Shangai Noon: A Honest No Bias Review

What made me watch this movie? Well, it’s the weekend, and sometimes at the end of the day I just want to watch a funny movie, so I told my wife, “Let’s watch a funny movie.”

We accidentally put on Shanghai Knights, which is actually part two. That’s why when we started I was like, “Wait a second, this isn’t part one. There has to be another one.” So we restarted and watched Shanghai Noon.

The movie is from the year 2000, so it’s not new, but it’s definitely entertaining. Jackie Chan plays Chon Wang, a Chinese Imperial Guard from the Forbidden City who’s pretty much in love with the princess. The princess gets tired of being stuck there and wants to escape. She has an English teacher who promises her a chance to leave China and go to America. She takes it. Chon Wang finds the note she left, reports it, and that starts his journey to America.

Meanwhile, Owen Wilson plays Roy O’Bannon, a talkative cowboy bandit. He ends up on the same train as Chon Wang, who’s traveling with a bunch of gold because the English teacher was actually helping kidnap the princess. From there the two of them get mixed up together and head into the Midwest.

Funny enough, Chon Wang ends up marrying a Native American woman without really knowing what’s happening because they don’t speak the same language and his English is very limited. The whole movie has tons of fun scenes.

My favorite scene is when Chon Wang and Roy O’Bannon are sitting in bathtubs at this weird gentleman’s house, drinking, playing a Chinese drinking game, and just getting completely hammered until they pass out. My wife said, “That’s weird, why are they drinking and they’re both naked?” Come to find out it was a trap set up by the marshals. Spoiler: the marshals are crooked too.

What worked again in this movie was simply the acting between Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan. Their ability to banter back and forth felt so realistic, even for an old-style movie. You kind of forget that you’re watching them pretend to be a cowboy and a foreigner because they did such a great job going back and forth.

Jackie Chan does a phenomenal job as Chon Wang — a foreigner still trying to follow the rules he grew up with even though Roy keeps telling him the sun may rise in the East but it sets in the West, and he’s no longer in China. Owen Wilson as Roy O’Bannon is great too. He’s trying to be a bandit but keeps failing at it because deep down he’s still a good guy. He’s funny, witty, and just a great time to watch.

What didn’t work? It’s tough to say because honestly this was a pretty good movie. Maybe if it was a little longer, because it did feel a little rushed in some parts, but in the end it was a great movie.

The soundtrack is phenomenal. It makes you feel like you’re right in an old Western.

One of the things I love most about this movie — something all new movies seem to no longer have — is that if you wait all the way to the end, the bloopers show up. The bloopers are all the mishaps that happened while they were filming. For me and my wife, it takes us back to a simpler time when movies seemed to care and all they wanted to do was make you laugh. That is what I miss, and I wish they’d bring it back to new movies, because it’s just so funny watching the bloopers.

All in all I rate this movie a solid 9. Why not a 10? Because a little bit of it feels old-style — and it is an old movie — and there’s just something I can’t quite put my finger on that keeps it from being perfect. But I truly recommend this movie. It’s such a fun time. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it.