Twin Dragons

This movie is hillarous even though it's dumb. It contains good fighting scenes. It's predictable but very entertaining. As other movies of this kind, if you don't suspense your logic while watching it, you won't like it. As for me, when I watch comedy, I just want to laugh. I don't care about logic.

I own it.

What do you get when you take two of the best action directors in Hong Kong near the peak of their powers - Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam - add two Jackie Chans and throw in his Police Story co-star Maggie Cheung? A load of rubbish, unfortunately. Made as a fundraiser for the Hong Kong Directors' Guild, Twin Dragons was painful enough in its original 100-minute version, but rescored, redubbed and shorn of 15 minutes by scissor-happy Miramax offshoot Dimension Pictures it's gone from being a vaguely comprehensible bad picture to an almost completely incomprehensible even worse one.

It's the usual Corsican Brothers/mistaken identity plot (separated at birth, one twin grows up to be a streetwise hustler with an irritating sinus problem, the other an acclaimed conductor and concert pianist until - well, you know the rest), but thanks to perfunctory writing and tired unimaginative staging it's a bit of a chore to watch. Despite some good opening stunts it's mostly a rather inept comedy with a leaning towards bedroom farce, not helped by some variable special effects - at one point Chan walks through his brother's arm in a muffed process shot that really should have stayed on the cutting room floor but which typifies the "It'll do" spirit of the enterprise. As for the truly irritating vertically challenged sidekick - Randy Newman's Short People could have been written with him in mind.

There is one good (not great, just good) fight scene in and around various cars in a test laboratory, as well as a neat cameo by the two directors as cheating card players (John Woo also turns up in one shot as a priest), but it's definitely not enough for any but the Chan completists. As with all of Buena Vista's back-catalog of dubbed and re-edited HK releases there are no extras (though Chan does dub himself in the English-language version, whereas in the Hong Kong cut he's dubbed into Cantonese by another actor), but after seeing this, the only extra you'd be interested in is an apology. Of course, as you would expect with a turkey, the 2.35:1 transfer and sound are both very good.

Bad US dub aside (and they really should start releasing these films uncut and in their original language tracks), Twin Dragons has an interesting premise but rather shoddy execution. Through the use of various camera tricks and body-doubles, Jackie Chan plays a set of twins seperated at birth. One becomes a famous concert pianist, the other a streetwise mechanic. The trouble begins when the musical brother returns to Hong Kong for a concert, and the twins start sharing each others actions through a psychic link.

For my money, there wasn't enough of the twins interacting in the same frame, and too much of the typical 'mistaken identity' goofing associated with these stories. The effects used to make two Jackie Chans appear onscreen together are quite convincing, but the story resorts to the "one twin ducks out while the other comes in" device too often, sapping away the fun. The confusion with the two girlfriends is entertaining but ultimately overplayed, and even some of the scenes in the final car-testing area could've been cut (particularly the goofing in the heat/water rooms). My desire for a trimmer cut doesnt excuse the US version's butchering, however.

Really, Twin Dragons is worth 2.5 stars, but the sub-par US dvd keeps me from rounding up. It's worth checking out to see the fights, sunts, and some of the visual tricks, and those alone will probably make this movie memorable to fans. But objectively, it's not one of Jackie Chan's better efforts.

I always enjoy jackie chan. It was fun watching him play two parts and his actions are always amazing.

I am a cantonese person and I rent this US version dvd. Is some ways it disapointted me because it doesn't provide cantonese audio and they substitute English audio instead. Anyway, this movie is so funny is so ways. I especially like the bathroom scene. It can't help laugh loudly. The action parts are quite boring but I think American people would like to watch them.
I would like to give it a 4 stars if it provides chinese audio.