When Ocean (Xia Yu), a Chinese security guard, visits Taiwan on vacation, he disrupts a Taiwanese security guard, Jay (Jaycee Chan), from capturing international art thieves (Jessica C., Shoko, Vivian Dawson) who have just stolen one of two parts of a 400 year old painting. Despite their drastically different personalities, Ocean being a team player and friendly while Jay is proud and would rather work alone, the two join forces in order to track down the paintings and thieves before the art exhibit opens to the public.
Directed by David Hsun-Wei Chang, the action choreographer of Let the Bullets Fly, Double Trouble is your run of the mill buddy “cop” comedy that offers nothing new to the genre but a few laughs here and there. The best way to describe this movie is that it’s the completely Asian version of Rush Hour except that instead of being actual cops these guys are security guards and the level of cultural differences is much more minimal, along with the number of laughs.
As I just mentioned, the movie is merely average and so it does have a variety of flaws. One thing I didn’t understand was the idea that security guards went on missions, do they do that in Asia? They guards act like federal agents in this flick. Additionally, though funny, the humor rests on jokes involving nut shots. There are probably four or five scenes where Jay gets hit in the balls and it seemed like the writers just didn’t know how to generate laughs outside of that immature joke. Lastly, the supporting cast doesn’t do much to enhance the story nor make it funnier; in fact they are actually quite annoying and are characters you wish weren’t on screen (save for Jessica C. and Shoko as the hot hit girls).
Though I compared it to it, the film is by no means Rush Hour, but Double Trouble is a film that shows Jaycee (Jackie Chan’s son) growing as an actor and action star. The kid’s got huge shoes to fill but he appears to be well on his way to filling them and creating his own mark on the world his father owns. For example, there is a scene where he was fighting and hanging off of a moving bus that I thought was pretty impressive. That scene showed that he is willing to be just as daring as his father which hopefully means we’ll get a lot of fun action flicks out of him too. I can safely say his role in this was much better than in the disapp
ointing Blade of Kings.
As for the positives, the movie is clearly one to be enjoyed by its native countrymen but there are bits that both Easterners and Westerners can laugh at together. There is one scene where the two guards get ready to go to work and so the director decides to play the duo’s exit in slow-mo with Jay popping his collar. It’s funny because it’s not intimidating at all. Of all the scenes to use slow motion, they said the one where they try to be badass. David says to Jaycee, “on the collar pop, do it like a New York clubber.” Furthermore, the film moves rather briskly thanks to its 88 minute runtime. Finally, the movie’s credits and bloopers have a Chinese rap with a hilariously gangsta chorus in English, this alone should be the reason you watch the movie.
Even if it’s not that good, Double Trouble has this cheesy likable charm that’s almost tough to resist. The duo may not be as hilarious as Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker together but they had some chemistry going and you could tell they were trying their best with the unfortunate script that they had to work with. While I’d personally wait for the DVD release, if you want to see a mediocre Chinese-Taiwan co-production it might as well be this.
Rating: A buddy “cop” action comedy that stays true to the well established mold (5.5/10)
Double Trouble will be released in select theaters starting on June 8th from China Lion
Recent Comments