirework, computer effects and formulaic comedy situations.

[minislides]
[rating:2.5]

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• na
AKA
• Bao bei ji hua
• Bo bui gai wak
• Bo bui kai wak
• Pao pei chi hua
• Project BB
• Robin-B-Hood
GENRE
• Comedy
• Drama
• Modern Action
ORIGIN
• Hong Kong
LENGTH
• 136 minutes
FIGHT TIME
• 12 minutes
STUDIO
• JCE Entertainment
• Huayi Brothers
RELEASE DATE
• 1979 (US)
RATING
• PG
DIRECTOR
• Benny Chan
ACTION DIRECTOR
• Jackie Chan
WRITER
• Alan Yuen (story / screenplay)
• Benny Chan (screenplay)
• Jackie Chan (screenplay)
PRODUCER
• Benny Chan
• Jackie Chan
• Willie Chan
• Solon So
• Wang Zhong-lei
CINEMATOGRAPHER
• Anthony Pun
MUSIC
• Dick Halligan
CAST
• Jackie Chan (Thongs)
• Louis Koo (Octopus)
• Michael Hui (Landlord)
• Gao Yuan-yuan (Melody)
• Charlene Choi (Yan)
• Convoy Chan (MacDaddy)
• Yuen Biao (Steve Mok)
• Chen Bao-guo (Godfather)
• Teresa Carpio (Landlady)
• Matthew Medvedev (Baby)

The initial premise to ROB-B-HOOD has been compared with THREE MEN AND A BABY for obvious reasons, although the presence of three men and a baby are about the only things these two films have in common. The film has more in common with past Hong Kong action comedies like WINNERS AND SINNERS and ONCE A THIEF.

Jackie Chan is a compulsive gambler who moonlights as a professional thief with his partners, played by Louis Koo, looking like a fashion model and the dowdy Michael Hui. Bereft of good looks, fighting ability or charisma, Hui might seem an odd choice by Western viewers but along with his famous brother Sam Hui, he was once one of Hong Kong’s top comedic actors and local audiences would know him well. In fact, his first starring role in THE WARLORD contributed to the revival of the Cantonese comedy in Hong Kong at a time when Mandarin-language films ruled the box office. As for Koo, he was once busted in real-life for theft before he became a movie star. It’s doubtful his real-life experience helped much in performing the exaggerated thievery on display.

The first part of the film consists of an extended introduction of sorts that sets up the main plot to follow. During a hospital heist, the trio rescues a newborn infant from the clutches of a madman who thinks he is the father. The infant is returned to his parents and the robbers go their merry way, only to discover several months later that their next objective is the same child. For a comedy with light drama and action, this extended set up was a bad move. The original uncut film was over three hours long and had to be trimmed down by as much as an hour (final cut length varies by up to 10 minutes depending on the region the film was released in). Although the final pacing is adequate, there is too much going on for one light comedy.

Jackie and his pals have to deal with the awkward task of caring for an infant while managing their own lives. The great character actor Ku Feng, co-star of many Shaw Brothers martial arts classics, plays Jackie’s elderly father who is furious with his son’s failure to get a respectable job. Charlene Choi (TWINS EFFECT) is the pathetic and discarded wife of Koo. Although he has essentially abandoned her, she constantly spies on him while on the job as a costumed mascot for various businesses. Filipino songstress Teresa Carpio is Hui’s mentally disabled wife, a woman obsessed with babies following the death of her only child.

In addition to these supporting characters and a gang of villains that includes Chen Bao-gao and Ken Lo, the film features a number of cameos. An obvious one is the appearance of Daniel Wu as a gay security guard riding shotgun in an armored truck. He memorably makes an awful “Brokeback Mountain” joke. Yuen Biao makes an extended cameo as a police officer who gets mixed up in Jackie’s exploits. This leads to brief but welcome comic and action sparring between the two.

At one point during development it was thought that Yuen would be one of the three main characters. It seems that Jackie made an extra effort get Yuen in on the act but his character serves no purpose in the story at all. All of his scenes have that tacked on feel and only serve to add to the film’s bloat. Personally, I think the film should have been an onscreen reunion for Jackie, Sammo and Yuen Biao. It would have worked better. Koo seems out of place with his aged cohorts and Hui is just a non-entity.

This is Benny Chan’s first comedy and it shows. He doesn’t have a good handle on creating humor. The funny bits are mostly Jackie’s physical schtick and that it tempered by unconvincing wirework and CGI where the baby is concerned, and bad onscreen chemistry for nearly all concerned. Koo is wooden. Hui is a wallflower, although his relationship with Carpio could have worked well in a more serious film. Jackie is Jackie, yet with less gusto.

A big action sequence that cost at least $30,000 has Jackie jumping onto air conditioner units on his way down the outside of a multi-story building. It may have been a difficult stunt to pull off but it looks rather dull onscreen. Worse, now that he’s relying more on wires that are easy to erase in editing you never can trust that anything he does is “real” anymore. The major end fight has more of the classic Jackie Chan we all know and love, although much of it felt recycled. I don’t even want to talk about an earlier trampoline scene. That has to be one of Jackie’s worst moments in film since his days working as a Bruce Lee clone under Lo Wei. It was pathetic.

Based on past films, I can tell that Jackie had a big hand in how this film was developed. The excessively long action finales of his younger years have been replaced by excessively long drama. Jackie tries so hard to be a real actor and goes way overboard in his performance. Like his attempts to do stunt work, it doesn’t work so well at this age. Neither does his attempt to be romantically linked onscreen with an actress 25 years younger. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Jackie Chan needs to start acting his age if he doesn’t want to end up laughed at. As an action star, he should be remembered for work like POLICE STORY and DRUNKEN MASTER 2, not ROB-B-HOOD. Yet he seems determined to reinvent himself as a has-been. If he keeps this up, he’ll succeed.