VANGUARD
Directed by: Stanley Tong
Starring: Jackie Chan, Yang Yang, Miya Muqi, Lun Ai,
Tang Huating is the head of Vanguard, a private international security organization providing close protection for its clients. When an accountant's daughter is targeted for abduction by a ruthless terrorist, Tang and his team head out to protect her and her father, a task which will send Tang and his team all across the globe…
Before I launch into this review, let me say that "Rob B Hood" (2006) was the last "proper" Jackie Chan film - one in which he was front and centre and contained the heady mix of great fight scenes and jaw-dropping stunt-work. He's made strong appearances in other films (Shoalin, Iron Mask) and has made some attempts at trying different genres (1911, Shinjuku Incident) but If you're still hankering for Jackie somehow rejuvenate himself and return to his Golden Age then you are unfortunately kidding yourself. If however you can accept that, gasp, Jackie is now 66 years old and accept his appearance in Vanguard for what it is, then you may actually enjoy this entertaining action movie.
Whilst Jackie's character is in charge the film follows his agents on their quest to protect Fareeda, the daughter of an accountant called Qin, mainly Zhengyu and Kaixuan (Yang and Lun, respectively). The pair are both very good at handling their fight scenes, especially their introductory fight scenes which feature one of my favourite staples, a fight in a restaurant kitchen!
The film is divided into four separate segments - the opening hostage rescue is in London, then they fly to "Africa" to rescue Fareeda, before further adventures in the Middle East and Dubai. The African segment falls down in much the same way that the recent Megan Fox film, Rogue, did - it has rubbish CGI lions. Nevertheless there is some great stunt work involving fights on moving vehicles both on land and on water, over a terrifying-looking waterfall. Apparently Jackie's insistence on performing his own stunts was almost his undoing on this as he almost drowned during the jet-ski sequence (you can see outtake footage in the post-credits).
The film's best sequence is the very intense hostage/shootout at the Middle Eastern palace of the head terrorist. This set piece is definitely on a level with Strike Back and others. It is marred slightly by a fake-out which was set up all too clearly earlier in the film.
The weirdest part of the finale of the film - a big chase sequence which starts out in high end sports cars made of gold and ends in a chase and fight through a Dubai shopping mall - is the feeling of déjà vu. This is because Jackie's earlier film, Kung Fu Yoga, had a similar chase sequence on the streets of Dubai, using high-end performance sports cars. The main difference was that in Kung Fu Yoga the CGI lion was in one of the sports cars.
THE VERDICT
It’s clear that Jackie isn't ready to retire any time soon. He isn't ready to play characters who just sit behind a desk and give orders over the telephone, his character is very much in the field and getting into (small) fights and still performing a lot of his own stunt-work. Yang Yang and Ai Lun are good surrogates for the bigger fights and action but their characters were a bit bland. A bit more development and perhaps people won't be missing Jackie quite so much.