This isn’t a totally crazy post for SEGA Nerds. Most (or at least some) of the staff are big Jackie Chan fans and one of us, Ryan, has even been lucky enough to meet him (damn you Ryan!) – and we would like to wish the martial arts legend a very Happy 59th Birthday!
And to make sure this post is tinged with some SEGA fun – I’m going to have a look back at a few times when SEGA consoles featured in Jackie’s movies.
Police Story 3: Supercop:
Cracking movie here. If you want to see a young(ish) Michelle Yeoh teaming up with Jackie to go undercover to infiltrate a drug lord’s syndicate – then this is the movie for you. Plenty of action, humour and some awesome stunts – including Jackie hanging onto a helicopter for dear life hundreds of meters above a city (and being one of Jackie’s earlier movies – the stunts were all real, no wires or special effects).
But to cap it all off – there is a scene when Jackie is first introduced to the crime boss and our action hero is made to wait while the boss finishes playing a game the Mega Drive. Love it.
~I couldn’t find an image or clip of the scene… so have the whole movie instead!~
Rumble in the Bronx:
One of Jackie’s first ‘big’ movies in the US. He’d done a few in America before – mostly in the 70’s and 80’s (which really didn’t help his career take off in the USA) but for some reason this one helped cement his name in the Americas.
To be honest, the movie is pretty ridiculous. Firstly, it’s set in The Bronx in New York (hence the title), but it was actually filmed in Vancouver and quite often you can see mountain ranges in the background – though New York doesn’t have mountains anywhere near it.
Also, while most of the actors are American/Canadian, they seem to have their voices redubbed over – giving the feeling of a cheaply made movie and some pretty poor acting. To top that off, Jackie’s ‘uncle’ in the movie is meant to be fluent in English and encourages Jackie to speak the language while he is over there – but in real life (from what I’ve read) the actor could barely speak a word of the language and had to have all his English lines dubbed over.
But, the film is a lot of fun. The story is a little deeper than you might think from the outset (but don’t go expecting Shakespeare here, it’s still not amazing) and there is a great mix of humour and peril for Jackie, including a scene where he basically gets the crap kicked out of him and is left bloody in an alleyway. The movie also has some pretty great fights and some spectacular stunts – also, Jackie broke his foot in one of the later scenes of the movie and, rather than wait for it to heal, he had a special sock put over his cast, painted to look like his shoe – and continued filming!
But why is this in the post? Well there’s a bit where Jackie hands a disabled kid his Game Gear, with no game in it. We see the kid playing the Game Gear later on, still with no game, but the sound of generic electronic beeping – as though he is playing something. Cheap, tacky and brilliant.
The Forbidden Kingdom:
One of Jackie’s more recent movies. Quite notable as it also featured Jet Li in a starring role and has a fun fight scene between the two martial arts legends.
While this isn’t a ‘Jackie Chan’ movie per se (long time fans of JC will understand my meaning – Jackie’s movies tend to have a certain feeling about them, regarding fights, humour and stunts) but still a very fun film, with an imaginative story and some solid fight scenes.
But it also has two moments that should make SEGA Nerds get those little happy butterflies flapping in their stomachs.
Near the start of the movie, the main young American protagonist, Jason, is watching an old marital arts movie in his bedroom and clearly on display (the star of the movie really) is a SEGA Dreamcast. Woo!
Not only that, but later in the movie, our same wanna be martial artist is begging Jackie to train him and starts talking about different types of fighting styles, when he says: “You think you’ll teach me the No Shadow Kick? Oh, and the Buddha Palm Technique. There’s a guy in Virtua Fighter 2, who does the Buddha Palm Technique.”
There are plenty other non-SEGA videogame references in Jackie’s films – including a pretty ridiculous and over the top Street Fighter 2 fight from City Hunter (which is a really odd movie for most people – but I’m told it’s quite true to the Manga, which I’ve not read – so don’t quote me on that).
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this random Jackie Chan/SEGA related post, it’s all for fun. Happy Birthday Jackie!
