Panda Plan (2024)

[Drunk Monk]

Panda Plan

This is exactly what it looks like - a goofy Jackie flick with a cgi panda cub. A ridiculous number of caricature mercenaries steal a panda that Jackie adopted. And Jackie is playing Jackie Chan, the action movie star, who loves pandas. It’s played for slapstick complete with panda fart & panda poop gags. 

The fights are one shot one move mostly, still some agile Jackie moves, even when he’s phoning it in, no one dials in action like Jackie (although others are listed as choreographers). There’s a panda pen fight, which allows for some acrobatic shenanigans, and a warehouse fight, complete with a conveyer belt, suspended parcels to swing off of, hay bales and boxes to fall over and dodge. The opening sequence is strangely bloody while this is clearly aimed at the kid demographic, but in the end that’s not so bad. 

There’s a hapless girl panda nanny and a useless agent comic relief. The best scene was when the agent got pulled aside by some henchmen and they start to undress and he freaks out thinking they’re going to rape him but they Iwt want to show off their Jackie tattoos. 

I tried to hold out for this to appear on one of my streamers. We did a sweeps promo for the BRD but I didn’t have anyone to send it to where I could watch it. So I had to give in and rent it. I’m using it for something Im writing so I’ll write it off.

Not D00M recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe

[Drunk Monk]

Panda Plan: The Magical Tribe

Y'all know I love Jackie. He has life & limbed it just for our entertainment so many times. His latest, Shadow's Edge, was excellent. But man, this film sucks. I guess it's nice to know that Jackie can still deliver great films and terribly bad ones. 

It's not quite a sequel to the original, except it's Jackie with a CGI panda. In this one, the pair fall into some sort of alternate dimension through a magic brick wall that deploys the Dragon Alley effect at the gate. There they meet a tribe that doesn't hug or express any encouragement. That sets up lessons on cooperation and such, blah, blah, blah. It's a lot of campy attempts at humor - there's even a psychedelic mushroom scene - lots of bad wire work, and dumb characters. It hardly makes any sense. Like who was this film for? Kids? Maybe. And the fight scenes are some of the weakest Jackie has ever delivered. Painful from every angle. 

D00M recommended if you want to torture yourself for an hour and a half. 

Seen on Youtube with commercials.