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Shanghai Knights | 2003 | PG-13 | - 4.5.4
Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson reprise their roles as cross-cultural friends Chon Wang and Roy O'Bannon. This time they leave the American west and travel together to Victorian England in an effort to find the murderer of Chon's father and to retrieve the seal of the Chinese Empire. Chon's sister Lin (Fann Wong) joins them, sparks fly between her and her brother's occidental pal, and they also uncover a worldwide conspiracy to murder the British royal family. Also with Aidan Gillen, Donnie Yen and Aaron Johnson III. [1:47]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - A woman kisses a man. A man dreams of being in bed surrounded by women wearing outfits that reveal cleavage, and one woman climbs on top of him and licks him from the chin to the forehead (when he wakes up he sees it was a sheep that was licking him). Also, a woman licks a man on the face suggestively and a man says, "maybe I should lick you next time" (this is in the outtake reel). A man is shown lying in a bed with a woman bending back and bouncing on top of him (it looks sexual but he explains that he's fixing her back). A man bathes in a bathtub and we see his bare shoulders, then a woman enters the room in a corset and appears to be making advances toward him; he gets out of the tub and we see him bare-chested with a towel around his waist. A woman is in a bed, a man is in his bathrobe and he and another man talk about "doing their business." Two men in long johns have a pillow fight with many women in corsets and stockings, and then we see the men nude (bare chests and legs) holding pillows over their crotches. Two men and a woman go into a brothel; we see women in corsets and stockings, flirting with, caressing and kissing men, and one woman propositions a man. A man grabs the breast of a statue, and a woman touches the statue all over to find the button to a secret passage. A man is surrounded by women wearing dresses that reveal cleavage; they caress him, look at him suggestively and a few of them drop their hotel room keys in his lap, suggesting a sexual invitation. A man and a woman flirt in a few scenes. We see a playing card with a rendering of a nude woman who is seated and has her arm across her breasts. A man finds a book on Kama Sutra and reads it with interest, and a man makes a sexual remark when another man climbs behind him. Two men discuss a man's potency, a man describes a woman as "hot" and says "she's mooning us," there are several references to a British desert called "spotted dick," and when a woman touches a female statue a man says "kinky." There's an allusion to prison sex.
VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A man is stabbed in the abdomen, we hear the squishing and see a blood-covered dagger (we see the dagger, still blood-covered, again later). Two guards are pulled up by ropes around their necks, two guards are shot in the chest with arrows (we linger with one who is then beheaded; we hear the shwing of the sword). Two men fight, one is pinned and held with a dagger to his throat and a woman fires a firework into the stomach of one of the men, he is then shot into the air and explodes. A man is kicked through the glass clock face of what is presumably Big Ben and dangles from the clock hands. Two more men fall through the glass after fighting with swords while standing on a scaffold held by ropes that are cut; one falls to the ground (we hear a thud) and the other is caught by the first man holding onto the clock hands. A man's arms are cut by another man with a sword (we see bloody slashes), and a man is shot in the shoulder. A man fires a machine gun into a crowded balcony and people panic and scatter. A man shoots at two men who are chasing him. A man swings a sword at a woman and she hits him and tosses him over a bridge. A woman fights several men who have swords and she kicks and punches them, she is thrown to the ground, then gets back up, continues fighting, is kicked through a wall and lands motionless for a moment. A man is shot at as he dives into water, and swims to the bottom where a man is tied and unable to surface. Two men fight, punching and kicking and grappling while a machine gun fires and spins over their heads as they dodge bullets. A woman fights with a man who flips her with a stick (she lands hard on the ground) and she is pinned with the stick across her throat. Two men fall from a clock face, grab onto a large cloth flag, and fall as it tears and crash into a carriage. A man fights several men with swords by kicking, punching and spinning a wheel. And a man fights several men in a wax museum -- swords hack off limbs from wax statues. A man shoots at two men, sets hay ablaze and three people are trapped inside a stable as the fire burns. A man fights police officers in a revolving door; he incorporates luggage, nightsticks and the movement of the door as weapons, along with punching and kicking. A woman is tied by the hands and feet and hangs from what looks like an anchor attached to the ceiling and she is "stretched" a couple of times. Two men hang upside down from an anchor and are moved over water, one man frees himself and the other is dunked headfirst into water several times before being freed. A boy is held with a sword to his neck, a man threatens to slit a woman's throat, a woman is gagged and tied and a man prepares to cut her throat (places the blade to her throat) when he is hit in the head by a heavy toggle. A woman fights with several men using kicks and punches. A man fights men with swords; they thrust the swords at him and he uses books, a ladder, punches and kicks to defend himself. A man fights two men on a roof top: one man pulls a knife, and the other man bounces back and forth and dodges the knife as they kick and punch each other. A woman kicks a man, a man is hit in the crotch with the butt of a rifle, a man is kicked hard in the face and falls to the ground, a man is clotheslined and falls hard to the ground, a man throws bottles at another man and falls off his chair onto the ground. A man jumps from a bridge onto a barge, and a man jumps onto a stack of crates, falls as they fall, continues to fight men using umbrellas along with flips and spins and one man's hand is pinned between crates. A man fights several men in a street market: he uses food carts, fruit (he squeezes lemons in a man's eyes), along with kicks, punches and flips. A man drives a car recklessly and it rolls out of control through the countryside (nearly hits a horse and carriage). A boy is chased by two men, then grabbed by two others and threatened. Two men and a woman are threatened by several men with swords and one man with a gun. Two men call each other names and insult each other. A man is nearly run down by a horse. A man and a woman mourn over their father's death. A tiger in a cage roars and snarls aggressively at a crowd of people. A woman smiles and we see her brown-tinged teeth. A man plans the massacre of a royal family with a machine gun.
LANGUAGE 4 - What could have been an F-word in the outtake reel comes across as "Ffff..." and a woman says something that is subtitled as "*?#$@&! Loser." Also 8 sexual references, 5 scatological terms, 6 anatomical terms, 17 mild obscenities, 5 religious exclamations, some insults.
SUBSTANCE USE - People are shown drinking alcohol. There are a few references to opium use.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Family, friendship, zeppelins, guilt, loyalty, family honor, diplomacy, opium, Confucius, Jack the Ripper, the American Revolution, Arthur Conan Doyle.
MESSAGE - Family is forever, and so is friendship.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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