Background
Jackie Chan was on a hot streak in 1989
when he decided to pay tribute to Frank Capra, the American director best
known for such sentimental fare as It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened
One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and You Can't Take It With
You. Evidently Capra's films, Lady for a Day and its
remake Pocketful of Miralces (films that I have never seen), served
as direct inspiration for Miracles.
Released theatrically in
Hong Kong in June 1989, it was a big hit financially. Many critics
seemed to like this change of pace as well, although many action fans were
disappointed with the less-than-non-stop action.
More than 18 months passed before Chan's
next acting/directing effort, Armour of God II: Operation Condor
- which was an even bigger financial success.
Foreground
Jackie Chan plays a country bumpkin who
is cheated out of almost his last dollar upon his arrival in Hong Kong,
only to inadvertently end up a triad boss ("Mr. Canton") in
1930's China. Because of his innate goodness and honesty, he
converts a restaurant into a nightclub that features Anita Mui as a
singer. Mr. Canton attributes his continued good luck to roses he
buys from a middle-aged female flower vendor. When "Lady
Rose" learns that her daughter wants to marry the son of a wealthy
Shanghai businessman, she is distressed that her pretense about being rich
will be discovered. Mr. Canton determines to help her.
As a film director, Chan is a good
action director. By that, I mean that the fight and stunt sequences
are fun to watch and imaginative, but the actors are allowed to play their
characters too broadly. Believable human emotions are not on display
here, so the dramatic scenes simply don't work. Still, there are a
number of good comedy bits if your taste runs to slapstick, as mine
does. And I continue to be amazed by some of the fight and stunt
scenes - here I liked Chan's long descent down the roofs of a hillside
marketplace, as well as the extended sequence near the end in a rope
factory, where the hero takes on the usual large army of bad
guys.
Special mention must be made of the
elegant camera work -- not only the scenes where the camera glides around
the set, but also Chan's sure hand of knowing where to put the camera to
maximize the impact of scenes, fighting or otherwise. Also, the wide
variety of transitions from scene to scene are a nice touch -- notice the
iris shots, wipes, dissolves, and so forth, that call to mind American
films made in the '30's and '40's.
Arthur Wong Ngak-Tai's cinematography is
beautiful. Compare his lighting and color schemes with what he did
two years later in Once Upon a Time in China. Eddie Ma Poon-Chiu's
art direction is gorgeous. The sets and costumes are colorful and
sumptuous.
The Mei Ah disk is rated Category I; the
Columbia disk is rated PG-13. No explicit violence is depicted, but
there is plenty of fighting and punching and a number of
obscenities.
Mega Star DVD: look, sound, and features
Most scenes in this letterboxed
presentation (2.35 to 1) look quite good. The colors are sharp and
clear. Other scenes, however, do not fare as well, washing out and
looking a bit hazy. Even in the best-looking scenes, the blacks are
not as dark as they could be and the fleshtones are not rendered
consistently or accurately.
Remastered 5.1 Cantonese and Mandarin audio tracks are provided.
I listened to the Cantonese 5.1 track and it sounded fine. Removable subtitles are provided
in traditional and simplified
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, Bahasa Malaysia, and
Thai in addition to English; the English titles
are large, white, easy to read, well-timed but with many mistakes.
Nine chapters are provided in a
full-motion video menu. "About the Film" includes a plot
synopsis and cast and crew listing, as well as filmographies for Jackie
Chan and Anita Mui. The four-minute theatrical trailer is included
(predictably, it focuses on the action scenes); other trailers are Project
A, Project A II, and Armour of God.
Columbia/TriStar DVD: look, sound, and
features
For those so equipped (I am not), this
version has been enhanced for 16 x 9 televisions. The picture looks
similar to that on the Mega Star disk, although more blemishes are
apparent on the source print. Colors look a touch more accurate.
The original mono audio tracks in
Cantonese and Mandarin are available (DD 2.0). What a refreshing
change from the fine but "sounds like it was recorded in an echo
chamber" remastered Mega Star Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks! The
music and effects seem to be mixed a little high, however.
Yellow removable subtitles are available
in English, Spanish, and French. The subtitles are a VAST
improvement. Not only is the grammar correct and sentences
completed, more subtle changes are also noticeable.
Examples of dialogue
changes:
These samples demonstrate the challenges
of translating from one language to another. Again, this is a MAJOR
improvement over the subtitles previously available and makes the dialogue
much more understandable. But the subtitles are not perfect:
the very first one states: "Written and Directed by Jackie
Chan," inaccurately and unfairly leaving off credit for writers
Edward Tang Ging Sang and Wai Wing Pin Kek Cho (only Edward Tang is
credited as writer on the DVD's back cover).
The chapter menu is nicely organized and
titled with 28 chapters. The original theatrical trailer (in
Cantonese) is included, along with home video release trailers for Gorgeous,
Who Am I? and the theatrical trailer for Gen-X Cops.
An abbreviated filmography for Jackie Chan (listing only those films
released specifically for Region 1) is also provided.
I have no explanation for the
"extra" five minutes on the Columbia/TriStar release. I
watched the two versions in the same evening and sampled parts again for
the dialogue comparisons noted above, and I don't know why there is a
difference -- if extra footage is included, it's only seconds at a time.
Buy, rent, or pass?
This effort by Jackie Chan to do
something different is not entirely successful, but it is definitely worth
a rental. The Columbia/TriStar release is the preferred version due
to the superior subtitles. The company is to be commended for doing
the right thing and releasing a Hong Kong film with the original language
tracks and with the original musical score without cutting any scenes for
Region 1 release.
(Reviewed 12/23/00)
