The Myth - 2 Disc Ultimate Edition

Introduction

Jackie goes to Bollywood! Now there's a match-up that's been long in the making. Actually, given Indian movie fans' appreciation of a good cinematic punch-up, the question becomes, 'what took them so long?' Of course, the irony here is that being a reviewer of Indian origin, I know far more about Jackie Chan movies than I will ever care to know about Bollywood. I also cannot tell you my relief when it transpired that the sojourn to the subcontinent constitutes only a small part of this film, and that there are no songs. There is a dance number though, and there are costume changes. Some things are eternal. It has been a while since I've seen a new Jackie Chan film though; I've given up on the prospect of him making a decent Hollywood flick, although disappointingly he hasn't, while new Hong Kong movies are few and far between. In fact, when I saw New Police Story a few years back, I had the distinct impression that the 2004 movie would be his last Hong Kong feature. 2006's The Myth proves me wrong, and aside from the Indian connection, I've been cautiously optimistic. If New Police Story was any indication, The Myth should also blow that Hollywood kung-fu lite tat out of the water.


Professor Jack Chan is an eminent archaeologist, who is currently suffering from something of a slump. Having had his budget slashed, he has to make do by living on a houseboat on the river, when his friend William shows up with an opportunity. William was at university with Jack, although he devoted himself to the field of Physics. His speciality is antigravity, and he remembers Jack's tales of an ancient floating tomb in an obscure temple in Dasar. He wants Jack to help him take a look at the coffin, and examine the artefacts, for a clue to the antigravity that will revolutionise the world.


Jack has issues though. He's dreaming, and dreaming constantly of an event that took place thousands of years ago during the time of the first Emperor Qin. He dreams of the Emperor's concubine Ok Soo, presented to him by the Korean kingdom in a hope of fostering a peace. He dreams that he is the General Meng Yi, ordered to escort her to the Imperial City, and coming under attack from bandits and rebel forces. He dreams of saving her, of single-handedly escorting her to safety, and then in the process, falling in love with her.

As Jack follows the leads that his investigation of the tomb throws up, he finds that dreams and reality begin to intertwine in an unexpected way.

Picture

I was going to have a bit of a whinge about the visual transfer, but having a second look at the runtime gave me pause. This is actually an NTSC-PAL standards conversion, although the fact that I took it for a problematic PAL transfer says more for its quality than the lack thereof. It's probably one of the more sharper, better-defined images of that nature I have seen, certainly availing itself of more resolution than the usual standards conversion gets. There's certainly no ghosting, and while soft in places, I have seen softer native PAL images. The only obvious symptom of the conversion is some jerkiness to the pans, and an indication of interlacing when you pause the image. A film to PAL transfer would have been preferable of course, but I don't know what it would have done about the minor aliasing, and noise around dusty and fine detail. It probably would have made no difference to the over-saturated colours, and over-bright exposure. It's an effect heavy film with a lot of CGI applied. Most is very effective, but some is pretty bad, and you wonder what the animator was thinking. It isn't a fatal flaw though.

Sound

You have a choice of DD 5.1 English and Cantonese, as well as DD 2.0 Cantonese, with optional English subtitles. Actually, the original language track is more of a polyglot, offering dialogue in Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, English and a smidgen of Hindi. The English dub replaces all but the English dialogue and everyone but Jackie gets fluent American English voice artists who sound out of place (aside from the comedy Indian accent for the sword wielding flunky). The surround does what it's supposed to, but doesn't really stand out as an over expressive use of the capabilities of the technology. The music is suitably orchestral, and there is a nice beefiness to the action scenes.

Extras

Those marketers certainly earn their daily bread. Whenever you have more than one disc in a product, it behoves you to remind the punter of that fact. So it is that we get The Myth: 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, forgetting to mention of course that this is the only edition in the UK. I've noticed that the more fancy the subtitle, the less inspiring the extra features. Maybe the Myth will buck the trend and not turn out to be penultimate after all.

Disc 1 has the film of course, alongside 11 trailers of other Cine Asia product, with a nicely animated menu front end.

You'll also find the theatrical trailers on this disc, along with two music videos.

The Making Of is the sole sizeable extra here, presented incorrectly in a widescreen ratio. You'll have to switch it back to 4:3 manually, lest all the contributors look fat. It's your standard EPK bit, letting the cast and crew speak of the brilliance of the film that they are in the process of making. This lasts 20 minutes, but the last 5 minutes are just one of the music videos which you can find elsewhere on this disc.


Disc 2 is certainly loaded with content.

The Interviews Gallery offers comments from Jackie Chan (21 min), Tony Leung Ka Fai (16 min), Kim Hee Seon (14 min), Mallika (Sherawat (13 min), Stanley Tong (21 min), Sun Zhou (6 min), and Choi Min Soo (5 min). It's more EPK promotion really, but there are some notable comments about their experiences on the film, along with plenty of anecdotes. Also notable is the healthy ego on Mallika Sherawat, which if nothing else, inspires the Ultimate moniker for this release.

There are two deleted scenes, with one an interesting but overlong attempt to break into the tomb.

The Lost Scenes offer a look at three other scenes being filmed that ultimately didn't make it into the movie. A tiger confrontation did make it into the trailer though.


You'll find an Easter Egg here that looks at the film's debut at Cannes, but I debate the point of calling it an Easter Egg if it is advertised on the back of the DVD case.

