Dr Chan is a troubled man, by day a respected archaeologist, but when he sleeps he has persistence dreams that he is, Meng-yi, a general in the Imperial army of the Qin Dynasty charged with looking after a beautiful princess, Ok Soo, and delivering her safely to the Capital. When he is approached by his friend William looking for help with his anti gravity research, its sets his life on a course that will bring the past and the present together...

The Myth (2005 - 2 hrs, 34 sec) is a real clash of genres, part science fiction, part thriller and part historical romantic epic. It was directed by Stanley Tong from a screenplay by Hai-shu Li, Stanley Tong and Hui-Ling Wang. The film gained a number of nominations at the 2005 Hong Kong Film Awards, but failed to walk away with any. The film's action moves between the two time zones.

There are a certain things which are expected from a Jackie Chan movie, mostly comedy and his death defying action sequences and the film delivers both to a satisfying degree, even though Chan, as Dr Jack Chan, is noticeably slower than he has been in earlier film, but I guess time has a way of creeping up on all of us. Still, the set pieces remain impressive.

The film's main problem is that it feels like two different films strung together, which do not comfortably sit well together. The transitions between the two periods are often handled inelegantly. The contemporary story is where most of the comedy resides, with lavish sets and location work, the past, a historical melodrama, is no less lavish in its outlook but lacks a certain amount of conviction. The two together create a fractured viewing experience.

Jackie Chan does a reasonable job as a serious actor, though this is marred not only by his past comedic films but also this movie's need to swap between him playing the serious role of Meng-yi and the lighter Dr Jack Chan. This, at points, makes it a little difficult to know what mood is being created.

The love story between the trapped concubine Ok Soo (the very beautiful Hee-seon Kim) is touching and sad as the would-be lovers are forced apart by societal pressures. Unfortunately, just as you're getting into that part of the story the film switches back to Chan’s version of a funny Indiana Jones amply aided with another equally beautiful woman, Mallika Sherawat,who plays Samantha.

The highlight of this portion of the film is the fight at the glue factory, the movie is almost worth watching for this sequence alone. The narrative discordantly moves back and forth and only comes together at the film's finish, which is as implausible as it is satisfying. As the final titles roll, the makers have oddly chosen to run these over a set of outtakes

There are some high points for the film, especially the costume design and the cinematography by Wing-Hung Wong who gets the best out of the location shoots.

The film is presented as a two disc DVD set. The first disc holds the film which is presented with either a Dolby digital 5.1 and 2.0 Cantonese audio track, or a reasonable 5.1 English Dub with optional subtitles. Disc one also comes with a 'Making of' (20 mins) featurette which has some behind the scenes footage, including some of the green screen work. There are contribution from cast and crew bigging up the movie and discussing what it was like to shoot. The disc is rounded off with the Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min, 11 sec), the UK Trailer (1 min, 30 sec), an international music trailer for 'Endless Love' (4 min, 47 sec) and the Mandarin version (4 min, 51 sec).

Disc two is jam packed with extras including interviews with Jackie Chan (20 min, 42 sec) in the ancient city of Hampi, which was used as one of the locations. This looks at not only the making of the film but also presents some details of the peoples who really live there; Tony Leung Ka Fai, who plays William (15 min, 38 sec) discussing how he approached his role; Kim Hee Seon (13 min 42 sec) discussing her role; Malilika Sherawat (12 min, 41 sec - in english); Stanley Tong, writer and director (20 min, 49 sec) who talks about the genesis of the story; Sun Zhou who plays Mr Wu (6 min, 13 sec) and Choi Min Soo, who plays General Choi (4 min, 36 sec).

You also get two deleted scenes - one of troops passing, the other about searching the Temple. Both of these failed to work on any of my machines, the disc looked unharmed so I’m not sure if this is just a problem with the review copy or a problem with the production of the finished disc; three short lost scenes (37 sec, 52 sec and 6 min, 09 sec) which are for the most part behind the scene affairs, not really sure why they are considered lost; and eleven behind the scenes featurettes of varying short lengths. The disc is rounded off with Just for Laughs (12 min, 15 sec) with the cast fooling around; the Hong Kong Premier (17 min, 14 sec), which looks like someone’s home video footage and an Easter egg - nope didn’t find that one either.

Although the film remains an interesting if flawed affair, the generous extras, the ones that you access, add some weight to this release.

7

Charles Packer