Twins, separated at birth, end up as a Hong Kong gangster and a New York concert pianist. When the pianist travels to Hong Kong for a concert, the two inevitably get mistaken for each other.
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Memorable, crazy movie
I'll tell you why so serious
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
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-
This movie just goes off. It is the type of movie that as the credits are rolling at the end the movie still feels like it is going on. This, I think, is one of Jackie Chan's best movies. When it was released, comments were made about how is was similar to Van Damme's Double Impact. The SBS critic said that there was a slight difference between Twin Dragons and Double Impact: Twin Dragons is ten times better. He is not wrong. However, Double Impact, while being an action movie, is not the only movie, or story, about twins and the comedy in which they are mistaken. There is Cheech and Chong's Corsican Brothers, and of course there is Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (suggesting that the concept does predate the 15th Century since Shakespeare was hardly original).The movie is about identical twins who are violently separated at birth and do not know of each others existence. One becomes a concert pianist and the other an auto mechanic. Then the concert pianist comes to Hong Kong for a concert while the other becomes embroiled in a plot concerning a Hong Kong gang lord. Then the movie goes into a confusion where everybody is mistaking one of the twins for the other, and the twins, upon realising the other's existence, try to hide each other's existence.Theme wise the movie is quite shallow, but one does not watch Jackie Chan movies for the in-depth theme. If you want in-depth themes you watch Ridley Scott. Some directors, such as John Woo and James Cameron, are known for action and interweave themes in with their movies, but when it comes to Jackie Chan, all you have is cool comedy and cool fights. Personally the fight scenes in this movie were not all that cool, and actually started to get boring, but the whole twisted plot of Twin Dragons just went off.
By any objective standards, this movie is absolutely terrible. The direction is extremely sloppy, the "special effects" (though undeniably time-consuming) are pathetically obvious and the script...well, let's just not go there. Nevertheless, it does boast some witty, top-notch fight choreography and some legitimately funny moments, so Jackie fanatics may want to give it a look. But if you're new to Hong Kong action cinema, don't make "Twin Dragons" your introduction to it: you'll have a hard time believing that a movie this bad can actually be produced anywhere in this world. (**)
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?