Shanghai Knights
Dir: David Dobkin
2003
*
Everything Tom Dey got right with Shanghai Noon, David Dobkin gets wrong in Shanghai Knights. Apart from the ridiculous and embarrassing historical inaccuracies, Dobkin seems to rely heavily on stereotyping without thought for his audience. Talk about riding on the success of someone else's work. The martial art scenes are overdone and contrived, the 'Buddy' element is lost and the script is nothing short of terrible. There are quite a few telling deleted scenes in the end credits whereby you can see just how uncomfortable Owen Wilson is saying certain lines. It's not funny at all and is far from entertaining. Every scene is a poor copy from other, better films. Why is Aidan Gillen still cast as villains? Why does London look like Mexico? Why did you ruin what could have been a great franchise? It makes Rush Hour 3 look like a masterpiece!