Sadly Over-hyped

one of my absolute favorites!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A fun Jackie Chan movie for the fans, not quite as good as his best work but certainly superior to most as well as most of his recent output. This is fairly typical of the kind of movies he made during the early half of the '90s : lots and lots of cheesy, Chinese-style humour which is probably off-putting to Western audiences, a few cool fight sequences interspersed, and a typically inane and nonsensical plot. To make matters worse, the print released on DVD in the UK is the Dimension films American version which stupidly dubs the actors, changes the soundtrack, and cuts eleven minutes out of the movie! This is basically the "twins" movie for Chan, just like Van Damme, Li, and Schwarzenegger have made their own twin movies. The special effects range from split screen to back/forward projection, but there are also some decent (if a little wobbly) digital insertions which make up in ambition what they lack in technical perfection.The plot is straightforward, light-hearted fare: there are two Chans who keep getting mistaken for each other. Maggie Cheung and Nina Li Chi are the lovers who keep getting confused, although Cheung is underused and Li Chi seems to be there just to take her clothes off a lot. Chan is as good as ever, mugging his way through joke after joke, although it's a shame only one of the brothers can fight. The action is more limited here but what we do get is great: a running series of kung fu battles, gun showdowns, and a fantastic bus chase with some superb stunts. Most of the physical stuff is saved for the finale in the car warehouse, which doesn't disappoint. Although most of the comedy is silly, Jackie remains an endearing screen presence and this is still amusing, old-fashioned fun, innocent and designed to please the audience at all points. As such I recommend it.NB. I've recently had the chance to watch the 'uncut' Cantonese version and it's a much superior film; the undubbed jokes are funnier and less stupid and there's no denying the power of the constant energy and motion.

Martial artist Jackie Chan plays twins Ma Yau and Wan Ming, who were separated at birth. One is a street smart mechanic and the other is a classical musician. When the course of events bring the twins together in one city, their lives become entangled with one another, with them assuming the opposite roles of each other.The plot device for this movie is clever, but the execution was a messy tour de force of goofy humor, poor dubbing and lack of suspense. The first part of the movie was actually pretty boring - the so-called fight at the karaoke scene was a drawn out element. The more exciting part doesn't come until the twins crosses paths with each other, and then they inadvertently take the others' lady friends out (played by Maggie Cheung and Nina Li Chi). Wan Ming trying to conduct the orchestra without knowing a lick about music was mildly amusing, while Ma Yau trying to rescue Wan Ming's friend (Teddy Robin Kwan) from the mob is somewhat entertaining.Maggie Cheung and Nina Li Chi look beautiful in the movie, but there wasn't a lot of character development on them. There is also cameo appearances from many familiar actors in Hong Kong cinema, but they were underused and most were not dubbed with their own voices (Hong Kong filmmakers used to film movies without audio and then have the characters' voices dubbed in during post-production). However, I do especially like the musical number where Jackie Chan is playing on the piano while Maggie Cheung is singing to Shirley Kwan's song called "Ancient Times." Cheung looked very classy and glamorous in that scene. There is much action toward the end, but much of the movie is consumed from a plain plot and overboard goofiness. Overall, a less exciting film starring Jackie Chan.Grade C-

Please note--this review is for the English-dubbed version. It's about 11 minutes shorter than the original film and I have no way of knowing how close it stuck to the original vision. It seemed to be dubbed reasonably well, but having never seen the original Chinese version, I am only guessing.The idea of making a Corsican Brothers-like film with two Jackie Chans sounded pretty dumb when I read about this movie. And, while in parts it is awfully silly, the overall effort was far better than I expected and was one of the better Chan movies I have seen.The movie begins with a prologue which shows how two twins were accidentally separated just after birth. The parents cannot locate the lost child and are forced to raise the remaining child. The second is fund by what appears to be a prostitute and this child is raised in a poor household. Many years later, when the rich and privileged Jackie returns to Hong Kong, he accidentally is mixed up for the poor one--the one that the local mob wants to kill! Now had this just been an action film with fight scene after fight scene, I think it wouldn't have worked as well. But, given that Jackie Chan did the movie a huge amount of comedy and clever situations involving two separate girlfriends were infused into the plot. Several times, I found myself laughing at some of the silliness of it all, but I also was impressed by how well the film all worked together pretty seamlessly.There were only two complaints about the film. First, the poor Jackie snorted a lot. Why? Couldn't there have been a better way to distinguish between them than making one of them sound like he's a pig or has a really bad cold? Secondly, the film seemed to go on a bit too long--particularly at the action-packed conclusion. Knocking five or ten minutes off would have probably made the film a bit better--as the fight scene just went on and on and on. Still, this is a decent martial arts film and is worth a look and a laugh.FYI--The film's second billing went to Maggie Cheung--a relatively famous Asian actress who has made a variety of excellent films. However, her role was no bigger or more prominent than the other lady in the film who didn't appear until much further in the credits. Bummer.

Designed as a cash cow to raise money for the HK Directors Guild's new apartment (hence the long list of all-star cameos), Twin Dragons isn't as dull and plodding as many would like to make out. Instead, we're treated to an endearing comic caper setting Jackie Chan as identical twins separated at birth (Van Damme's Double Impact would be made the same year) – one's raised on the HK streets to become a car mechanic and part-time illegal drag racer, the other is raised by biological parents in the US to become a world-renowned pianist and first-class fruit. Inevitably they collide, swap girlfriends and get into a sticky situation with some nasty criminals requesting a huge debt to pay. The result is a tad mediocre; silly and plodding it may be but dull it certainly isn't: the obligatory final beat-‘em-up pits double Jackie in a car warehouse fending off the baddies left right and centre, leaping in to and out of automobiles like the over-excited master he is – and really what more do we want?