R E V I E W :    Miracles (AKA Mr. Canton and Lady Rose) 

Reviewed 12/23/00 | Background | Movie Review | DVD Review | Recommendation

     

Background 

Mega Star / 1989 / 122 minutes
Directed by Jackie Chan
Written by Jackie Chan, Edward Tang Ging Sang, Wai Wing Pin Kek Cho

Columbia/Tri-Star / 1989 / 127 minutes
Region 1 only

Jackie Chan was on a hot streak in 1989 when he decided to pay tribute to Frank Capra, the American director best known for such sentimental fare as It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and You Can't Take It With You. Evidently Capra's films, Lady for a Day and its remake Pocketful of Miralces (films that I have never seen), served as direct inspiration for Miracles.

Released theatrically in Hong Kong in June 1989, it was a big hit financially. Many critics seemed to like this change of pace as well, although many action fans were disappointed with the less-than-non-stop action.

More than 18 months passed before Chan's next acting/directing effort, Armour of God II: Operation Condor - which was an even bigger financial success.

Movie: plot, performances, production, rating

Jackie Chan plays a country bumpkin who is cheated out of almost his last dollar upon his arrival in Hong Kong, only to inadvertently end up a triad boss ("Mr. Canton") in 1930's China. Because of his innate goodness and honesty, he converts a restaurant into a nightclub that features Anita Mui as a singer. Mr. Canton attributes his continued good luck to roses he buys from a middle-aged female flower vendor. When "Lady Rose" learns that her daughter wants to marry the son of a wealthy Shanghai businessman, she is distressed that her pretense about being rich will be discovered. Mr. Canton determines to help her.

As a film director, Chan is a good action director. By that, I mean that the fight and stunt sequences are fun to watch and imaginative, but the actors are allowed to play their characters too broadly. Believable human emotions are not on display here, so the dramatic scenes simply don't work. Still, there are a number of good comedy bits if your taste runs to slapstick, as mine does. And I continue to be amazed by some of the fight and stunt scenes - here I liked Chan's long descent down the roofs of a hillside marketplace, as well as the extended sequence near the end in a rope factory, where the hero takes on the usual large army of bad guys.

Special mention must be made of the elegant camera work -- not only the scenes where the camera glides around the set, but also Chan's sure hand of knowing where to put the camera to maximize the impact of scenes, fighting or otherwise. Also, the wide variety of transitions from scene to scene are a nice touch -- notice the iris shots, wipes, dissolves, and so forth, that call to mind American films made in the '30's and '40's.

Arthur Wong Ngak-Tai's cinematography is beautiful. Compare his lighting and color schemes with what he did two years later in Once Upon a Time in China. Eddie Ma Poon-Chiu's art direction is gorgeous. The sets and costumes are colorful and sumptuous.

The Mei Ah disk is rated Category I; the Columbia disk is rated PG-13. No explicit violence is depicted, but there is plenty of fighting and punching and a number of obscenities.

Mega Star DVD: look, sound, subtitles, and features

Most scenes in this letterboxed presentation (2.35 to 1) look quite good. The colors are sharp and clear. Other scenes, however, do not fare as well, washing out and looking a bit hazy. Even in the best-looking scenes, the blacks are not as dark as they could be and the fleshtones are not rendered consistently or accurately.

Remastered 5.1 Cantonese and Mandarin audio tracks are provided. I listened to the Cantonese 5.1 track and it sounded fine. Removable subtitles are provided in traditional and simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, Bahasa Malaysia, and Thai in addition to English; the English titles are large, white, easy to read, well-timed but with many mistakes.

Nine chapters are provided in a full-motion video menu. "About the Film" includes a plot synopsis and cast and crew listing, as well as filmographies for Jackie Chan and Anita Mui. The four-minute theatrical trailer is included (predictably, it focuses on the action scenes); other trailers are Project A, Project A II, and Armour of God.

Columbia/TriStar DVD: look, sound, subtitles, and features

For those so equipped (I am not), this version has been enhanced for 16 x 9 televisions. The picture looks similar to that on the Mega Star disk, although more blemishes are apparent on the source print. Colors look a touch more accurate.

The original mono audio tracks in Cantonese and Mandarin are available (DD 2.0). What a refreshing change from the fine but "sounds like it was recorded in an echo chamber" remastered Mega Star Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks! The music and effects seem to be mixed a little high, however.

Yellow removable subtitles are available in English, Spanish, and French. The subtitles are a VAST improvement. Not only is the grammar correct and sentences completed, more subtle changes are also noticeable.

Examples of dialogue changes:

Mega Star	Columbia/TriStar
"Clean up the car."	"Polish the car."
"F--- you, you want to use guns?"	"Put your guns away or I'll kill you."
"Don't cripple me; kill me."	"Kill me if you dare"
"We'll just follow whatever you say."	"Just do whatever you think is right. I'm behind you all the way."
"Because he was the black sheep."	"His business dealings are a little shady, so the family doesn't talk about him too much."
"I don't take illegal action."	"You got yourself in this mess."
"Don't fuss over a future bastard."	"You don't even know who the father is."
"Then the Ho clan is poorer by 10,000 shares."	"20,000 shares for Ho's clan, and 10,000 shares for me."
"Promoting you up to the heavens."	"I'll kick you upstairs, all right!"
"Amida Buddha!"	"Lord help me."

These samples demonstrate the challenges of translating from one language to another. Again, this is a MAJOR improvement over the subtitles previously available and makes the dialogue much more understandable. But the subtitles are not perfect: the very first one states: "Written and Directed by Jackie Chan," inaccurately and unfairly leaving off credit for writers Edward Tang Ging Sang and Wai Wing Pin Kek Cho (only Edward Tang is credited as writer on the DVD's back cover).

The chapter menu is nicely organized and titled with 28 chapters. The original theatrical trailer (in Cantonese) is included, along with home video release trailers for Gorgeous, Who Am I? and the theatrical trailer for Gen-X Cops. An abbreviated filmography for Jackie Chan (listing only those films released specifically for Region 1) is also provided.

I have no explanation for the "extra" five minutes on the Columbia/TriStar release. I watched the two versions in the same evening and sampled parts again for the dialogue comparisons noted above, and I don't know why there is a difference -- if extra footage is included, it's only seconds at a time.

Buy, rent, or pass?

This effort by Jackie Chan to do something different is not entirely successful, but it is definitely worth a rental. The Columbia/TriStar release is the preferred version due to the superior subtitles. The company is to be commended for doing the right thing and releasing a Hong Kong film with the original language tracks and with the original musical score without cutting any scenes for Region 1 release.

 

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