A LEGEND Review: Jackie Chan’s Long-Awaited Sequel Is The Equivalent Of Lukewarm Coffee

A Legend is now available on Digital, Blu-Ray and DVD from Well Go USA

This morning I went to a newly opened bakery near my home. There, I ordered a vanilla latte. It’s been chilly around these parts of late and I needed something that would warm my cockles, as we Brits say. I like my coffee sweet. Hence the vanilla. I also ask for a veritable Tony Montana cocaine mountain of sugar. That’s bliss right there.

I was handed my beverage and I wandered out to the car, happy to return home with piping hot lifeblood in hand. Halfway there, I took a sip. My coffee was not hot. It was tepid at best. It was not sweet. It had none of the sugar I requested. And no vanilla!
What’s my point? Why am I telling you this? Well, Jackie Chan’s newly released film, A Legend, is that cup of coffee.

A Legend is a Jackie Chan film. Let’s get that straight. He features prominently, albeit as a de-aged version of himself, complete with uncanny valley stare and permanently knitted brow. But it is Jackie. The man we know and love.

The film also features what I think is the best action of Jackie’s late-modern era. The set pieces here are a genuine treat and should appease most martial arts junkies. More on that later.
So we have the foundations of a good movie. We have a cinematic cup of coffee. Sadly, A Legend lacks flavor, warmth, sweetness and anything else that would make it truly enjoyable. In fact, its 2 hour 9 minute run time is practically torturous. An interminable journey of humdrum characters and vapid script writing. There’s just very little here to enjoy.

The premise is (mostly) simple. Jackie Chan plays a top professor of archeology, heading a young team of fellow archeologists who aim to unearth a number of treasures from the Han/Hun era. Once such treasure is a jade pendant. But the jade pendant is…magic? Well, it’s not really magic, per se, but it causes Professor Fang (Jackie) and his young assistant, Wang Jing (Zhang Yixing), to dream the same dream – which just so happens to be the historically accurate retelling of the jade pendant’s journey.

We get these dreams in the form of flashbacks. And it’s these flashbacks that make up the majority of the film’s run time. What are the flashbacks about? **Sigh** De-aged Jackie is a young Han soldier who proudly fights alongside his buddy who’s also played by Zhang Yixing. There’s a beautiful young woman (Gülnezer Bextiyar), there’s a Hun warlord (Aarif Lee) and there’s the prerequisite romance storyline. There’s also a whole bunch of nothingness. By that, I mean the film has no central thrust. No real emotional stakes. No damn ENERGY. It’s nothing you’d normally expect from Jackie Chan, a man who’s known as a one-man charisma machine.

A Legend truly thrives when director Stanley Tong remembers that Jackie Chan films are usually action films. Tong seems too hung up on sweeping drone shots and picturesque landscapes here. The frequency of the film’s set pieces are an afterthought.
But thanks to Jackie Chan and fellow Action Director legend, Yuen Tak, the fight scenes are an absolute delight.

We get crisply choreographed weapons sequences, horseback skirmishes, archery, and, of course, some classic Jackie shenanigans sprinkled in for good measure; though you do need to wait until the final fifteen minutes for the latter.
In many ways, I’m tempted to gush over the action. Granted, it’s not Project A levels of martial mastery but it really is very, very good, and to be able to say that about a modern Jackie Chan movie is special. As a fan of the genre, I’d given up on him – considered him “aged out.” Still, with A Legend, he proves he still has gas in the tank, and, at times, that Jackie charm returns full force.

In fact, the entire final act – while marred by the same shtick found in Kung Fu Yoga – is really quite exciting. To the point that it feels very disconnected from the rest of the film. A true blessing. Alas, the rest of the film exists. If you’re looking for entertainment – a full-bodied, piping hot cup of flavorful Joe – it’s better to stay well away from Stanley Tong’s new roast. It costs too much and will ultimately make you feel very, very queasy.