Movie review - A Legend

A Legend **1/2 (out of 5) I’ve been such a huuuge Jackie Chan fan for so long I never pass up one of his releases, even though he’s been mostly coasting on fumes for a while. In his prime, no one from ANY country crafted and executed scintillating action with comedy and charm like he did. But he turned 70 last spring (April 7, for those who want to celebrate his next birthday), and understandably can’t do what he did in front of the cameras, despite the amazing degree of agility and stamina he still has after so many years and so many injuries. Just what’s been recorded in the legion of outtakes for decades of credits would have killed most mortals - including the dudes from those Jackass programs.

This dramedy dives into historical fantasy, as present-day archeology professor Jackie pursues ancient artifacts in a mostly wrap-around format, alternating with elaborate staging of battles between the Han Dynasty and the Huns, triggered by finding a key relic from that era. Jackie and his students have the same recurring dreams about those ancient events, in which they looked exactly like several of the main figures. A much younger Jackie was a general for, of course, the good guys. Events of the two periods are paralleled, as the quest for a hidden treasure-filled, power-granting cache drives both plotlines.

The story is rather stale and much longer than it needed to be. It runs over two hours on maybe 90 minutes worth of content, with too much exposition dragging down the pace. But several battle scenes are epic in scale, backed by some gorgeous art design. In those major clashes, there’s somewhat more blood and gore than in most of Jackie’s films. There’s also considerable CGI mastery in the mix, NOT including whatever they did to make Jackie look young in the historical sequences. Joan Rivers’ plastic surgeon delivered a more realistic appearance than what he got.

Throughout the film, most of the action, drama and romance are carried by Jackie’s handful of rather bland young co-stars, with relatively little of the Jackie we’ve all admired. But in the climactic sequence, he’s back for a typically frenetic fight with fast action and some of his signature comedic reactions. Patience with all that went before is rewarded… at last.

Several lyrical scenes rival the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for color and scope. One might enjoy this even more by fast-forwarding through chunks of dialog for undiluted focus on the good stuff.

(A Legend, in Mandarin with subtitles, is available on Digital Blu-ray and DVD from Well Go USA as of 1/21/25.)