Railroad Tigers [2016 : Action Comedy : Mandarin / Japanese : 2h]
Country : China
Mandarin Title : Tie dao fei hu
Written & Directed by Ding Sheng (Little Big Soldier & Saving Mr. Wu)
Starring : Super Chan
During the Imperial Japanese military's full-scale invasion of China, railway porter Ma Yuan along with his Chinese associates called Tigers, ransack Japanese supplies from the trains to feed a group of famished population. When the Tigers come to know about a key military transportation route, Ma Yuan leads them to an adventure over the running train with a single aim of derailing the locomotive using the enemy's armaments amidst a fierce retaliation from the Japanese military leader.
Unlike other Chan films, Railroad Tigers is more on visual-effects than hand-to-hand combats. Nevertheless, Jackie pulls out his old tricks from his favorite sack to climb walls, swing ropes, to dive and roll, which are still as much fun to watch as it was about three decades back. The VFX supervision is well done, keeping in mind that most of the train sequences were generated during post-production.
The film has wonderful characters that are funny. Each use a different combat technique bringing in an enjoyable variation during action sequences. The stunts are great and as usual have the charm and funniness of a Jackie Chan film.
Ding Sheng induces a lot of comical events before stepping into Grande Finale. The whole episode over and inside the trains are shot and cut fluidly (of course mostly VFX shots), to be precise the assembly has been very well carried out.
Railroad Tigers is old school and it does not depend on modern narrative (focusing on structures and trends). It is much better than the American-Western Production with Jackie and approaches a bit towards the Korean-Western The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008).
A lot of action happens inside the film and every single moment is enjoyable.
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