Review: ‘Kung-Fu Yoga,’ starring Jackie Chan

by Andrew Parker

Jackie Chan has appeared in over a hundred films throughout his legendary career. Not all of them are good, but the baffling and dull Kung-Fu Yoga is one of the worst. Coming at a point in Chan’s career where his trademark physicality and fancy footwork have understandably declined with age and his once natural charisma has waned slightly, Kung-Fu Yoga shameless tries to appeal to not one, but three cultures at the same time without giving audiences anything coherent or worthy of any investment whatsoever. This is a goofy, lazy, amateurish, and nearly worthless film.

Chan, literally playing a character named Dr. Jack Chan, stars as a university professor approached by a fellow archaeologist from India (Disha Patani) to help find a cache of ancient riches worth more than the world gold reserve. While a villain named Randall (Sonu Sood) seeks the treasure to get rich and restore his family heritage, the archaeologists think the riches should be preserved as a testament to the shared history between China and India. Flanked by their teaching assistants (and this is probably the only film where this thankless profession will ever get a shout out) and a swarthy, charismatic Tomb Raider type (Aarif Rahman), their adventures lead them to ice caverns in Tibet, a high stakes auction in Dubai, and finally to a hidden Indian temple.

Kung-Fu Yoga arrives in theatres just in time for Chinese New Year courtesy of writer/director Stanley Tong, who helmed some of Chan’s greatest successes: Supercop, First Strike, and Rumble in the Bronx. He’s also the director of the disastrous big screen adaptation of Mr. Magoo, and Kung-Fu Yoga owes a lot more to that film’s childish, ignorant sensibilities than any of Chan’s best efforts. I get the sense that Kung-Fu Yoga comes aimed squarely at tweens and teens, but they would have to be really stupid, easily distracted youths who could care less about what they’re watching as long as it’s incoherent enough for them to text through the whole thing and it looks like it was lit by someone who vomited up an entire factory worth of Sweetarts while dressing the sets.

Only milliseconds into Kung-Fu Yoga, and I was hopelessly lost. It opens with a fast paced computer animated prologue set in 647 AD where an unconvincingly rendered avatar for Chan does battle with even more unconvincing looking troops, elephants, and assorted beasties. It’s packed with a ton of exposition, and almost all of it will turn out to be a completely useless waste of time to explain. If nothing else, it sets the disorienting tone that Tong will follow for the rest of the film.

From there we’re treated to a story with no sense of character, performance, or likability constructed from dialogue that’s entirely expositional. There isn’t a word spoken here that isn’t plot, and the story that does exist should be so simple to explain that one wishes it were a silent film instead. Chan looks like he’s struggling mightily at times to care or stay awake, and it’s painfully clear that outside of a couple of obviously sped up fights that he’s barely doing any of the heavy lifting here. Patani, speaking awkwardly broken English that feels like a poor decision, grinds the film to a halt whenever she’s on screen with her annoying presence. Sood’s villain is on autopilot and might as well be a computer generated cartoon character. The only person really given a chance to shine here is Rahman, who brings actual charisma, energy, physicality, and enthusiasm to the film. His scenes with Chan are the only ones where the veteran performer seems engaged.

As for the action sequences, Tong relies heavily on the childish nature of his script, and instead of putting together some solid fights and chases, he mounts a bunch of lacklustre, patently insane ideas that are marred by some of the most unconvincing CGI in cinematic history. When some of our heroes are trapped in a pen with savage hyenas, there’s no suspension of disbelief since the animals so obviously aren’t there. The scene might as well play out with the actors fighting things in thin air that the viewer can’t see. A lengthy chase scene through the streets of Dubai – one where Chan drives around with a large CGI tiger in the back while uncomfortably spouting off Muslim greetings to calm the animal down – similarly falls flat despite a maximum amount of effort. None of the many crashes that happen look real, and while they probably weren’t allowed to do tons of damage to the expensive cars being used, maybe Tong should have shown some restraint and not have a ton of them do ass over tea kettle flips that just underline how unrealistic all of this is.

I understand that Kung-Fu Yoga is a “comedic action fantasy,” but there has to be something anchoring the fantasy. It builds to a climax so underwhelming and talky that it makes the also ridiculous Chan directed and starring Chinese Zodiac look quaint in comparison. So much energy is expended here trying to sound profound and respectful towards two different cultures that Tong forgets to make any of this fun or engaging. It’s like watching a child half-heartedly play with action figures and toy cars for a few hours while they sulk because it’s too rainy out to go to the park. This is a depressingly stupid film that’s not even bad enough to be funny, although given the premise that might have been the best this could have shot for. It’s Chan’s worst since The Spy Next Door, and that’s a low bar I never wanted to see eclipsed.

Kung-Fu Yoga opens in Toronto (Cineplex Yonge and Dundas), Markham, Ontario (Cineplex Markham), and Richmond, B.C. (SilverCity Richmond) on Friday, January 27. It opens in Ottawa (Mayfair Theatre) on Friday, February 3.

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