There are 72 minutes of Behind the Scenes featurettes, and it's mostly candid footage from the shoot, with no narration and little context. Fortunately it's split into small digestible chunks, giving you an idea of what you are looking at. You can see props, costumes, fight scenes being choreographed, wirework in progress, some Bollywood song and dance shenanigans, and much, much more.

Just for Laughs offers 12 minutes of more behind the scenes footage, but this time with an emphasis on the backstage tomfoolery that occurred during the shoot.

Finally the Hong Kong Premiere does what it sets out to, with footage of and interviews with the stars as they turn up for the Hong Kong debut of The Myth. This lasts around 17 minutes.

Conclusion

The Myth is a film of two halves. Unfortunately, they are two halves of two completely different movies, and putting them together here doesn't result in a satisfying, cohesive whole, no matter how much this was the intention of the filmmakers. It seems a good idea on paper after all, memories of a past life impinging on the present, but the unevenness of tone works against it. The past era is a serious dramatic movie, while the modern is a kung fu comedy, and switching between the two is jarring, no matter how smoothly the transitions are directed. Two thousand years ago, Jackie Chan is General Meng Yi, in a romantic drama that owes much to films like Hero, Crouching Tiger, and Braveheart, while in the present day, he's Professor Jack Chan, in an Indiana Jones movie, or rather another Armour of God flick. However as I said, we get two halves of two movies, not one whole one, and neither half is really satisfying. It's a shame, as there are potentially two movies here that I would have loved to see, offering a great deal of promise and entertainment value.


The modern era tale is classic Jackie Chan, comic kung-fu action capers with a serious edge. In a way it is a revisit of his Armour of God character a few years down the line, older, wiser, perhaps a bit more cynical, but still able to kick butt and get into all sorts of scrapes in the midst of his tomb raiding. It's a lot like the Indiana Jones sequel of last year in that respect, although Jackie Chan looks even more evergreen and able to handle the action than the surprisingly spry Harrison Ford. If you look for inventiveness, agility and comedy from your Jackie Chan fight sequences, then there is a sequence in a rat glue factory that shows the master at his best. The characters are rather stereotypical though, and could have been lifted from any of his previous films. The best friend with a secret agenda is one, while the moustache-twirling villain is actually a disappointment, in a film that purports to be more than just another kung fu comedy. However, the diversion to India offers some cosmopolitan glamour, and Mallika Sherawat provides a nice and feisty contrast to Jackie in her brief appearance, with some yogic kung-fu Bollywood style. It's a shame that her part couldn't have extended outside the subcontinent. It's fast paced action comedy of the sort we have been seeing from Jackie Chan since the eighties, and you're on familiar territory here.


Not so familiar is the historical drama, something of a departure for Jackie Chan, playing a more taciturn and measured character, and dispensing with the cheeky grin and physical humour. Surprisingly, this was the part that I appreciated more, perhaps because it was so different. It's a period drama on a grand scale, with a suitably massive cast. Set during the reign of the first Chinese Emperor, the visual effect is distinctive, the locations are breathtaking, and the costume design is astounding. It looks and feels lush. The story is fairly simple, and hardly groundbreaking. General Meng Yi has to escort the concubine Ok Soo to the Emperor, and through mishap, trials and tribulations the two develop a forbidden love for each other. Of course Meng Yi is utterly loyal to his emperor, so he makes the ultimate sacrifice, but it's a love that will last beyond time. This half of the film is moving, exquisitely filmed, and utterly engrossing. Also, Jackie Chan delivers a measured performance with nuance and restraint. It's a dramatic portrayal that is a departure for him, but one that he carries off with aplomb. He's matched by a moving portrayal of Ok Soo by Korean actress Kim Hee Seon, and I found that this half of the film was by far the half that I preferred.


The trouble is that the structure of the film is such that the era shifts just when the action is about to get interesting. I clicked with the kung fu comedy only for it to shift to serious drama. By the time I was au fait with that, we were back to the comedy again. It was annoying, unsatisfying, and ultimately detrimental to the film. Of course the two eras, the two stories do tie together in the end. That is the whole point of the film quite naturally, and the story is intellectually interesting, a rather charming and moving fantasy. Also the film's conclusion ties both threads together, the antigravity maguffin and the ancient love story, to give a visual climax that an Indiana Jones film could only dream of. When I recall how Crystal Skull climaxed, what happens at the end of The Myth just blows it all away. The problem is of course that the ending is only worthwhile, if the beginning and middle are such that the film deserves it. That isn't so here, and The Myth just tantalises and promises, without ever really delivering. But I do have a hope now, that Jackie will go back and adapt the historical drama half of this film and turn it into one whole historical epic, minus the modern trimmings.


The Myth is a visually breathtaking film. You can see the budget oozing from every pore. The historical drama takes place in some wonderful, pristine scenery, and the costumes and sets reflect the high production values. The modern era story also benefits from some great locations. The Indian temples in Karnataka offer grand vistas, while the filmmakers actually got permission to film among the terracotta army. It's a shame that similar effort couldn't have resulted in a more cohesive script. It's a nice package though, with a second disc filled with more than just the usual EPK nonsense, although a little guilty of the 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach to extras. The Myth is a great idea, but unfortunately the execution doesn't match the aspiration, and the end result is a little weak. That's if you take it as a whole. If you take it as a collection of Jackie Chan set pieces, then it's a little more entertaining.