Most of the fight scenes with Jackie Chan involve him and a gang attacking the taxi cab driver who they think has the purse with the "evidence," whatever this evidence is. Don't buy this film. It's not a Jackie Chan film. Oh, they have those very annoying old school sound effects.

The original version of this movie was supposed to be about 108 minutes, but has been cut down to 88 minutes. The original plot was a little deeper. The original plot was like this: Eddie Yang (Jackie Chan) and his bumbling partner Watson (Lee Evans) were after a crimelord named Snakehead. Snakehead was a human smuggler who smuggled illegal immigrants, and many of these immigrants die in the process. After Eddie saves the boy, and when Snakehead captures the boy, the boy uses the medallion to turn both of them into "highbinders." That's where the name came from, and Highbinders was the film's working title, but not a lot of people knew what a "Highbinder" was, so they just had the film's title center on what the movie was about, the medallion.

The plot about Snakehead's human smuggling was cut out, along with many other things, but I won't elaborate too much. The "Americans," meaning those who worked in producing and editing the film, felt that much of the film was irrelevant and made the film too long. They wanted the movie to be simply about the boy and the medallion, and Jackie's quest to gain control of his powers...

UPDATE 6/2006: I would like to change and elaborate what I said before about Wheels On Meals.

Wheels on Meals is definitely one of the best of the 3 collaborations of the 3 brothers of Hong Kong action cinema. The 3 movies being Project A (directed by Jackie Chan), Wheels On Meals, and Dragons Forever (both directed by Sammo Hung), and the 3 brothers being Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan, and Sammo Hung. It is hard to say which one is the best.

In terms of the movie, the comedy is great. Sammo Hung's commic and witty antics show through his acting especially in the movie, as he plays a clever private detective with no experience whatsoever. Jackie and Biao are kind of funny as they try to get with the Spanish girl. All 3 brothers get a chance to shine. Yuen Biao is pretty funny as he tries to please the Spanish girl as much as he can, letting her do whatever she wanted.

In terms of action, Biao and Jackie get the most time, showing their acrobatics and agility. Sammo does an okay job but does not get enough time (although certain places are questionable enough to ask if their is a stunt double for him). For most of the movie, Biao fights alongside Jackie, keeping one another from outshining eachother. But at the end movie, all 3 take on a separate guy. This is where Jackie fights Benny "The Jet" Urqidez, an undefeated American kickboxing champion. I must say, this fight is very intense during the very first minutes of it. But after that, it gets a bit slow and comical, and the intensity dies. Both Jackie and Benny throw all their energy into it and then it just dies. This fight scene is very overrated in my opinion. It does not compare with the with their fight in "Dragons Forever," which is very fast and very intense throughout.

Wheels on Meals is probably the best movie of the 3 in terms of character chemistry and comics. A must see for all Kung Fu fans.

Tom Yum Goong definitely has some of the best actions scenes known to man. Many of you probably heard of the fight scene where Tony Jaa climbs the stairs of the Tom Yum Goong restaurant, taking on many men for four minutes, all in one take, where one camera follows him the entire time. He takes on an entire X-Games gang, using somersaults and high flips and it's probably the most acrobatic fight ever. Inside of a temple set on fire and flooded with water, takes on a capoeria fighter (probably one of the best one-on-one fights of all time), then taking on an acrobatic wushu sword fighter, and a big, hulky pro wrestler. He takes on a gang of 50 men all in black suits, breaking their bones, and then proceeding to fight the lethal Madame Rose and four hulky pro-wrestlers using elephant bones.

On top of that, this movie is beautifully scored. Every action scene has music that gets your adreneline pumping, and none of it is overdone. This is a far improvement from the repetitive Thai techno track in Ong-Bak that never really helped with the mood of the film.

The action is great, but certain parts of the film need a tune-up. I'll accept a plot about a man looking for his stolen elephants, but certain parts of the movie are just a bit weird. In Sydney, there just happens to a be a Thai female reporter who speeks broken English and can't pronounce her l's. There happens to be various Australian protestors that take interest in the smuggling of Thai elephants to Australia.

