Jackie Chan's The Accidental Spy is his latest film from Hong Kong. It was released last Chinese New Year and is one of those big event movies that all of Jackie's films are. In it, Jackie plays a mild mannered fitness salesman, Buck Yuen, who is thrust into the limelight when he foils a robbery attempt. In a TV interview, he reveleals he is an orphan and is soon approached by a man whose client is searching for orphan males about his age who may be his long lost son and benefactor.
Jackie goes to meet the man and finds he is a former spy on his deathbed in a high security military prison. He dies shortly and leaves Jackie with a $10,000 check, a numbered key, and a message about playing a gmae. Jackie decides to play the game and it's off to Istanbul, Turkey(the main setting of the film) to the safe deposit box that the numbered key goes to. Soon he finds himself chased by Turks, on the run from bad guys and in contact with the CIA, who inform Jackie that his dead "father" had a stash of Anthrax hiddden away that must be found before the bad guys get it.

Enough with the plot, how do the fights stack up? Everybody wants to see Jackie's movies for his incredible fights. This movie has many short fights interspersed throughout. Most are enjoyable but all of them are in the new "Jackie Chan style". By this I mean, they aren't so much as fights as they are elaborately choregraphed stunt/dance/fight/chase setpieces that only Jackie Chan can pull off(remember the ill fated decision to put Jet Li in several of these JC style fights in Romeo Must Die). He manages to use numerous objects around him as weapons or to flip around and over and I don't know how he keeps coming up new material for them but he always does : A scene where he runs through a Turkish bazaar stark naked, frantically trying to cover himself with broom heads, plates fabrics etc while dodging the several bad guys who chase him and keep ripping off his newfound covers comes to mind as easily the best and funniest scene in the film and a prime example of how Jackie keeps thinfgs fresh. For me though, I would much rather see less of this style and much more Jackie in one-on-one fights such as in Wheels on Meals when he fought Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.

Usually you get a big, long fight at the end of Jackie's movies but there isn't one here. Instead we have a good action scene where Jackie is stuck in a tanker truck which has caught fire at the rear. If it slows down, the flames will come forward and blow the tanker and anything near it sky high. It's kind of like Speed, cos Jackie has to unload some passengers while keeping the truck at speed.

Jackie Chan's The Accidental Spy is a pretty enjoyable movie by Jackie Chan standards. It's light on plot, heavy on humor and action and has enough cool stunts in it to please most of Jackie's fans. It's also a very mainstream "popcorn" movie that should please even the casul Jackie Chan fan. It's currently only available on VCD and I know of only one store to get it at in Denver: Modern Boutique. Modern Boutique is located at Mississippi and S. Federal in the Asian strip mall located on the northwest corner of the intersection. Modern Boutique is all the way at the north end of the strip mall. Just walk on in, head past the clothes to the back, and you will find one of the coolest collection of Hong Kong DVD's VCD's, Karaoke, anime, stickers, gifts etc in the Denver area.