Customer Reviews

Jackie Chan (Pocket Essential series)

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As a collector of anything Jackie Chan I can get my hands on, I thought this book was a great addition to my collection. It may be small, but had some gems I'd never managed to find elsewhere. It's also just one in a great series of books on related topics that I'd recommend to anyone. Short and sweet, a good pocket companion

Mainly, this book is a critique on all Jackie's films. There is a short intro essay, which is a good analysis of WHY Jackie and his films appeal to such a wide range of people. (But read Jackie's own autobiography for a real insight into the reasons for who, why and how). I see the film critiques as a personal opinion only of the authors. As with all Jackie's films, individual opinions differ - everyone seems to have different concepts of them from their own points of view and likes and dislikes. This is great, as it shows that Jackie's films appeal to a wide range of people of different nationalities and gender. It is wrong to accept one person's opinion as the be all and end all and I hope the authors don't expect this. For example, they rate Half a Loaf of Kung Fu below Spiritual Kung Fu. In my opinion (& only mine, mind you!) Spiritual Kung Fu is awful - a waste of Jackie's comedic talents. Half a Loaf of Kung Fu on the other hand shows a glimmer of Jackie's future mastery of comedy in action. The authors are also fairly harsh about Rush Hour (I do however accept most of their criticisms of Chris Tucker!) Jackie was very restricted in what he could do on this American film. Strangely, they rate Rumble in the Bronx on a par with the incomparable Police Story and Project A!! No comparison! Notwithstanding the above, this book is a very good read with some interesting insights on his films (even if you don't agree). It is not very big and has no pictures.

Just received my copy of this book, amazon service was as good as usual, but the book... I'm afraid i'm quite dissapointed with it. Maybe I was wrong with my expectations, but the book is mostly a compilation of his film reviews and little more. I thought other info and a few pictures could be listed within an essential guide about him. That's all. Appart from that the book is well structured and has some funny points of view here and there.