He’s one of the most recognizable names in the world, becoming synonymous with kicking, punching, and wincing in pain. Jackie Chan plays Jackie Chan in Panda Plan, the newest action comedy vehicle for the global superstar. He made a name for himself with his death-defying stunts in Project A and Police Story, became a household name in Hollywood with Rumble in the Bronx and Rush Hour, and now he’s 70 years old and kicking as much ass as he has for decades. He plays himself in his new movie, where he must protect a baby panda he’s adopted from mercenaries sent to retrieve the panda.
Panda Plan is Jackie Chan’s best movie in years. While it’s hard not to have fun watching Chan do his thing, it’s no secret that films like Vanguard, Hidden Strike, and Viy 2: Journey to China weren’t the best parts of his filmography. This movie manages to have better action, better comedy, and better Jackie. Firstly, it’s always fun to see actors play themselves in a movie. Whether it’s Bruce Willis in Ocean’s Twelve, Bill Murray in Zombieland, or Keanu Reeves in Always Be My Maybe, this tool lets actors play around with their celebrity status.
Jackie pulls this off marvelously here, using a premise similar to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which starred Nicolas Cage as himself as he’s forced on a dangerous mission. The opening action set piece is very well-choreographed, and we then zoom out to discover that it’s a fictional scene for a movie Jackie is filming. He argues against the notion that one person could realistically fight so many people, which he has done countless times in his career. He also desires to do a romance movie, which he once complained to Conan O’Brien that Hollywood would never let him do.
As Jackie readies to adopt a baby panda, the movie offers its first surprise: the comedy. Most of the humor in Jackie’s movies arises from the physical comedy he offers in his action sequences. While this movie has that, a lot of the dialogue manages to be hilarious, too. It’s a wonderfully funny movie that allows Jackie to play into being a global superstar. One of the funniest running gags in the film is that once we meet our bad guys, some are fans of Jackie Chan, which adds a lot of humor when they fight him.
The bad guys enter the building, and from there, we have our Die Hard scenario. Much of the film feels like that type of movie, as we have a bunch of bad guys with guns, many hostages, and a hero on the inside who must fight his way out. Jackie’s filmography has seen a Die Hard knock-off before with Police Story 2013, but it works much better here. This film does not take itself seriously at all and knows how to have fun, particularly with a fun, over-the-top supporting character played by Wei Xiang.
Speaking of over-the-top, many of the villains’ performances are pretty cheesy. But it’s really fun to see Jackie take on these bad guys. He’s not playing a “Supercop” here. He’s playing an actor trained in martial arts. One of Panda Plan’s best ideas is that one of the bad guys anticipates Jackie’s move during a fight scene because he has seen many of Jackie’s movies. My only wish is that the film had leaned more into pulling comedy out of this, whether it’s directly tributing famous moments in Jackie’s movies or poking fun at some movies Jackie is less proud of. Jackie performs a stunt reminiscent of the ladder fight from Police Story 4: First Strike, but beyond that, we don’t get as much humor from these ideas as we could have.
The first hour of Panda Plan works so well because once the bad guys break in, it’s almost entirely set in real-time. We’re watching characters hide from the villains and fight them whenever necessary. Director Zhang Luan directs the fight scenes clearly and with a lot of energy. It also helps that even though Jackie is older than he used to be, he’s still performing most of the stunts himself. He can fight better than nearly anyone his age, and I think we can all feel fortunate that it’s 2024 and we’re still getting Jackie Chan action movies.
Panda Plan’s most significant issue comes with the panda. Every animal in this movie is created with CGI, and it’s very obvious. Chinese films have ventured into CGI animals before, but as we saw with this and the CGI lion in Vanguard, they haven’t seemed to crack the code for making them photorealistic. It reminded me of the 2004 live-action Garfield movie, where it’s obvious that the actors are miming the action of holding an animal that is then digitally inserted in post. The dubbing of a few actors is also noticeable.
Furthermore, the film feels like it reaches a natural conclusion around an hour into the film. From there, we slow down to flesh out the characters more and move into our final action set piece. While it makes sense for the story, the momentum of that in-real-time first hour gets lost. We also have some missing information in the final act that feels like it would have been necessary to see. However, you watch this movie to see Jackie Chan and his improvised weapons and incredible stunts. While we can’t expect him to perform to the caliber of his Drunken Master movies (which anyone reading this should watch immediately), and the film doesn’t reach those heights, Panda Plan remains a surprisingly heartwarming entry into Jackie’s filmography filled with the awesome martial arts we love to see.
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
Disclosure: ComingSoon received a screener for our Panda Plan review.
