The Medallion is a 2003
actionAction film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
-
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
co-written and directed by
Hong KongThe cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...
filmmaker
Gordon ChanGordon Chan Kar-Seung , born in 1960, is an a Hong Kong film director, writer and producer. His most notable works include Beast Cops, Fist of Legend, Painted Skin, 2000 AD and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen...
, and starring
Jackie ChanJackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
,
Lee EvansLee Evans is an English comedian, writer, actor and musician.-Personal life:Lee Evans was born in Avonmouth, Bristol, England to an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Dave Evans, a nightclub performer. He left Bristol at the age of 13 and then went to The Billericay School in Billericay, Essex...
, and
Claire ForlaniClaire Antonia Forlani is an English actress.-Early life:Claire Forlani was born in Twickenham, London, the daughter of Barbara , who was English, and Pierluigi Forlani, a music manager from Ferrara, Italy. At the age of 11, Forlani entered the Arts Educational School in London, where she began to...
. It was much less successful than Chan's other American movies such as the
Rush Hour film seriesThe Rush Hour film series is a series of martial arts/action-comedy films starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, directed by Brett Ratner, and distributed by New Line Cinema...
,
Shanghai NoonShanghai Noon is a 2000 American martial arts action comedy western film starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. The film, marking the directorial debut of Tom Dey, was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar....
and its
sequelA sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
,
Shanghai KnightsShanghai Knights is a 2003 action-comedy film. It is the sequel to Shanghai Noon. It was directed by David Dobkin and written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.-Plot:...
.
Plot
Eddie Yang (
Jackie ChanJackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
) is a
Hong Kong policeThe Hong Kong Police Force is the largest disciplined service under the Security Bureau of Hong Kong. It is the world's second, and Asia's first, police agency to operate with a modern policing system. It was formed on 1 May 1844, with a strength of 32 officers...
officer cooperating with
InterpolInterpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
in the capture of a crime lord named AJ "Snakehead" Staul. Snakehead (
Julian SandsJulian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in...
) buys an ancient book from a Chinese bookstore keeper. It the story of a boy being chosen every thousand years, to bind the two halves of a legendary medallion. In Hong Kong, a team of Interpol agents, led by Agent Arthur Watson (
Lee EvansLee Evans is an English comedian, writer, actor and musician.-Personal life:Lee Evans was born in Avonmouth, Bristol, England to an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Dave Evans, a nightclub performer. He left Bristol at the age of 13 and then went to The Billericay School in Billericay, Essex...
), are preparing to capture Snakehead and his men, who are planning to kidnap the boy. Eddie and the Interpol agents fight Snakehead's men inside a temple where the boy, named Jai, is kept. Jai is saved but Snakehead and his men escape. Two weeks later, Jai is captured and is held aboard a cargo boat in Hong Kong. Eddie and a team of Hong Kong Police agents engage and defeat several of Snakehead's men, but he and a few others escape with Jai to
Dublin,
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
In Ireland, Eddie is assigned to help Interpol with the investigation, much to Watson's chagrin. Eddie is also reunited with his girlfriend, a British agent named Nicole James (
Claire ForlaniClaire Antonia Forlani is an English actress.-Early life:Claire Forlani was born in Twickenham, London, the daughter of Barbara , who was English, and Pierluigi Forlani, a music manager from Ferrara, Italy. At the age of 11, Forlani entered the Arts Educational School in London, where she began to...
). By chance Eddie later encounters one of Snakehead's top men. After catching him, he confesses Jai is being held in the harbour. Eddie, Watson, and Nicole move to rescue Jai, defeating several Snakehead agents in the process. Eddie and Jai end up trapped inside a container, which is knocked into the water by one of Snakehead's men before they can be released. Eddie keeps Jai alive by an inflatable tent, but himself drowns. After being rescued, Jai uses his medallion on Eddie's body. In the morgue, Watson is grieving over Eddie's body when he suddenly appears beside him. Eddie realises Jai used the medallion to resurrect him, and his former body vanishes into nothingness. Jai splits the medallion into its two halves, giving one of them to Eddie. Snakehead's men appear in the hospital to recapture Jai and during the fight, Eddie discovers the medallion has also granted him superhuman strength and immortality.
