But when you have someone running away in their undies you begin to have a bad feeling about the "action" involved. And to continue the "plot" the VHS tape (how old is this movie?) is tossed into a box of unmarked VHS tapes of Jackie's cooking show. Naturally the journalist gets the wrong tape or there is no story. And there isn't much of a story to begin with!

One problem, or should I say three problems only bogged down the movie and really added nothing but props for Jackie to save. This is why they scream "JACKIE SAVE ME! or "JACKIE HELP ME" and other lines of the same caliber. Over and over. We have the journalist ditz, the TV show assistant, and ditz number three is the wooden prop named Miki who is Jackie's girlfriend. He carries her, catches her and protects her with his masculine bravado but can't answer the question when asked if he loves her. Product placement is abundant. While the gang still thinks Jackie has the money or drugs or maybe both they kidnap Miki and force Jackie into fighting instead of baking. The fight scenes, almost always good in a Jackie film, fail to conjure up much excitement. Jackie wasn't in top form when he started the movie and a shoulder injury was obvious in every fight. For some reason there was a lot of cutting the fight scenes that had little to do with how it looked. Jackie also hurt his neck when he did a stunt in a "moving" wheelbarrow. Even the staff didn't realize he was really hurt, they just assumed he was goofing around. He wasn't. After that he doesn't make that 100% effort and that too showed. The end fight scene should have been with Norton but instead had Jackie saving the "help me" girls and then runs over everything including Norton's house with an enormous dump truck. Shades of Red Bronx (Rumble In The Bronx). Another similarity is the buildings, both designed to be shooting inside and shots from outside. Norton's house should have been palatial but looked like cardboard, which it probably was. Personally if I for some reason became demented and wanted to watch monster trucks I would go to the monster truck rally, not a Jackie Chan movie. This movie is definitely not a top favorite among fans and it has good reason to have that distinction.

Sammo is very amusing as a bicycle courier cameo and if you look quick in the construction fight scene you will find Brad Allen stuffed into the cement mixer. One more piece of trivia - Joyce Mina Godenza (Eastern Condors) real life wife of Sammo is one of the people in the cooking audience who gets eggs thrown at her.

If you really want to see this film definitely get the Hong Kong version unless you want to see a sliced and diced version with Jackie fumbling his lines.

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.