Although the action scenes are great, they are all something that wouldn't happen in real life. With the exception of the historical one-take fight scene, it appears that everyone shows up at the right time to get their asses kicked by Tony Jaa. Everyone Tony fights against is pretty much there to show off their skills and see how well they do against him, rather than do their job, and everyone is a victim of Kham's rage, and nobody has the nerve to silence it with a gun. The gang he probably shows the most mercy to is the probably the X-Games gang. Everybody else is unfortunate.

And as for Petchthai Wongkamlao's character, Mark, he would have thrown off of the police force immediately for some of the things he did. And on top of all of that, his English is very horrible. This is very frustrating because [the version I saw had no] English subtitles translating what he's saying.

Well, we don't watch the film for illogistics or anything story-based. Subtitles are not necessary, but are a good bonus... But 30% of the dialouge (at least what dialouge is there in it) is in English anyways. And it's easy to tell what's going on. Besides, there isn't much to translate with Tony Jaa screaming "Where are my elephants" half the time.

Although the stunts in this film aren't the most acrobatic of Chan, some of the cool stunts include Jackie jumping off of a bridge, onto a crane, and swinging it around to a sidewalk parallel to the bridge. Jackie does a great fight scene inside a small van, which is a very graceful fight scene. Unfortuneately, there is no BIG fight scene between Jackie and Richard Norton, who was wasted in this film.

Although the movie has a weak storyline, I find it very suspenseful. Everytime Jackie gets close to getting his girlfriend, something wrong happens.

Overall, the film's weak acting is why I give this movie 3 stars.

The Hong Kong version of this film is a slight improvement over the American version. Here are the differences:

1. The HK version fully dubbed the English dialouge into Cantonese (or Mandarin, depending on which DVD verison you get). This might be a positive for those who hate the acting in this film, although dubbing has always been a distraction for people like me.

2. The film's original music was rescored in the US version. The American version makes the music less serious and more comical. It takes away from the seriousness of certain parts of the film.

3. The "Demons" in the dubbed versions are called the "Wolves," but in both US and HK or Tawainese versions, you see a list of actors and actresses during the end credits who are credited as playing "Demons." A little goof there!

4. The original HK version of the film opens up with Giancarlo and his men killing Tina from the Demons by burying her, and then it cuts to Jackie and Baggio's cooking show. The American version has this in reverse. The former is kind of better because it sets a more serious tone to the film, whereas the American version sets it to a more comical tone.

5. In the American version, before the Demons arrive for the meeting, Giancarlo beats up one of his men who betrayed him for a girl who's with the Demons and gave them Giancarlo's cocaine. However, in the HK version, the dialouge was changed Giancarlo beating up the man, telling him that Tina was from the Demons, and the man getting beaten says, "I'm sorry. I'd thought she'd please you! I'll get you're cocaine back."

6. In the American version, there is a dinner scene with Lakiesha, Jackie, Baggio, Romeo, and his children, in which they talk about how being a chef is safer than being a cop, which is why Jackie decided to be a chef. This is omitted from the original version. This scene is supposed to be some kind of "ironic conversation" since Jackie, the chef, is the one getting into more danger than Romeo, the cop.

7. The fight scenes on the horse-drawn carriage and inside the Demon's truck are slightly longer in the HK version.

8. In the HK version, during Jackie's first attempt to get his girlfriend and trade the tape for her, when one of the cops in the truck says, "They're playing with us," Romeo takes a microphone and says for all agents to converge on Jackie. Romeo has a brief argument with the head cop but he convinces him to order all agents to converge on Jackie.

9. The construction fight scene in the HK version shows Jackie Chan fighting Giancarlo's men in a maze of blue doors, then a woman from the Demons has her interrogation with Giancarlo who is beating her men in order to convince her to tell him where his cocaine is. The American version cuts back and forth from the fight scene in the maze of doors to this violent interrogation, also omitting some of the violence.

10. In the HK version, after the construction fight scene, there is a scene where Romeo visits Diana and the Demon girl in the hospital. The Demon girl warns Romeo that Giancarlo took Jackie to his home, and Diana tells Romeo that "This is her exclusive." This is omitted in the American version.