Jackie’s best for the past decade, but don’t expect it to be like it was in the 80s
There’s uniformity amongst most Jackie Chan fans, that his past decade of work has been pretty poor, with small exceptions here and there. The Foreigner (2017) was a tone shift in his work, and was definitely a step up from his CGI lions, tigers, bears, or de-aging nonsense that he seemed to be playing with in a way to keep up with Hollywood spectacle.
In some ways it felt like the past ten or so years, there was no vision of what a JC film should be like, what is his role in his later years. He’s hitting hits 70s and still doing heavy lifting in the action, but it felt disconnected to the stage in his career.
Yet, we still expect him to be the Jackie Chan of the 80s or early 90s, fighting off hundreds of people with long intricate fights with slapstick comedy thrown in. He’s not doing that kind of action any more.
The Shadow’s Edge (2025), does it right, it puts JC as a mentor, behind the scenes and pulls him when he’s needed. Not only that, his counterpart, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, is really good in his role and their respective stories mirror each other, especially when it comes to their relationships with their family.
I didn’t see a single review or trailer before The Shadow’s Edge(2025). When I heard that they were going to show it in selected cinemas, I jumped at the chance to see the film. It’s not every day you get to see such movies on the big screen here in the UK, and even rarer that it was shown outside of London — so I want to thank whoever it was who decided to give it a limited cinema release, and for making it available outside of London.
I was very surprised by this movie. It’s not a standard JC fan. Do not expect Armour of God, or Drunken Master or Police Story I-III. If anything, it’s a much darker movie, with few comedy scenes. It plays it straight, and it works. It has a lot more emotion and more focus on the story and characters. It seems to borrow ideas from “New Police Story” where there’s a group of young criminals and Chan must try and bring them down, and there are subtle slight nods to “God of Gamblers”, “Police Story” and other movies.
The fight scenes are all close combat, and reminded me of one of the Marvel movies (probably Winter Solider). I think this works in this movie because the hero and the angonist are fighting scrappy, it’s close combat. Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Chan do fight, and its close quarters, and very well done. But do not expect long drawn fight sequences and sometimes the clarity isn’t there.
I thought the supporting cast did very well, especially Zifeng Zhang. I was also very surprised to see Melvin Wong as a, I guess, super intendent, although he seems to disappear in the last part of the movie; it would have been nice to have seen him near the end.
I read some quick reviews that this is actually a remake of two other movies, Eye in the Sky (2007) starring Simon Yam and Cold Eyes (2013). I must say, I’ve never seen these movies — so I’m not sure how close they are. Looking at the synopsis and trailers, there seems to be a lot carried over.
The movie also looks at how AI and police work might (or does) work, with instant tracking, near-instant feedback, there’s a big-brother esque to it, at times it felt like “this is probably what Palantir, Oracle’s”.
With all the AI, biometric and super advanced computerised tracking they used, I wonder how there could be any crime at all, perhaps this is a paradox?
The movie is good. It’s certainly Jackie’s best for a decade. It’s the kind of movie I think suits him, sort of in the background, acting as a mentor figure to plucky newcomers to the scene, throw in a few close combat fight sequences and weave a story that mirrors both the agonist and hero of the film.
Whether there’s a sequel (they seemed to leave a lot of bait to say there would be), will be interesting to see.
It’s worth watching, and I am grateful I got the chance to see it.
7/10.