Railroad Tigers

source: Railroad Tigers

It's a shame Jackie was so ground breaking he had that rare combination of bruce Lee and Charlie Chaplin and you could see both influences in his performances but somehow he forgot that and went to China and decided to just make slap stick foolish comedies with mediocre everyday amateur martial arts even karate kid is better!! This is another example dont know why I even bother it's a shame his movies went from some of my favourites to easily the WORST!! Not sure if it's also age or just plain being lazy he cant need the money so just retire!! Tony Jaa is the next Martial artist to watch he has that It factor!! That combination of martial arts AND charisma!!

Trailer—Railroad Tigers

First of all, I love Jackie Chan movies. And, this movie was no exception to his action scenes and sense of humor. My family was frozen to the TV watching it, laughing out loud. If you want to see a good, clean movie with comedy than this is "Your" movie!

I'm a huge fan of the goofy, slapstick comedy Hong Kong movies use to be funny. The first half hour of the movie delivers a lot of funny moments that keep me cracking up. But later into the movie, the whole comedic tone was too much to the point where the vibe wasn't set right, like there needed to be dramatic scenes or any serious moment to strengthen the story. Also, I love that this isn't a usual Jackie Chan movie that presents Jackie Chan punching and kicking like almost all of his movies. Instead, Railroad Tigers is presented as an actual action movie with stunts and shootouts. It's great to take a break from Jackie Chan's fighting scenes once in a while. For those who want endless laughter, go ahead and watch this movie. For those who want the story to be more emphasized, this isn't the movie to watch.

I have seen this movie twice. The tempo of the plot seems to be a little jerky, but, the plot is followable and enjoyable. If the viewer is looking for a well written smooth story be prepared for disappointment. The main thing this movie has is entertainment. It is humerous with lottsa Jackie Chan action. Try it. You will like it.

I'm glad I didn't trust the numerous negative reviews of Railroad Tigers and decided to purchase the film. This epic war movie convinces with a set of sympathetic characters, a vivid pace and flow, stunning settings, spectacular sound and visual effects and an intriguing story partially inspired by historic events. The film includes an atmosphere reminding me of old American westerns with train robberies in isolated places, incorporates a few martial arts sequences that contrast the shooting duels and instills a few humorous elements that are though never getting annoying as they focus on situation comedy rather than misplaced slapstick moments. Railroad Tigers is entertaining from start to finish and makes you want to experience the whole film again once the vivid roller coaster ride is over. Despite its length above two hours, not one single minute is wasted here. As a matter of fact, there were so many characters with intriguing background stories such as the charismatic leader of the Railroad Tigers or the resilient noodle shop owner, that the film could have easily been even half an hour longer without getting boring. Even though a few characters weren't perfectly fleshed out, antagonists and protagonists were intriguing enough to stimulate potential spin-offs. The closing scene of the film hints at a potential sequel which would be very welcome in my book. Railroad Tigers got some unfair criticism for promoting communist propaganda which is completely exaggerated. The film features a communist soldier fleeing from Japanese troops who has about ten minutes of screen time and doesn't look too heroic and the final battle concludes with an ambush of arriving communist troops that might get five minutes of screen time but that's all. The film truly focuses on a group of railroad workers who are attempting to destroy a strategically important bridge to stop Japanese supplies to conquer the northern parts of China. The film doesn't include any obvious political propaganda and rather underlines values like courage and friendship. Other critics claimed that the Japanese weren't portrayed accurately in this film and even suggested that the movie might be slightly disrespectful or racist. Once again, this is nonsense since the film shows two quite dangerous Japanese antagonists, a brutal male military and a determined female investigator who aren't easily fooled but rather never give up and fight back until the very end. Other people criticized the film for being one of Jackie Chan's most disappointing films but along with the sinister The Foreigner, this film is the best he has made since 2011 and easily beats more shallow family entertainment in the key of Chinese Zodiac and Kung Fu Yoga. I would even consider this movie a late career highlight by Asia's most famous actor of all times. In the end, the epic Railroad Tigers is an unfairly underrated war movie that will entertain you from start to finish with its explosive mixture of intense action sequences, character development, historic inspiration, humorous elements and western atmosphere. Some of the fight scenes are slightly grisly as some blood is shown and as the body count is quite elevated, so I would rather recommend this film to older teenagers and adults since this isn't your typical Jackie Chan movie for the whole family.

One is never too late for a Jackie Chan's movie, especially a comedy action movie of his. First of all, the way the story plot being presented is very straight forward like, literally doing a presentation with sub-titles of what to expect in the scenes as we go along. It's clean cut in such a way and you won't feel any interruptions. And with the theme on, 'let's do something big in this lifetime' coming out from average railroad workers, you know you are going to be in for rides filled with laughters. The bgm matched well with the scenes and helped to raise the dramatic-ness from the comedic aspects. To me, the most crucial point of this movie fell on the good chemistry among the quite star-studded casts. They matched each other so well in their rhythms and one can really feel their comrades and brotherhood, which at times really what made their actions/sayings funny. There were many times that I was really laughing my heads off and I knew this movie is such feel-good humor movie worth watching. I like how Jackie Chan was not a one-man show in this movie and helped to bring out the acting skills of others casted in this movie through their interactions. In fact, it was an eye opening for me to see Wang Kai with his supposedly 'cool-I-know-what-I'm-doing-in-war' Fan Chuan character turned out to be a hilarious character with his constant 'rational' thinking. Another hilarious character akin to Fan Chuan was the Japanese Captain played by Ikeuchi Hiroyuki, which I see in the movie as to now wonder why he and Fan Chuan 'battling' it out the most. I got to admit that my initial thought before I started to watch this movie was half expecting it to be typical China-produced war era movie, focusing much on patriotism. However, despite this movie having its patriotic moment, it wasn't shove down the audience throat like the usual ones. The feeling of "patriotism" (wanting for the freedom fighters to win despite their average tricks and fighting skills) was somewhat built into me as I watched the progress of how desperate this group of average men, dreaming of doing big things as they kept putting it in the movie, wanted to help the army to blow up the bridge. I am not the type who rewatch but if I ever do catch this movie on TV or something, I won't mind rewatching just for the laughters.

All I can really say about this movie is that it is OK of a bit long. It is watchable and has some good moments but it could have been so much better. This is not a typical Jackie Chan movie but then not many of his later ones are. We have to appreciate that Mr Chan is getting older I suppose and can't be the martial arts genius we are used to but he is still a good comedic, slap stick actor and there is some of this in this movie. I just felt the story was a good one and could have been much better had it been directed to move at a faster pace. Instead it got a bit tedious and boring in places.

RAILROAD TIGERS is another Jackie Chan action comedy made on the Chinese mainland. It was directed by Sheng Ding, who previously directed Jackie in LITTLE BIG SOLDIER (his best pairing with the star) and POLICE STORY: LOCKDOWN. The quality is about on par with the latter film, as this is a somewhat aimless production that lacks basic directorial abilities: the music is non-exciting and never fits what's taking place on screen, and the comedy simply isn't funny. Ding is a man all about style, whether it's incessant CGI shots of trains or the silly animated introductions for each character. The film is so spoon-fed that screens have to come up to tell you what's happening next. Chan is okay, but he feels like a supporting act here and he doesn't get to fight either. The usual modern-day gamut of CGI and wires are used to portray the stunts. Jaycee Chan appears to play Jackie's son, and comes across as a simpleton here, while Japanese villain Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (of IP MAN fame) is too good to be appearing in this dross. The ultra-boring first hour is the worst part of the production, and things at least pick up for the cheesy action of the extended, laboured, train battle climax.