SHANGHAI NOON (2000)

Absolutely charming. I love Jackie Chan movies. I felt that his frenetic, physical comedy style worked very well alongside Owen Wilson’s slower, calmer line deliveries. Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) is an imperial guard who travels to the American west to rescue Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu), joining forces along the way with cowboy Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson). The sets felt big and fun, the action was exciting, and the story was easy to follow. This came out around a time when we had an influx of “historical adventure” movies, The Mummy (1999), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), A Knight’s Tale (2001), etc. It was a happy medium of big expansive sets that felt expensive and cinematic but had mass appeal (as opposed to, say, rated R Gladiator (2000)). We don’t get a lot of movies like that any more; that kind of money is spent on CGI superhero movie movies or fucking Napoleon (2023). There’s no tangible fun in filmmaking. Bring back sets that we can see a guy actually break through, damnit. 

Food Recommendation: Panda Inn - the original. A Chinese restaurant started out in the West, giving us a timeless classic (orange chicken).