If you’re young enough not to remember it directly, you probably have no idea exactly how massive Jackie Chan was in the late 1990s. The action star had been famous in Hong Kong for decades but struggled to break out beyond that when suddenly, a hastily put-together dub by Miramax of Chan’s “Rumble In The Bronx” exploded unexpectedly at the box office. It led to a number of similar hits as well as the absolutely enormous “Rush Hour” series, made in the U.S.
Chan has mostly returned to Hong Kong and China in the last decade, but his U.S. appeal should never be counted out — his last major Western movie, 2010’s “The Karate Kid,” was an unexpected smash. While he’s mostly been absent since then, Chan’s about to have a big fall, with a lead vocal turn in “The Lego Ninjago Movie’ in just a week or two, and then actioner “The Foreigner” next month, and distributors STX have released a new trailer for the film.
READ MORE: New Trailer For ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ Kicks Brick
Penned by “Enemy Of The State” writer David Marconi (it’s based on the 1992 novel “The Chinaman” by Stephen Leather) and directed by “Casino Royale” and “Goldeneye” helmer Martin Campbell, it sees Chan play a Chinese ex-pat in London whose daughter is killed in a bomb by Irish terrorists. Unfortunately for the terrorists, who may be connected to British government official Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan), Chan’s character is an ex special-forces killing machine.
So yeah, it’s basically “Taken” but with Jackie Chan. Aside from how bizarre it is that this movie exists in 2017, we suppose it looks ok as far as this sort of thing goes, if decidedly more somber than the kind of thing that we know and love Chan for. Anyway, Charlie Murphy, Michael McElhatton, Liu Tao, Orla Brad and Katie Leung also star, and you can see the film in theaters on October 13th (or in China, where it will probably make $400 million, on September 30th).