Jai is captured again by Snakehead. He is forced to use the medallion on Snakehead, but with only one half of it, he gains superhuman strength but is still mortal. Snakehead and his men attack Watson's family and steal the other half of the medallion. Eddie, Watson and Nicole learn Snakehead's hideout is in a castle called "Raven's Keep" and go to finish him once and for all. The operation runs smoothly at first, but Snakehead kills Nicole and has become immortal. He and Eddie engage in a vicious fight, until Eddie used the medallion to take away the life it gave; Snakehead is destroyed. Jai allows Eddie to use the medallion to resurrect Nicole, who also gains super-strength and immortality. The two run off into the distance, and Jai enters a portal to another world.
Cast
- Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
as Inspector Eddie Yang
- Lee Evans
Lee Evans is an English comedian, writer, actor and musician.-Personal life:Lee Evans was born in Avonmouth, Bristol, England to an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Dave Evans, a nightclub performer. He left Bristol at the age of 13 and then went to The Billericay School in Billericay, Essex...
as Interpol Inspector Arthur Watson
- Claire Forlani
Claire Antonia Forlani is an English actress.-Early life:Claire Forlani was born in Twickenham, London, the daughter of Barbara , who was English, and Pierluigi Forlani, a music manager from Ferrara, Italy. At the age of 11, Forlani entered the Arts Educational School in London, where she began to...
as Inspector Nicole James
- Alex Bao as Jai (as Alexander Bao)
- Julian Sands
Julian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in...
as Snakehead
- Johann Myers as Giscard
- John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
as Commander Hammerstock-Smythe
- Anthony Wong Chau Sang
Anthony Wong Chau-sang is a Hong Kong Film Award-winning Hong Kong actor, screenwriter and film director. He is regarded as one of the most notable actors in Hong Kong.-Biography:...
as Lester Wong (Snakehead's assistant) (as Anthony Wong)
- Christy Chung
Christy Chung is Chinese-Canadian actress. She was born in Montreal to a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother.Chung grew up in Brossard, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, with French and Vietnamese as mother-tongues...
as Charlotte Watson
- Billy Hill as Miles Watson
Original plot and conception
The working title of the film was "
Highbinders". In the original plot of the film, those who were given power by the medallion became a Highbinder. Snakehead's original goal in the film was to create an army of Highbinders to join in his crime organization.
According to the commentary by the editors, "The Medallion" was not American-made, although Columbia-TriStar bought the distribution and editing rights worldwide except in
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and
Hong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
(but these three countries retain the American cut of the film, the only cut ever made). The original cut was meant to be around 108 minutes, and the plot of the film explained Snakehead's crime organization of human smuggling, and the deaths that occurred from it, as well as his desire to create an army of Highbinders to aide his crime organization. All of this, however, was cut to center on the medallion.
Over 20 minutes of these
deleted sceneIn Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s can be viewed on the US DVD.
Box office
In its US release,
The Medallion was #5 at the box office on its opening weekend and fell steadily lower during its 10-week release. Overall, it has earned $22.2 million, ranking #42 among all
martial artsMartial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
films released in the US and eighth among the
Jackie ChanJackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
films distributed in the US.
Critical reception
The film fared poorly with critics and has a 18% rating on
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Fan reception
Some critics and fans of Jackie Chan were disappointed by the use of
CGIComputer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
special effects and extensive wire-based choreography in place of the daring stunts usually present in Chan's previous films and were turned off by the desire to achieve Hollywood-level results with a lower budget.
Awards and nominations
- 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards
Ceremony for the 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards was held on 4 April 2004 in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Hosts for the ceremony consisted of Dayo Wong and a line-up of nine female celebrities, namely Bowie Tsang, Athena Chu, Candice Yu, Cherrie Ying, Terri Kwan, Ada Choi, Josie Ho, Kristy Yang and Jo...
- Nomination: Best Action Choreography (Sammo Hung
Sammo Hung is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and director, known for his work in many martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema...
)
- Nomination: Best Visual Effects (Matthew Gidney)