The Myth [Blu-ray] [2007]

The Myth initially feels like Jackie Chan is reinventing his Armour of God movies just as he reinvented the Police Story series, with a slightly darker tone. The film's two plot strands aren't always as complimentary as they could be, with the historical backstory of Chan's general falling in love with the Emperor's latest concubine far more interesting than the modern-day adventurer Chan's efforts to uncover their secret. It's not always successful, not least because of some poorly timed CGI, but it does offer an enjoyable fight on a glue factory assembly line that plays out like a demented version of twister and a spectacular battle scene (Stanley Tong is clearly a fan of Anthony Mann, copying several set-ups from The Fall of the Roman Empire) en route to the finale. And the last half hour is impressive stuff, be it a surprisingly bloody (for Chan) one-against-all battle that sees him fighting atop a mountain of corpses or the scenes in a giant weightless mausoleum that make imaginative use of superior wire work and which do carry a sense of wonder to them.

The two-disc UK set is the uncut two-hour version (the US disc from Sony is quite heavily cut) and includes a good selection of extras - two very brief deleted scenes, interviews, trailer, music video, making of documentary, several featurettes and behind the scenes footage among them - but for some reason doesn't include the audio commentary from the Hong Kong DVD (which surprisingly has English subtitles for both the extras as well as the feature itself). As noted elsewhere, the subtitles on the Cantonese version also include the English dialogue as well, though with Chan's English accent that's not always a bad thing. The UK DVD also includes an English language dub which may be the first time someone has realised it's a better idea to hire an actor of Chinese origin to dub Chan rather than a generic American voice artist!

When i first heard about this, i was expecting an alright movie, but what i saw was a great movie complete with great stunt work. Movie is worth seeing for both the glue scene and the fight scenes at the end.

The extras at the end include the music video(s) to the movie, one of them is in Cantonese and the other is the "International" version which is the version of the song that is used in the movie.

This movie is well worth seeing.

This recent Chan film takes place both in a familiar modern day setting, with Chan's usually acrobatic prop using fight style, and in a mystical past reminiscent Zhang Zimous films (Hero, House of Flying Daggers). The towo plots interplay with some skillfully done visual transitions. Its the modern setting that most reminds me of Chans heyday, a short battle in a tomb could be straight out of the Armour of God films, and a glue factory battle which is pretty clever. The fun of these parts dont fit too well with the legendary epic feel of the ancient scenes, but these show a glimpse of Chans acting potential. The feel is of two halfs of different movies unfortunately. These too styles come together fairly vaguely at the climax, in an enjoyable film that you should like if youre expectations are not too massive. Its far better than the Medallion and Ruch Hour 3, I rate it at about Forbidden Kingdom.

The DVD is pretty good and cine asia has the look of quality seen in the incredible and sadly defunct Hong Kong Legends products. My major gripe is that the film is in Chinese but with a fairly hefty chunk of English, one good ten minutes sectipn at least, and the DVD subtitles the English rather than being blank during these parts. I found this highly distracting and a little sloppy in the DVD makers part.