The Killer Meteors (1976)

 The Killer Meteors (1976) **/*****

A bait and switch movie from early in  Jackie Chan's career. Granted the trap wasn't set until years later once Jackie became a big star and Jimmy Wang Yu's star faded, but a trap nonetheless. 

This is actually a Wang Yu venture featuring Jackie in a supporting role with barely any screen time..

Hoo, boy... I'm in for a rough ride with this one. This movie is an incoherent mess, it is a wuxia film that features the worst wire work I have seen thus far (the Captain Marvel [Shazam] serial of the 40's. has more believable wirework) The fight choreography is poorly staged, doing Wang Yu no favors whatsoever and undermining Jackie Chan as well. It is slow, painful, and almost embarrassing to watch. I don't understand exactly what the rhythm and the pacing of the fights were trying to accomplish. They only seemed to exist to embarrass the combatants.   

I can't even begin to properly summarize the plot, it's more jumbled and tangled than my earbuds are when I pull them out of my pocket. But, I'll try

Wang Yu is a superpowered undercover investigator working a years long case and trying to get the evidence against the bad guy. He was assigned the case by his mentor/superior. But it turns out the whole sequence of events was set into motion in an incomprehensible series of plot contrivances to manipulate Wang Yu into eliminating the competition for.... and get this, his secretly evil mentor and his daughter who was actually the wife of the ruling prince who they also were plotting to murder. 

But things are even more convoluted when not everyone is who they say they are leading to "SHOCKING" revelations. 

There was seemingly no real directorial oversight, or at least not from a director who actually cared about the final product. The cinematography is... competent and captures the fight scenes well enough, but it never rises above perfunctory. It gets the job done.

With few exceptions, this movie doesn't seem to strive to be anything more than a barely adequate quota filler. The only department that seemingly cared to rise above the flimsy script and production values, was the costume department. the costumes are A+, and far better than this movie deserves. And it's pretty much the only reason I watched the entire movie. 

Okay fine... there is one other reason as well. I'm fairly certain she's actually an angel sent to guide weary travellers through the terrible landscape that is the movie. 

The musical score is even a let down, seriously this movie is barely one step above what my Uncle used to refer to as "chop-socky" movies. But even at that, I would much rather watch many of those schlocky movies over this. Heck, I'd even take Godfrey Ho over this one. At least his stuff is incoherent AND entertaining. 

Poor Jackie doesn't even have a chance slathered under tons of makeup that give him an unnatural appearance. It's nothing extensive, but it looks like they slathered tons of foundation or something, because he looks rather waxy. But it's just him. Then they saddled him with a sniveling nasally voice and stupid fight choreography. He should've sued for slander or something. And his character doesn't even make sense at all.  

I can't say this is THE WORST MOVIE EVER, nor would I even suggest it was, but it is extremely disappointing and stupid. . None of this makes sense and every scene is like a non-sequitur. I swear the writers of this movie used a Wuxia Mad Libs to assemble this. The last 20 minutes of this movie are all deliriously insane and every revelation comes straight out of left field and each revelation more insanely hysterically and comically DUN DUN DUN that I can only properly sum it up with this video.

 Shout out to the little dude all in black though, he's clearly the comedic relief, but his fight scenes are probably the best in the movie. He acquits himself well and comes off as the superior fighter.

Chen Hui-Lou, is the MVP of this thing. It's a shame he wasn't given more to do.

Wang Yu has a fantastic screen presence,  and might actually be a skilled screen fighter if presented properly, but he comes off as slightly inexperienced in this movie. Though, I have to confess I don't think I have seen any of his other movies. So we'll see in the future.

That said, I'm dropping this from future Jackie Chan rotations, though it will probably pop up again in other rotations/retrospectives. Just not Jackie's.

Cast: (Courtesy of HKMDB)

Jimmy Wang Yu ... Killer Meteor Mei Sin Her

Jackie Chan ... Immortal Meteor Wa Wu-Bin

Ma Chiang ... Hay Li Ma
Lee Man-Tai ... Devil Monk
Phillip Ko Fei ... Go Yuen So
Ma Chi ... Thunder Swordsman Yu Ching-Yi
Chen Hui-Lou ... Iron Palm
Lee Si-Si ... Lady Tempest
Tung Lin ... Lord Fung
Weng Hsiao-Hu ... Man Tien Sin
Hsueh Han ... Lightning Swordsman Wan Fong
Lily Lan Yu-Li ... Madam Phoenix
Yu Ling-Lung ... Fung Yuen Er
Min Min ... Lightning Swordsman's friend at inn
Henry Lu Yi-Lung ... Shadow Whip
Wang Ruo-Ping ... Thief
Woo Wai (3) ... Mighty Kim